Reflection on Personal and Entrepreneurial Developments Essay

Introduction

Entrepreneurship is the ability to come up with a business idea and create the necessary conditions to start and operate the business enterprise. This assignment aims to undertake an audit of skills needed in starting and running a business enterprise. In the achievement of a smooth running of business activities, several factors require maintenance in a specific state or else things will start to fall apart. Within the paper provides a genuine one-time opportunity for the candidate to self-evaluate their strengths in entrepreneurship following well-outlined profiling techniques to achieve the most accurate results and therefore be able to solve their shortcomings in the future. Furthermore, the evaluation also aims at developing a full proof plan to address any deficiencies in the individual's set skills. It will finally provide a platform for the entrepreneur to reflect on their personal development during the process of evaluation.

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Overview of Entrepreneurship

Over the years, the humans have found more reasons to interrelate with each other. From what was known as barter trade from 150,000 years ago, humans have designed more complicated trading systems to facilitate the exchange of goods and services. The need to have a platform to exchange these goods and services over time gave birth to entrepreneurship. These were the set of skills needed to identify the market needs and be able to create an idea which when practiced would enable the people to acquire whatever they wanted. Entrepreneurs were able to facilitate the acquisition of the products and delivery of the same products to the market when needed (Stevenson & Jarillo, 2007, 155-170). The concept, however, was first put to the test in the early 1900's. These individuals would not only avail the products to the market but also came up with a mechanism in which in doing so they would make a profit. The profit would be their reward for risking their wealth and taking their time to avail goods and services to other humans. The gain increased the wealth of the merchants; therefore, more people became more interested in the art, which led to the civilization of the entrepreneurship concept. Recently, entrepreneurs are coming up with more insane ways to satisfy contemporary human wants while making a profit out of it.

In the recent past, entrepreneurship has acquired integration into the school system as a unit in which students gain equipping with knowledge of the skills needed to start and operate a business. However, the occupations can only be taught but not instilled as some of them take more than the standard human ability to put into practice. The few students who got what it takes to become business owners are however better informed and thus making their decision-making process more accessible as they can learn from their predecessors (Stevenson & Jarillo, 2007, 155-170). Learning from the experiences and mistakes of those that came before them, modern-day entrepreneurs can make decisions that are more informed and therefore provide better services to their customers. Information on entrepreneurship required documentation and publishing to enable potential business owners to acquire the information they need earlier in life thus making them more efficient.

Evaluation and Reflection of My Entrepreneurial Performance

The running of poultry business for the past three years has been as challenging as it has been fulfilling. Three years ago, with two layers and one cock, my industry started off. At first, the aim was to produce enough chicken for personal consumption. It was not until later on that decided to sell my produce to some local meat factory. It came with so many responsibilities than I had anticipated and therefore took a toll on me for the first few months (Marsden, T. & Smith, E., 2005, 440-451). To try to solve the problems I had to conduct a detailed analysis of my strengths and weaknesses to move forward.

Strengths

Passion for entrepreneurship

Through the delivery of my love for entrepreneurship and development, I had a great love for the birds and felt the need to make something out of it. In the first days of my experience, I acquired the birds for the mere love of the species. Therefore, in the early days of the business, I would spend a lot of time with the birds feeding them or cleaning them up or so. With time, I became attached to the birds and would give a considerable amount of time with the birds giving them all the care they needed. It was a definite thing because birds require close tendering to prevent them from infestation by pests or getting diseases. A close observation of the birds enabled me to detect any changes in the behavior of the birds and therefore accord them the necessary care. My love for birds came in handy in ensuring I did not give up on the enterprise. Over time the number increased, and therefore they took up more of my time, and I had to commit to the farming else entirely I would lose my birds. Also, it became tiring and took up almost all the time in the world and the main reason I found myself going to the farm every other day was merely the love I had for the birds.

Availability of space

Growing up in the countryside was one of the best things that could ever happen to me. I only left for college but returned later on with a diploma in animal husbandry. The old man wanted me to take up the family farm business, but I had my idea of creating my own business. The vast piece of land my family owned increased my options, as there was enough land to do just about anything. On the startup, my poultry farming had just three birds. That means I only needed the space the size of a garage, but with time the birds grew bigger and multiplied. They, therefore, required more space and more of everything else. I, therefore, had to build a wire cage away from the family home as the birds' droppings would litter the whole compound and release some foul smell. It would make a living at home quite disturbing and therefore, had there been no land upon which to set up my farm; I would have had to limit the number of the birds.

