Knowing My Customer

Hello Entrepreneurs!

After making business journals, we got a start on planning and designing teen rooms. There were lots of great ideas being thrown around for making an amazing Teen Club during the brainstorming session, but we had to make sure that we were keeping in mind our 'BIG 4'. This project is huge, this week was just the start. Next week you will be putting finishing touches on the project, and filming your pitch of the project. Your pitch will then be judged and the winning team will receive loads of admiration and a small prize.

Why this project? This project is a hands on way to understand our 'BIG 4'. The 'BIG 4' are the 4 things we must do and understand be be a successful entrepreneur.

The BIG 4

The 'Big 4', as an entrepreneur you must:

1. Fill A Need: know what is needed in your area and know your potential competitors
2. Research: Know your customer and your product (or service). Have expert knowledge of both the customer and the product.
3. Be Creative and Innovative: think outside the box, look for new and different solutions to needs that have been identified
4. Believe in Yourself and Love what you do: Know your likes and passions, skills/abilities, and work to improve them.


Class Chat:

We reviewed our 'BIG 4', this will be talked about so much in this class you will be chanting the list in your dreams. Last week we went over the the 'BIG 4' but this week we went even deeper with understanding why this works and how to apply it to a business, in this case the Teen Club.

Acquiring skills was another point of discussion during this class. How do we get more skill and why is this important? Some of our skills areself taught . We might need to seek out an apprenticeship with an expert, and part of being a great entrepreneur is knowing when you need to improve.

We put brainstorming into action to generate our Teen Club business ideas, it was a great way to make sure all ideas were considered before designing the final Teen Club. You guys were so great and respectful to your class members, I'm so impressed with you all. No idea was looked down upon and you really made sure that if something didn't fit the 'Big 4' the other class member understood why.

The rest of the class was spent on designing the Teen Club, some amazing questions were discussed, such as:

Will we put an age limit on the club? How will that impact the Teen Club?
What setting is our teen club in? Rural, city, urban?
How will we fund our club?
How will we split the income between the owners?
Is the scale correct?
What will we have to cut out due to space limitations?
How can we make sure we are reaching the widest range of teens?

Key Terms of the Week: The words and terms we discussed as a group

Market : A collection of current and/or prospective customers
Apprentice : A person who studies with experts to learn more in a specific field
Market Research: Gathering and evaluating data regarding customers' preferences for products and services
Brainstorming: A method to generate ideas
Next Week:

We will continue working on our Teen Rooms. At this point you have to have things glued down and be ready to present your work as a group.

Things to Think About:

What are some of my favorite activities? How do the activities I like differ from what other people my age like?

Why is it important to know what others like? Do I have to like what they like too?

If I could make a play space of my own what would it be like? Explain in great detail

I am an Entreprenuer - Class 1&2

Oprah Winfrey, first ever African American woman billionaire.

Voted class favorite entrepreneur.

Class Review, Day 1 & 2

What is an entrepreneur?

An entrepreneur is a person who starts his or her own business in hope of earning a profit. Profit is income earned after all your expenses are paid.



The 'Big 4', as an entrepreneur you must:

1. Fill A Need: know what is needed in your area and know your potential competitors
2. Research: Know your customer and your product (or service). Have expert knowledge of both the customer and the product.
3. Be Creative and Innovative: think outside the box, look for new and different solutions to needs that have been identified
4. Believe in Yourself and Love what you do: Know your likes and passions, skills/abilities, and work to improve them.

Vocabulary Review

Business: A company or organization that buys or sells products or product services


Customer: A person who purchases a product or service

Entrepreneur: A person who starts his or her own business in hope of earning a profit

Innovative: To create something new, original, or groundbreaking

Product: An item created for sale, like cookies or computers.

Service: Providing something useful, like babysitting or animal care.

Profit: Income earned after all expenses are paid


Class Chat: Today we played a quiz game and learned about famous entrepreneurs and how they got their start. We talked about Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jennifer Lopez, Oprah Winfrey, and Madame CJ Walker, some entrepreneurs were very young when they started their businesses. All of these entrepreneurs decided to pursue their passions and make money doing what they loved the most.
There seems to be a lot of energy and excitement over staring your own businesses, we will get there, I promise. All of our classes are building to you starting your own business at HSOBX, we just need a little more time. You all did very well playing with your teams.

For Next Week: Be ready to work in teams building a 'Kid/Teen Center' this is a group activity and it will help you focus on really getting to know and understand the needs of your customers. You will each also being getting your own person 'business file' and this will be used as journal and record keeping for the class.

Things to Think About:
Why do I want to be an entrepreneur?
A perfect day to me would be,...
My idea of a perfect job/business is:
How am I like the entrepreneurs I learned about? Am I interested or good at the some of the same things they are/were?
Four of my major interests are:

Dreaming Big:
If I could do anything I wanted, I would start a business that makes or provides:

There is no real homework for this week, but be thinking about your answers to the questions above, you will be journaling your answers in your chosen format (written or drawn) in your business file.