Case Study Analysis: Entrepreneurship, Start-ups and Strategies

This report analyzes an entrepreneurship case study focusing on the 'Act, Learn, Build, Repeat' approach. The case study revolves around Shawn Gardner's venture, Fun2Rent, highlighting his identification of a market gap and subsequent business model. The report connects this case to the student's own juice bar start-up, outlining the application of entrepreneurial principles like market research and identifying opportunities. The report also includes a discussion of Arianna Huffington and the Huffington Post, as a successful example of an entrepreneur who followed the key steps. The report emphasizes the importance of continuous learning, feedback systems, and building relationships in the entrepreneurial journey.

Running head: ENTREPRENEURSHIP
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Response to question 1: Summary of the Case
The process and procedure involved constructing, establishing and operating a new
venture is known as the act of Entrepreneurship. The people involved in the process of
entrepreneurship is termed as entrepreneurs (Shepherd et al.). It depicts the willingness and
capability in developing a venture with the presence of limited resources and available risks.
Entrepreneurship involves huge amount of risks but it is more the motive of creating or/and
establishing something new in the market (Yamakawa, Yasuhiro, and Melissa). The case
deals with a specific approach of the process of entrepreneurship. The case mainly
concentrated on the summary of the steps of proceeding towards the increasing odds of
success, acting, learning, building and repeating. The comprehensive process includes steps,
which can guide an entrepreneur in understanding the way to channel the available
entrepreneurial skills (Kuratko). In the first step, the entrepreneur will understand and
identify what she/he wants to start followed with a step towards building the identified aim,
the entrepreneur also needs to assess the learning with each steps in the process and slowly
building steps with the available learning outcomes and sourcing required resources. The case
highlighted a story about an entrepreneur Shawn who in spite of being happy with his job
decided to start something of his own to respond to the uncertainty with the changing external
environment (Brown). He identified the market requirement in a personal transaction
situation of buying snowmobile. He realized the need of insurance attached with the product
and his interests in power sport. After an exhaustive research (the first step), he identified and
understood the gap in the marketplace between the people who wants rent his/her powers
sport toy because of its irregular usage and the people cannot afford to buy one. After
understanding the opportunity, Shawn started the business Fun2Rent. The business model
consisted of identifying potential renters, advertising the business in internet and through
word of mouth and helping the renters with framing the rental price which needs to be at a

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discounted price for penetrating the market. Fun2Rent charges 25% of the rent as
commission.
Response to question 2: Relation with my start-up of a Juice bar
The start-up of the Juice Bar can be related to the case study in regards with the initial
steps of the entrepreneurial process. As like Shawn in the case study, I will carry out an
intensive research for understanding the consumer preferences and will develop the skills by
working in a local juice shop. Understanding the market and identifying the direction of my
interest was my first step, researching about the consumer preferences will result in my first
step towards the establishment of the Juice Bar. The start-up reflects another similarity with
the Shawn’s story, which is the plan of contacting training centres for establish the business,
Shawn searched for renters in order to shape his business. The key takeaway from the case
can be importance of taking a pause after every step for understanding the learning outcomes.
The story of Shawn’s entrepreneurial activities can be considered as a learning. The story
helped in understanding the need for marketing communication and the process of selecting
effective channels. The take-away also includes the depiction of one of the most important
step towards success, which is the feedback system, which allows understanding the
loopholes, and contributes towards the process of continual improvement.
Response to Question 3: Example of a successful entrepreneur
The example, which will be discussed in this paper, is the Huffington Post. Arianna
Huffington is the co-founder of the business venture, which offers a conglomeration of
websites with opinion, blogs and news. The story of the entrepreneur depicted the se of the
approach Act, Learn, Build and Repeat. She believed in the process and the importance of
identifying the passion or interest, which one needs for starting a business and is considered
the first step (Freedman). The one advice she stresses upon was loving your own business.
She always understood the importance of starting a medium, which allows voicing opinions

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and views as well as she was also passionate about debating at Cambridge. After the
identification of the market requirement, Arianna acted upon it with her previous experiences
and always remembered to take a pause for understanding the learnings from each step that
they were taking. Arianna and her partners believed in their product and followed the steps
towards success. The story of Arianna Huffington also depicted the importance of building
relationships with the people an entrepreneur is associated with; she even respected the
contribution of the delivery men for whom she used to offer food. She approached the
bloggers and/or potential bloggers who wanted their voice to have a medium and Huffington
Post became the medium (Voigt et al.).

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References:
Brown, Paul B. "How The Best Entrepreneurs Succeed: A Case Study." (2012): n. pag. Web.
26 Mar. 2019.
Freedman, Jeri. Arianna Huffington: Media Mogul and Internet News Pioneer. Cavendish
Square Publishing, LLC, 2017.
Kuratko, Donald F. Entrepreneurship: Theory, process, and practice. Cengage Learning,
2016.
Shepherd, Dean A., Trenton A. Williams, and Holger Patzelt. "Thinking about
entrepreneurial decision making: Review and research agenda." Journal of management 41.1
(2015): 11-46.
Voigt, Kai-Ingo, Oana Buliga, and Kathrin Michl. "Journalism 2.0: The Case of the
Huffington Post." Business Model Pioneers. Springer, Cham, 2017. 95-111.
Yamakawa, Yasuhiro, and Melissa S. Cardon. "Causal ascriptions and perceived learning
from entrepreneurial failure." Small Business Economics 44.4 (2015): 797-820.