Interview of an Entrepreneur
A project designed initially for Business College students but easily adaptable to support entrepreneurship in other educational settings. Students identify and invite an entrepreneur to be interviewed by them. They then present their own business ideas to the interviewee in order to gain feedback from an experienced business person
Purpose and process
This is at the heart of entrepreneurial learning and belongs at the start of the process: idea generation; learning about the business idea as a concept. It aims to give students a real understanding of what it means to be an entrepreneur through:
- Direct contact with an entrepreneur of their choosing
- Insight into different aspects of entrpreneurship such as self-employment, business creation, risk taking and coping with adversity
- Practical and impartial feedback from their chosen entrepreneur regarding their own business plans and coming up with a business concept.
After the event, students have to prepare a paper on what they have learnt; this is later discussed in class.
Learning outcomes
Students can:
- Learn to take action for themselves - they have to contact the entrepreneur and to gain 'peer'-support from them
- Practise their ability to generate and test innovative ideas and business plans
- Develop their writing skills and ability to present an argument
- Build enterprising skills, attitudes and behaviours, especially:
- teamwork;
- entrepreneurial acting, such as demonstrating courage, an adventurous spirit and being able to see the unseeable
- communication and presentation skills
- imaginative, and yet critical, thinking and analysis
- problem-solving and decision making.
Curricular or thematic relevance
This is entrepreneurial learning at its core. Students act, they learn to contact the entrepreneur, get "peer"-support from him. The task is great combination of acting - what entrepreneurship is - but also thinking: idea generation, idea testing, writing, argumenting.
How to organise:
Timetabled lessons or during a suspended timetable event; could be a one-off event or a series of interview sessions taking place over a period of time
Assessment and evaluation approaches
Post-event debrief discussion and written paper evaluating their learning prepared by each student
Volunteer involvement
Finding local entrepreneurs who are willing to take up the students' invitation and are happy to share information about themselves is essential for its successful implementation.
Additional comments
Although the students are responsible for inviting the entrepreneurs and conducting interviews, teacher input will be essential, e.g. briefing the students, supporting development of their business ideas and interview questions, monitoring progress and arranging time for the interview sessions, running the debriefing discussion post-event
Provider country
Finland
helper do TM detail body (June 6th, 1st half)
CECA
24.02.2014
An excellent method to be applied in a different educational setting in which the whole process starts with the students" idea of choosing an entrepreneur,presenting their own business ideas,getting feedback from him regarding their own business plans.The method helps the students understand what it means to be an entrepreneur,the aspect of self-employment, business creation, taking risk.As a result the students develop their writing skills,acquire the ability to work in a team,communication skills.
Marilina Saba
28.02.2014
I think this activity would be useful even if the pupils did not have to create a business idea. By interviewing well-known entrepreneurs of the local business environment, pupils understand how business ideas originate and are subsequently developed in order to succeed. If the activity is organized in small groups, the involvement and initiative of each pupil is greater. Moreover, as an added value, the interview results can be compared among the groups of pupils in order to gain further knowledge. Therefore this activity can effectively be performed even by students attending the first years of high school.
Marika De Meo
02.03.2014
I like this method because it combines the world of education with the world of companies. Even in my school trying to get this through "Training and Work Placement Project"
aris notis
04.04.2014
Every year, my school, invites some well known Greek entrepreneur to present and discuss with the students his ideas. The students respond with great interest and enthousiasm to the project because they see that these persons are common people. So, they are motivated to make efford to achive similal goals.These discusions motivate the students to think more and more.