Entrepreneurship
One of the biggest lessons that I learned this past semester was with respect to business models. I had never given this much thought to the types of business models before. Thus, it was interesting to see the different ways that a company can structure its business, and from where it can derive profits. Understanding about concepts like value propositions and customer segments will be important for me going forward. There are more different business models than I had conceived, which for me made this one of the most interesting things that I learned this past semester.
Another thing that I learned this past semester was how to put together a pro forma financial statement. Pro-formas are the statements that you produce as a theoretical exercise; they often appear in the business plan. But the pro-formas are basically a garbage in, garbage out exercise; with a little bit of work they can be an incredibly valuable component in business planning. Thus, it is beneficial to avoid making mistakes. It was also interesting to look at the different methods for creating pro-formas. These are different from how financial statements are put together from an accounting perspective (based on T. accounts), and learning this different techniques will likely reduce the amount of time and energy it takes to produce pro-formas in the future, without sacrificing accuracy.
Part 2. Entry #1. Creativity is one of the hardest things to foster in a business. It is important for you to understand that you need to do whatever...
Your business will be better for it. There are a number of different techniques for generating creative ideas. I will share some of the ones that worked for me.
I have usually found that there are two ways of thinking. There's this business side, and a creative side. The environment in which each works best is different. Find the place that works best for creative thinking and do it there, rather than assuming you need to generate ideas at the office. The key to creativity is learning from experience your creativity drivers and indulging in them -- that's the only way to generate creative ideas is to take creative people and do whatever gets them into a creative headspace.
Entry #2. It is important to establish goals for oneself. Goals provide a sense of focus, and sometimes writing down goals is a useful exercise. If nothing else, writing down goals and publishing them on a blog creates a control. Once my friends have seen it, they will ask me about it. That's control. With that in mind, I present my goals for the coming year.
The first thing that I want to do is to finish school. I have worked hard for this, and I look forward to taking the next step. That next step for me is the CPA exam. I have looked at my career options, and see the CPA as my pathway to success. It will be hard work, especially coming straight out of school, but I am determined that I need to complete the CPA exam by the end of the year.
Entry #3. Sometimes we think about life as these…
