Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgements
About the Authors
Part 1. Entrepreneurship is a Life Skill
Chapter 1. Practicing Entreprenuership
1.1 Entrepreneurship Requires Action and Practice
1.2 Entrepreneurship May Be Different From What You Think
1.3 Types of Entrepreneurship
1.4 Entrepreneurship Is A Method Not a Process
1.5 The Method Involves Creating the Future – Not Predicting It
1.6 The Key Components of the Entrepreneurship Method
1.7 Entrepreneurship Requires Deliberate Practice
1.8 How This Book Will Help You Practice Entrepreneurship
Chapter 2. Activating an Entrepreneurial Mindset
2.1 The Power of Mindset
2.2 What is Mindset?
2.3 The Self-Leadership Habit
2.4 The Creativity Habit
2.5 The Improvisation Habit
2.6 The Mindset As The Pathway to Action
Part II. Creating and Finding Opportunities
Chapter 3. Creating and Recognizing New Opportunities
3.1 The Entrepreneurial Mindset and Opportunity Recognition
3.2 Opportunities Start With Thousands of Ideas
3.3 Four Pathways To Opportunity Identification
3.4 Opportunities Through Alertness, Prior Knowledge and Pattern Recognition
3.5 From Idea Generation To Opportunity Recognition
Chapter 4: Using Design Thinking
4.1 What is Design Thinking?
4.2 Design Thinking As A Human-Centered Process
4.3 Design Thinking Requires Empathy
4.4 The Design-Thinking Process: Inspiration, Ideation, Implementation
4.5 Needs Discovery Technique #1: Observation
4.6 Needs Discovery Technique #2: Interviewing
4.7 Variations Of The Design-Thinking Process
Chapter 5. Building Business Models
5.1 What is A Business Model?
5.2 The Four Parts of A Business Model
5.3 The Customer Value Proposition (CVP)
5.4 Different Types Of CVPs And Customer Segments
5.5 The Business Model Canvas (BMC)
Chapter 6. Developing your Customers
6.1 Customers and Markets
6.2 Types of Customers
6.3 Customer Segmentation
6.4 Target Customer Group
6.5 Customer Personas
6.6 Customer Journey Mapping Process
6.7 Market Sizing
Chapter 7. Testing and Experimenting New Ideas
7.1 Experiments: What They Are and Why We Do Them
7.2 Types of Experiments
7.3 A Deeper Look at Prototypes
7.4 Hypothesis Testing & the Scientific Method Applied to Entrepreneurship
7.5 The Experimentation Template
7.6 Interviewing for Customer Feedback
Chapter 8. Developing Networks and Building Teams
8.1 The Power of Networks
8.2 The Value of Networks
8.3 Building Networks
8.4 Virtual Networking
8.5 Networking to Build the Founding Team
Part III. Evaluating and Acting on Opportunities
Chapter 9. Creating Revenue Models
9.1 What is A Revenue Model?
9.2 Different Types of Revenue Models
9.3 Generating Revenue From “Free”
9.4 Revenue and Cost Drivers
9.5 Pricing Strategies
9.6 Calculating Prices
Chapter 10. Planning for Entrepreneurs
10.1 What is Planning?
10.2 Planning Starts with a Vision
10.3 Plans Take Many Forms
10.4 Questions to Ask During Planning
10.5 The Business Plan Debate
10.6 Tips for Writing Any Type of Plan
Chapter 11. Learning From Failure
11.1 Failure and Entrepreneurship
11.2 The Failure Spectrum
11.3 Fear of Failure
11.4 Learning From Failure
11.5 Getting Gritty: Building a Tolerance for Failure
Part IV. Resourcing New Opportunities
Chapter 12. Bootstrapping and Crowdfunding for Resources
12.1 What is Bootstrapping?
12.2 Bootstrapping Strategies
12.3 Crowdfunding Versus Crowdsourcing
12.4 Crowdfunding Startups and Entrepreneurships
12.5 The Four Contexts for Crowdfunding
12.6 A Quick Guide to Successful Crowdfunding
Chapter 13. Financing for Startups
13.1 What is Equity Financing?
13.2 The Basics of Valuation
13.3 Angel Investors
13.4 Venture Capitalists (VCS)
13.5 Due Diligence
Chapter 14. Navigating Legal and IP Issues
14.1 Legal Considerations
14.2 Types of Legal Structures
14.3 Legal Mistakes Made by Startups
14.4 Intellectual Property (IP)
14.5 Global IP Theft
14.6 Common IP Traps
14.7 Hiring Employees
Chapter 15. Engaging Customers Through Marketing
15.1 What is Entrepreneurial Marketing
15.2 The Basic Principles of Marketing
15.3 Building a Brand
15.4 Marketing Tools for Entrepreneurs
15.5 Creating Your Personal Brand
Chapter 16. Supporting Social Entrepreneurship
16.1 The Role of Social Entprenreneurship
16.2 Social Entrepreneurship and Wicked Problems
16.3 Types of Social Entrepreneurship
16.4 Capital Markets for Social Entrepreneurs
16.5 Social Entrepreneurs and Their Stakeholders
16.6 Differences Between Social Entrepreneurship and Corporate Social Responsibility
16.7 Social Entrepreneurship and Audacious Ideas
16.8 Global Entrepreneurship
Glossary
Supplement A - Financial Statements and Projections for Startups
Supplement B - The Pitch

