by chium yuet ching (smu)
I took professor pamela’s technopreneurship class, and our group started an online charity which is starting to operate. In the process of starting this and looking at other class teams’ start-ups, I learnt some stuff from my classmates and prof.
I think the most important is a committed team who really wants to make the project idea materialise and carry it through, instead of just having a try-out attitude. I also realised the extent of importance technology is to businesses. It gives the start-ups from our class access to the online market at an affordable cost, so it really helps to be technologically savvy.
To start a start-up and get it going successfully needs a lot of full-time effort. Our pace of growth is really quite slow, as all of us are doing our parts but not doing anything to help our charity with the propulsions it needs.
Among my classmates’ ideas, I liked the microfinancing venture the most, as I felt it really met a need and is meaningful as well as financially viable at the same time, and their idea was inspired by their experiences with the people around them.
I also learnt how important it is to a company to have a good competitive advantage that can rake in earnings, as some of my classmates’ ventures are very good ideas, but have to change their concept due to the lack of ability to rake earnings from their ventures.
Very importantly, I also learnt that team cohesiveness and effectiveness of each team member is very important, as each of our project tasks are contingent on one another’s efforts.
Entrepreneurship definitely needs a lot of effort and poses many challenges, but it teaches you a lot too that is very useful and fulfilling to you.
