by Terence Sim (SMU 4th year)
When I enrolled for Technological Entrepreneurship course, all I had in my mind was to learn how to identify the next Google or Microsoft so that I could invest and be living a comfortable life when I hit 35. However, my perception changed right from the first lesson. Perhaps it was because my group came out with an idea which was so simple and yet it was an idea which I strongly believe will emerged as one of the easily profitable business in our class.
The journey of entrepreneurship is long and arduous. Our group had modified our ideas several times. Our original idea of catering food to the SMU population during breaks has evolved to serving gourmet hawker food to offices. Throughout the course, Pamela has been drilling into our head that business ideas changed and evolved through time.
Our group has experienced this first hand. We have also witness first hand how our fellow classmates/future entrepreneurs changed their business plans and ideas as the weeks passed by.
One thing that I have learned in this course is that, in the realm of entrepreneurship, change is the only constant. We have to learn to adapt to changes for our business ideas/concepts to be successful.
One more thing which I have learned is that no matter how simple as a business operation may sound it does not seem as simple/easy as it looks. Our business hit a couple of operational issues during our trial session with our classmates. This made us realized that running a business is never easy. The phrase, “Whatever that can go wrong will go wrong”, is very applicable to all business operations. We should always plan for the worse case scenario whenever we plan anything.
In our group’s case, what happened if the duck rice stall which we are supposed to order from does not open on that day for various reasons? How will we account to our customers? These have to be thought through long and hard before our business officially opens for business.
This course has truly been a wonderful experience for me and for my team. It opened up a new avenue for me to consider my career path. Truth is that, I have never thought of setting up my own business until I went through the course and it showed me how easy it is to do so. Whoever heard of setting up a business and get it running in thirteen weeks? Though it is still a long way to success, but at least, I have taken those baby steps.