About the Author

Heidi M. Neck, PhD, is a Babson College professor and the Jeffry A. Timmons Professor of

Entrepreneurial Studies. She has taught entrepreneurship at the undergraduate, MBA, and executive

levels. She is the academic director of the Babson Academy, a dedicated unit within Babson

that inspires change in the way universities, specifically their faculty and students, teach and learn

entrepreneurship. The Babson Academy builds on Neck’s work starting the Babson Collaborative, a

global institutional membership organization for colleges and universities seeking to increase their

capability and capacity in entrepreneurship education, and her leadership of Babson’s Symposia for

Entrepreneurship Educators (SEE), programs designed to inspire faculty from around the world to

teach more experientially and entrepreneurially. Neck has directly trained more than 3,500 faculty

around the world in the art and craft of teaching entrepreneurship. An award-winning teacher, Neck

has been recognized for teaching excellence at Babson for undergraduate, graduate, and executive education.

She has also been recognized by international organizations, the Academy of Management and

USASBE, for excellence in pedagogy and course design. In 2016, The Schulze Foundation awarded her

Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year for pushing the frontier of entrepreneurship education in higher

education. She was again recognized as Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year in 2022 by the United

States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) for her contributions that have

substantively advanced how scholars think and approach entrepreneurship teaching and learning.

Most recently, Neck was the recipient of the 2023 Karl Vesper Pioneer Award from the Experiential

Classroom at Notre Dame for her work to expand the reach and impact of entrepreneurship education.

Her research interests include entrepreneurship education with a specific interest in building entrepreneurial

mindsets. Neck is the lead author of Teaching Entrepreneurship: A Practice-Based Approach,

Volumes 1 and 2 (Elgar), books written to help educators teach entrepreneurship in more experiential

and engaging ways. Additionally, she has published 40+ book chapters, research monographs, and

refereed articles in such journals as Journal of Small Business Management, Entrepreneurship Theory &

Practice, and Entrepreneurship Education & Pedagogy.

Neck speaks and teaches internationally on cultivating the entrepreneurial mindset and espousing the

positive force of entrepreneurship as a societal change agent. She consults and trains organizations of all

sizes on building entrepreneurial capacity. She is the cofounder of VentureBlocks, an education-technology

company, and achieved a successful exit with FlowDog, a canine aquatic fitness and rehabilitation center

located just outside of Boston. She also served on the board of a 100% family-owned, seventh-generation

land-management company in Louisiana, A. Wilbert’s & Sons. Heidi earned her PhD in Strategic

Management and Entrepreneurship from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She holds a BS in

Marketing from Louisiana State University and an MBA from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Dr. Christopher P. Neck is currently a Professor of Management at Arizona State University, where he held the title “University Master Teacher.” From 1994 to 2009, he was part of the Pamplin College of Business faculty at Virginia Tech. He received his Ph.D. in Management from Arizona State University and his M.B.A. from Louisiana State University. Neck is author and/or coauthor of thirty books including Self-Leadership: The Definitive Guide to Personal Excellence (1st Edition, 2017, Sage Publishers; 2nd Edition, 2019); Get a Kick Out of Life: Expect the Best of Your Body, Mind, and Soul at Any Age (2017, Clovercroft Publishing); Fit To Lead: The Proven 8-week Solution for Shaping Up Your Body, Your Mind, and Your Career (2004, St. Martin′s Press; 2012, Carpenter’s Sons Publishing); Mastering Self-Leadership: Empowering Yourself for Personal Excellence, 6th edition (2013, Pearson); The Wisdom of Solomon at Work (2001, Berrett-Koehler); For Team Members Only: Making Your Workplace Team Productive and Hassle-Free (1997, Amacom Books); and Medicine for the Mind: Healing Words to Help You Soar, 4th Edition (Wiley, 2012).  Neck is also the coauthor of the principles of management textbook, Management: A Balanced Approach to the 21st Century (Wiley: 2013, Wiley: 2017-2nd Edition, Sage: 2021-3rd Edition); an introductory to entrepreneurship textbook, Entrepreneurship, (Sage, 2017; 2nd edition, 2020; 3rd edition, 2023); an introductory to organizational behavior textbook, Organizational Behavior (1st Edition-Sage, 2017; 2nd Edition-Sage, 2019; 3rd Edition-Sage, 2023), and an Introduction to Business textbook (Introduction to Business, Sage, 2022).  In total, his textbooks have been adopted by 800 colleges/universities and used by over 120,000 students.

