1. What are the connections between the disciplines addressing entrepreneurship at ODU?

The disciplines that address entrepreneurship can reveal insights about it. Psychology can tell us the kind of colors or appeal to human emotions that will make someone likely to purchase something. For example, the use of happy emotions or friendliness can persuade someone to believe in the product’s effectiveness. Another discipline that can help is the use of Data Analytics. Data analytics can process data to show a specific metric or trend. For example, a survey can show what percentage of people chose an answer. By combining these disciplines, the business person can learn more about the customer. Lastly, the connections make entrepreneurship more universal as the concepts can be brought into the subject and intent.  

2. Is entrepreneurship an art or science?

Entrepreneurship is not an art or a science. It is considered a practice. In order for entrepreneurship to be learned, it has to be done and tried by many people. Lots of successful enterprises has sprung because the creators went through many efforts to build up their businesses. If entrepreneurship was a science, it would be studied as something of natural occurrence. However, entrepreneurship can be taught and different to each person, so even learning about entrepreneurship will not affect the chances of success. It is also not an art because art is often done on a mentorship and follows specific rules to hone skills. Entrepreneurship does not depend on learning skills from art, but is dependent on the passion and execution of an idea.

3. How is failure good?

Failure is a good thing to experience in terms of learning and adapting. When people fail, they will learn from their mistakes and take steps to mitigate or improve their following options. For example, I might fail at creating an engaging social media post. However, I can rely on metrics to change up how I deliver and craft the post to get better engagement. Eventually, failure will turn into success as one will make significant strides from the initial attempt. Also, the other benefit of failure is the ability to adapt. For example, a person may spend over $100,000 and have no profit. Now with less money, the person has to be scrappy and creative with how he/she approaches marketing. Next time, the person adapts by doing word-of-mouth and building the customer base by focusing on satisfying the customer.

4. What have I learned from failing?

I have learned many things about failing. The first thing is that failing is often the first trial that occurs in life. Without failing, there is no improvement and motivation to continue refining the mistakes. For example, I failed at writing before because I could not grasp how to translate my thoughts into paper, but now I have improved by doing daily tasks with writing like texting and note-taking to practice the skill. Another thing is that failing is not exciting when one goes through it. I have experienced the downs of failure, and it pierces through my heart when I cannot overcome the possibility of the failure. The mindset of failure can sometimes make me attached to my results. Lastly, I came to terms that failure is not that bad. Once I have identified my failure, I focus on changing the outcome to try harder next time.

5. What ethical issues might arise related to what I am working on?

There may be some ethical issues that result to my idea. The biggest issues are the collection of data and how it is managed. Collection of data is often turned into a revenue model because companies want to profit from selling data to advertisers. When data is collected, I need to make sure that even I won’t be able to access it because I want to encrypt the data to assure the customers that their privacy is safe. Another ethical issue is the settlement of payment systems. Some payment systems charge their users with higher percentages and high interest payments. I want to use a payment system that is reasonable, simple, and able to integrate with my service. The use of crypto payments will most likely be gone because I don’t want people to think my product is a scam, and the barriers to using a web3 wallet can be confusing to most customers.