Case study of the steps a high school student must take to become an entrepreneur.

菁英小记者 庄一帆 刘薇禛平

Most of the time， people have a very shallow understanding of entrepreneurship. Actually， the first class of becoming an entrepreneur is to ‘think like an entrepreneur. To become an entrepreneur is not to create something advanced and new， but to discover the problems that people care about and to solve them in your business.

The first problem you meet is what kind of business you want to set up or what kind of problems you want to solve; A clear business description is required.

The second problem is about finding your authentic customers. Many people confuse the person who pays as the customer. It is so important to know your business first， and then the real customers.

My business idea is solving disagreements between parents and students. Initially， my target customers were extroverted students between the ages of 13 and 20. Creating the customer focus will help to design the questions that need to be answered by primary and secondary research. Doing research will help determine whether the initial target customersare the right ones.

Then， we will look at the industry and consider how to set up service to solve the identified problem. If you want to solve the problem with an app， you need people who create， improve and repair the app. Discovering the industry that your business is in will really influence your product or service.

Now， we can put them together to have an intuitive contrast between the app and the competitors （Figure 1）.

The table could also help us to discover the important parts of our services or business. My service is called ‘All Knownwhich could solve the problem of difficult communications. For this business we need to find out the way to solve these problems， the prices and the probability of solving problem. Due to a limitation of the problems to solve， we need to understand the applicable people as well.

For convincinginvestors to invest the business， a prototype is required to allow them find out the availability of the businessand understand the idea.According to my business idea， I have to build a prototype of the app first， to discover whether my idea could work or not. The prototype needs to include every interface of the app and what will happen after clicking each button. Then， investors would have direct impressions. It is also an efficient way to find out what customers really want. During the period of establishing a prototype， there are 3 important questions： 1） Is my idea economically viable？ 2） Is it technically viable？ and 3） Is it what my customers really want？

The next step is to write the business theory. A business theory should be approached in a “if， then， because” format. My business theory is as below.

If the application can solve communication problems between parents and teenagers by offering individualized solutions that can choose between answer from an app， answer from a personalized chat window， or answer from a video chat.

Then people will use it.

Because it will solve todays problem and give suggestions for better communications in personalized perspective mostly about the object of your problem.

Business theory is a conclusion to indicate what the business will do accurately. And it is also a really significant part to engage the investors.

Now， we came to the most significant question： how does your company earn money？ For the simple type， they earn money by selling products or services directly to customers. As a complex business model， for example， Facebook. It accounts the data of each person and use the data to give advertisements and recommendations. Similar companies make money by using data in a variety of ways.

There are plenty of parts the business model should explore： differentiation costs，marketing，sales producing and delivering，keeping customers.

Another significant question you ask is what type of business is the best one for you in todays situation？ For a sole proprietorship or partnership， theres no limited liability， most companies want limited liability since they dont want to take too much risk. So， there will be another choice， the limited liability company （LLC）. In LLC， we have shareholders and managers， but we still need a group of people to take the responsible for the risk， but the risk will decrease in a great amount. And as your company becomes larger， you could transform it into a corporation. Corporations require shareholders， directors and managers. This type of management could help get investors， achieve growth goals and decrease a huge amount of risks.

Now， you know almost everything you need to become an entrepreneur. At last， we need to write a business plan. To write a business plan， we need clear goals and the understanding of our customers and industries. It will be helpful to find potential partners and convince investors to invest.

So， what should a business plan include？ Executive Summary， Business Description， Marketing， Management Team， Operations， Financial Information， Risk Analysis， your possible milestones in the future.

In conclusion， each stepis super important， you should create a business model that is easy to follow and have a business plan that you deeply understand. It is fine for you to ask for help from other people， but if you ask someone else to actually do all of your business plan for you， youll miss the business.

莊一帆Ivan

年级：十年级

城市：天津

就读学校：法拉古特天津校区

未来申请目标专业：商学

非常荣幸这个暑期在Special A与Mary Fuller教授学到了创业的基本步骤，也对商学有了更加深刻的了解。商学作为出国留学的热门项目被广大家庭考虑，而创业又是很多学生心目中的最佳选项，这篇文章主要以一个高中生的角度来介绍创立企业的基本步骤。在这篇文章中，我列举了创业的具体步骤以及商学的浅显内容，对于考虑商学专业的学生们有较大的参考价值。在我看来，创业学是复杂中包含了有趣的一门学科，但也因此，会帮助人们获得巨大的成功。