Dr. Neck’s research specialties include employee/executive fitness, self-leadership, leadership, group decision-making processes, and self-managing teams. He has over 150 publications in the form of books, chapters, and articles in various journals. Some of the outlets in which Neck’s work has appeared include The Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, The Journal of Organizational Behavior, The Academy of Management Executive, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, The Journal of Managerial Psychology, Executive Excellence, Human Relations, Human Resource Development Quarterly, Journal of Leadership Studies, Educational Leadership, and The Commercial Law Journal.

Dr. Neck is the Deputy Editor of the journal, the Journal of Leadership and Management. Due to Neck’s expertise in management, he has been cited in numerous national publications including The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Houston Chronicle, and the Chicago Tribune.

Dr. Neck was recently voted as a semi-finalist (out of 140 nominations) for the prestigious international 2020 Baylor University Cherry Award for Great Teaching.   He finished in the top six of all nominations.  Neck was also the recipient of the 2007 Business Week Favorite Professor Award”. He is featured on www.businessweek.com as one of the approximately twenty professors from across the world receiving this award. 

Dr. Neck has taught over 80,000 students during his career in higher education. Neck currently teaches a mega section of Management Principles to approximately 900 students at Arizona State University. Neck was the recipient of the 2024 and 2020 John W. Teets Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award (voted by W.P Carey School of Business students).  He also received the 2024 Huizingh Outstanding Undergraduate Teacher Award within the W.P Carey School. Neck also received the Order of Omega Outstanding Teaching Award for 2012.  This award is awarded to one professor at Arizona State by the Alpha Lamda Chapter of this leadership fraternity. His class sizes at Virginia Tech filled rooms up to 2500 students. He received numerous teaching awards during his tenure at Virginia Tech, including the 2002 Wine Award for Teaching Excellence. Also, Neck was the ten-time winner (1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009) of the “Students’ Choice Teacher of The Year Award” (voted by the students for the best teacher of the year within the entire university). Also, some of the organizations who have participated in Neck′s management development training include Anavate Partners, Mountainside Fitness, GE/Toshiba, Busch Gardens, Clark Construction, the United States Army, Crestar, American Family Insurance, Sales and Marketing Executives International, American Airlines, American Electric Power, W. L. Gore & Associates, Dillard′s Department Stores, and Prudential Life Insurance.  Neck is also an avid runner. He has completed 12 official marathons and over 100 unofficial ones, including the Boston Marathon, New York City Marathon, and the San Diego Marathon.  In fact, his personal record for a single long-distance run—is a 48-mile run. Emma L. Murray completed a bachelor of arts degree in English and Spanish at University College Dublin (UCD) in County Dublin, Ireland. This was followed by a higher diploma (Hdip) in business studies and information technology at the Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business in County Dublin, Ireland. Following her studies, she spent nearly a decade in investment banking before becoming a full-time writer and author.

As a writer, she has worked on numerous texts, including business and economics, self-help, and psychology. Within the field of higher education, she worked with Dr. Christopher P. Neck and Dr. Jeffery D. Houghton on Management (Wiley: 2013, Wiley: 2017-2nd Edition, Sage: 2021-3rd Edition); an introductory to entrepreneurship textbook, Entrepreneurship, (Sage, 2017; 2nd edition, 2020; 3rd edition, 2023); an introductory to organizational behavior textbook, Organizational Behavior (1st Edition-Sage, 2017; 2nd Edition-Sage, 2019; 3rd Edition-Sage, 2023), and an Introduction to Business textbook (Introduction to Business, Sage, 2022). 

She is the author of The Unauthorized Guide to Doing Business the Alan Sugar Way (2010, Wiley-Capstone) and the lead author of How to Succeed as a Freelancer in Publishing (2010, How To Books). She lives in London.