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What Is Entrepreneurship? What Does It Mean To You?

The document discusses the author's interest in entrepreneurship and their ideas around starting a consulting business focused on engineering, medicine, and neuroscience. They are interested in technical design, prototyping services, and gaining experience in business planning, financial analysis, and working with co-founders.

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Govind Peringod
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33 views2 pages

What Is Entrepreneurship? What Does It Mean To You?

The document discusses the author's interest in entrepreneurship and their ideas around starting a consulting business focused on engineering, medicine, and neuroscience. They are interested in technical design, prototyping services, and gaining experience in business planning, financial analysis, and working with co-founders.

Uploaded by

Govind Peringod
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Critical Reflection Exercise

Thank you for making this a course deliverable. It was interesting to think through this ahead of
time through the lens of ‘What do I (think I) know? And what do I not know?’ For each question,
I am including a direct response and a subsequent reflection focusing on understanding gaps
and any underlying assumptions.

What is entrepreneurship? What does it mean to you?

To me, the term ‘entrepreneur’ conjures up an image of a passionate and focused individual
who is willing to take calculated risks to refine and apply a relevant set of skills to realize an
unmet need, or to do something differently. Passion is crucial because it inspires belief in the
business idea, but also because it welcomes failure as a learning opportunity. In a world with
many distractions yet finite time and energy, laser-sharp focus and a willingness to say ‘no’ to all
but the most pertinent opportunities are essential qualities. Risk is a by-product of operating in
the chaos of a fast-paced, unpredictable world that entrepreneurs often find themselves in, but
there are systematic approaches an entrepreneur can use to assume, if not mitigate, those
risks. An entrepreneur must leverage skill and talent to develop original and creative solutions to
perceived problems, but continuous refinement is necessary to keep these qualities relevant
and competitive to ever-changing external circumstances. Entrepreneurs recognize an unmet
need as an opportunity and/or see an inherent value in doing something differently and, in
response, position themselves to embrace it. Entrepreneurship, then, describes the lifestyle of
an entrepreneur – the set of aptitudes, decisions, experiences that enables her/him to remain
successful in their societal endeavors.

Granted, I came across many of these concepts in reading and an experiential definition
requires exposure for validation, but I believe this is a good starting point for entering the world
of entrepreneurship. It also seems to me now that a strong parallel can be drawn between
science and entrepreneurship. Scientists are passionate about pushing the boundaries of
knowledge by exploring new phenomena, and skill is required for refining techniques to address
new hypotheses. These activities are often risky time- and money- wise, and prone to failure,
but there are systematic processes in place – grant panel reviews, pilot studies – to control and
reduce risk. And outputs from the scientific process often address unmet needs and become
inherently lucrative. I think further exposure to formal methods in business planning, and to
students of commerce/finance, will consolidate my definition of entrepreneurship and allow me
to better understand the relationship between science and entrepreneurship.

Why are you interested in entrepreneurship?

As an engineering physicist studying clinical and cellular neuroscience, I am routinely exposed


to technical challenges in the clinic and at the lab, and I often have the technical skills required
to design and implement solutions. Where I have exercised these skills, these solutions have
enabled new experiments and improved productivity. I also believe that rapid prototyping tools
like 3D printing and open-source microcontrollers can reduce cost and improve flexibility in
medical and scientific research, and over the past two years, I have worked with several
Hotchkiss Brain Institute affiliates to provide other graduate students with hands-on training.
With a stronger personal network and formal training in business planning, I can likely
commercialize certain aspects of my research and empower the UofC entrepreneurial
community. I am also keen to apply to Summer Inc. with a strong business idea, plan and team.
On a personal note, I don’t come from a family of entrepreneurs. But my dad’s intrapreneurial
efforts at Royal Dutch Shell and in our local community has always been a source of inspiration
Critical Reflection Exercise

to me. And one reflection of his has always resonated with me: a mind unburdened by the
weight of poverty is free to wander and innovate. As an undergraduate, I received a full
scholarship to study engineering at the University of Toronto, which afforded me the financial
freedom during summers to explore my interests outside of class and I loved that feeling. So I
must admit, my interest in entrepreneurship is at least partially monetary: I want to remain
financially independent, and free to pursue my academic and personal interests.

What type of entrepreneurial activity are you interested in?

I am interested in a starting a consulting-type business operating at the intersection of


engineering, medicine and/or neuroscience with technical design and prototyping-as-a-service
as key activities. Beyond a burning desire to create change in these fields, and a personal
motivation to practice and refine my technical skills, I think the following assumptions underlie
this interest:

▪ Technical consulting is a cheap, fast and relatively low-risk business to start. However, I
do not fully understand software licensing fees for using technical software (MATLAB,
Adobe Inventor etc.) in a commercial capacity and I am still fairly new to certification and
quality standards of prototyping-as-a service.
▪ There is an existing unmet need for technical consultants who understand the
requirements of neuroscience experiments and are willing to get creative with
electromechanical prototyping. I have already identified customers in the research
community at the Cumming School of Medicine who would be willing to pay for design
and technical services. However, I do not fully understand how intellectual property can
be protected when operating as a student within a teaching hospital / research institute.
▪ Consulting offers a crash course in sales, marketing and cashflow. It seems that building
a client base in consulting is all about building a personal brand. And, unlike a product-
based business, it is unlikely that I will be venture-backed so ensuring cashflow and
protecting margins will be critical. However, I only have a rudimentary understanding of
these aspects right now and would like to learn more.
▪ I also see technical consulting as an opportunity to broaden my technical experience by
working on different projects all the time and as an opportunity to find problems worth
solving, whilst still making money.

What would be the ideal learning outcomes for you in this course?

Primarily, I want to address the understanding gaps mentioned above. Ideally, through both
courses in this Option, I will be able to:

▪ Refine my understanding of, and get hands-on experience in a team setting with,
creating a detailed business model and performing marketing and financial analyses of
business viability. I want to justify decisions using business concepts.
▪ Read and analyze startup case-studies
▪ Meet and work with individuals who are also interested in technical consulting in
neuroscience/medicine. I am on the lookout for like-minded co-founder(s) and problems
worth solving :)
▪ On a side note, I also want to achieve a P.Eng. license over the next three years and I
see running a technical consulting business under the supervision of a professional
engineer as an opportunity to do this whilst achieving my PhD. If you have any advice for
me on this front, that would be great too!

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