Availability of ready market

Despite knowledge of all the benefits of consuming white meat instead of red meat, few farmers kept any birds. It meant that I was the first large-scale poultry farmer within at least a radius of forty miles. The local poultry factory had for many years had to outsource from farmers in other districts. The intervention had increased their costs of production, therefore, driving the prices of their products too high only a few people could afford. With a local farmer rearing birds for sale, I was like a messiah to them. In fact, they offered bonuses if I increased my supplies to them. Having a ready market for produce is every entrepreneur's dream. The demand for my birds was too good that it took me two whole years to be able to produce enough for the industry and other individual customers. For the first several months business boomed and I was able to expand within a short period thus having to employ more help to assist with the farm work.

Experience and Expertise

Nonetheless, growing up on the farm came with many advantages. First, I knew the landscape well enough to know where to set up my farm for easy accessibility and better performance of the birds. The farm experience also came handy concerning the employees within the community and their practices that I could observe. As an only child, I spend most of my childhood day's outdoors either helping my old man on the farm of playing with the neighbor's children. The relationships I created at my young age proved to be paramount in establishing my own business. As a child, I accompanied my dad to the vet or to buy farm supplies, and so when my time came to develop my own business, I was already acquainted with those that ran all the necessary stores and therefore it was easy for me to get all I needed to run my small farm. Growing up in the farm also created a chance to know local people from a young age and therefore when I started my farm, despite having gone away for college, they viewed me as one of their own. The occurrence came with respect and loyalty, and therefore no one was interested in exploiting me as they would if I were a foreigner. The ample environment made my days more bearable as I only had to deal with what was important and not some sideline drama.

Need to make Income

About the time I cleared college with a diploma in animal husbandry I was deep in debt in the name of student's loans. In our family, we were trained to handle our matters and not expect anything. Therefore, I had to take loans to fund my college education, and upon completion of school, these loans needed settling meaning that I had to find a source of income fast. Relying on formal employment in my field of study would have taken ages, therefore; I decided to start my own business. Having three birds already in a community that did not practice poultry farming was a revelation for me. I could make money out of doing something that I loved and had total control over. Being one's, own boss is the dream of every entrepreneur, and the case was not so different with me. Poultry farming, in fact, enabled me to pay off the student loan as well as establish myself financially. Within three short years, I owned my own house with a car and just over ten employees. I was living the American dream.

Advanced Technology

Over the years, poultry farming has undergone immense changes starting with artificial poultry food to genetically modified birds. The changes aim at reducing the farmers' risk as well as increasing his/her output (Marsden, T. & Smith, E., 2005, 440-451). An average chicken would take three years to mature to full potential to produce whereas the genetically modified birds can do that in six months, have more meat, and lay more eggs especially when fed right using the artificial chicken feed. These advancements in technology served a significant part of the growth of my business and enabled me to be able to help the market within a short period. The differences in the egg laying periods ensured that throughout out the year there was some produce to sell which translated to a steady source of income.

Love for white meat

As earlier stated, white flesh has many health benefits compared to red meat. More so, the sweet taste of the meat made the locals fond of the meat and therefore more inclined to buy it over red meat. I too loved the chicken meat as much as I enjoyed the birds therefore as tiring as the farming got I just could not bring myself to abandon the source of the meal almost everyone loved. In some moments, the going would get severe whereby the only thing that kept me focused on my business was the fear of not having any whiter meat to eat. Weird right, I loved the birds and still enjoyed eating them? However unbelievable it may be to an outside person, these two are the main reasons that I never gave up on my business even when everything else was telling me otherwise. The love that the locals had for the meat, on the other hand, made them loyal customers. It meant that whenever I had troubles at the farm, they could offer their help only so I could be able to rear more birds to feed their appetites. The event acquired farm equipment and workforce quite simple when I needed to. The most loyal of customers would get subsidized prices for the meat and served both our interests efficiently.

Weaknesses

High Maintenance Costs

To operate a poultry farm, the cost of resources is relatively high. First, the procuring of the food for the birds is no easy task. The birds need a variety of feed which all cost lots of mone...