SCG-558 Case Study: Lucas' Leaps - Entrepreneurial Journey Analysis

This case study analyzes Lucas' entrepreneurial journey, starting with his experience at ADP, where he developed key skills in sales and customer relations, and his subsequent decision to pursue his own business ventures while studying at USC. It examines the pros and cons of his choices, specifically whether he should focus on his ventures full-time or part-time. The case explores the influences on Lucas' decision-making, including his father, VC of USC program and people from entrepreneurship courses. The analysis provides recommendations for Lucas to overcome the challenges he faces, such as time management and research, and to effectively plan his business venture. The study highlights the importance of customer relationships, communication, and effective planning in achieving entrepreneurial success.

Entrepreneurship in Business

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Working experience of Lucas in ADP along with impacts of his desire to found his own
business venture...........................................................................................................................3
Pros and cons of Lucas pursuing as a founder of business venture and suggestions whether he
should pursue part time or full time founding.............................................................................4
Identification of people or parties that have influenced Lucas’ decision making in founding
business venture...........................................................................................................................5
Recommendations to Lucas or action plan for him to get out of his current dilemma................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
An ability of developing and running a business is known as entrepreneurship (Tur-
Porcar, Roig-Tierno and Llorca Mestre, 2018). This report is based on a case of Lucas who is a
master of commerce and wants to found his own business venture. It will discuss requirement of
skills for becoming an effective entrepreneur such as communication, customers’ relation and
research. Research before making an effective plan regarding founding business venture is key of
success.
Working experience of Lucas in ADP along with impacts of his desire to found his own business
venture
In regard to Lucas, who was Master of commerce specialization in marketing course
always wanted to become founder of business venture. After hitting us back to back when he was
only 20 years when his father was diagnosed with cancer, he started working at accounting firm
KPMG. But there he realized that accounting work is not for him and then he realized that there
is huge difference between thinking and doing things practically. Then he started working at
ADP, National Corporation that was specialized in developing and selling human resource
solutions like payroll, HR compensation and workers ’ compensation. Here he was employed as
door to door salesman (Parhankangas and Renko, 2017). First 3 months after getting training was
too difficult for him. He found difficulties in convincing people in buying products. He said that
many of the time, people failed to keep their words on purchase that they promised to buy. He
also found difficult in making sales and achieving target given by the company. But as per his
father’s guidance of making value and working hard, he refused to quit and rather strived hard by
finding out other ways of increasing sales and target. After that, at the beginning he had be 200%
over plan and then next month only 30% as it was a roller coaster.
After working hard, all members were listed by ADP’s president’s club awards and it
made Lucas frustrated and disappointed because in first year, he did not make President’s club
but he did not quit and strive hard and promised to himself than in upcoming year he will achieve
President’s award. At the end of 3rd year at ADP, he was promoted to manager and get
President’s award. When he solicited feedback and analyzed his own skills then he found the
importance of customers’ relationship. For improving relation he also found importance of
communication skill and the way of talking with people. He also stated that communication and

ability to improve relationship is the main key of increasing sales, influencing people and
motivating them for buying products and services (Powers and Zhao, 2019). After all, he also
said that initially and in the first year at ADP he was few months away always from getting
honored but ability of working had, improving skills, communication and customers relation
made him able to become successful. It was a result of his achieving that he got in 2014: 8 sales
associates with an annual quota of $1.3 million. President’s club winner as well as regional sales
executive and in 2016: 9 sales associates with an annual quota of $1.8 million. So, overall
experience of Lucas at ADP was good as he learned so many new things while working here.
Pros and cons of Lucas pursuing as a founder of business venture and suggestions whether he
should pursue part time or full time founding
When Lucas’s father was asked to go for diagnosed with cancer again in 2013 then his
father decided to not to go with this treatment and rather he would like to enjoy his life with his
dreams. So, Lucas joined his father on his travel to Tibet and China and there, he started
capturing pictures of nature and posted photos on Instagram. When he found that people love to
see his post then it boosted his confidence. His girlfriend gave opportunity to participate in
Mattel shoot. He got surprised and frightened but took opportunity and luckily he got succeed.
At that time he was at ADP as a full time worker and he had a team of 9 associates but because
of interesting field of photography he was founding problems in giving full time working hours
at ADP. So, for continuing and following his interesting field of photography he decided to leave
job at ADP. But later he felt that this field of photography does not have value and respect
(Kreusel, Roth and Brem, 2018). So, according to me, I would suggest that Lucas should pursue
full time as a founder of business and continuing working at ADP because from there he learned
so many new things. While photographing, he did not learn any new thing as initially he just
enjoyed and also this field did not helped in providing enough pay. The main advantage of
pursuing as a founder of business is to learn new things and get several external opportunities
like increasing sale, getting respect, improve relation with others. Disadvantage of pursuing as a
founder is to quit dreams and not to follow dream field. Advantages of working as founder of
business are more than disadvantages such as enough pay, respect from others, promotional
opportunities, opportunity of learning new things daily such as ability to communication,
negotiation, leadership and others.

Identification of people or parties that have influenced Lucas’ decision making in founding
business venture
Partners or some family and friends also influenced Lucas in making decision about
finding business venture. The main key partner was VC of USC program who explained him that
what can be reasons of failing of his travel app idea. He helped him out in deciding again that
what he actually wants to do and also make an action plan for protecting himself against failure.
VC became enthusiastic about meeting with Lucas and when he met with him then he said Oh
awesome and happy to connect with you over coffee. It made Lucas feel valued and then from
his past experience at ADP, he said to VC that he knows the importance of referral and
relationship (Chang, Wang and Arnett, 2018). He also told to VC that for building a minimum
viable product it is important to find out about customers’ needs as what they actually want. So,
from this, it can be said that this gesture by VC, influenced and helped Lucas in making decision.
Advice from people at entrepreneurship courses also helped him out in making better
decision regarding employing people for start up. As per the suggestions and advice from people
of this program made him able to employ and searching for technical co-founder. He developed a
team of people for building app for making minimum viable product and then he also found that
all team members self sufficient and responsible for developing product (Honary and et.al.,
2020). His father also played an important role in influencing decision as he often remember
questions asked by his father that do you still see value in it? What do you want to achieve?
Lucas at every stage made decision by answering such questions.
Recommendations to Lucas or action plan for him to get out of his current dilemma
In March, Lucas hit hard as at a one time he had to do two works like developing startup
and school as well. He became frustrated and the main reason behind it was lack of research and
time. Due to lack of research and time, he started to ignore or avoid feedbacks given by
customers. No doubt he spent a lot of time with classmates who were supporting him. His
performance at school was also suffering. His classroom reputation was important for him. But
due to this mess and not researching much, he started forgetting things and also become unable

to control his own emotions. It was the great dilemma. But there is no doubt that Lucas was hard
working as he achieved and won President’s award while working at ADP. Then he remembered
the thing and lesson learnt at ADP that does everything with excellence no matter what it is.
When someone put in everything that they have then opportunities present themselves (Lyndon
and Pandey, 2021).
So, as per this it can be suggested to Lucas that he should focus on his dream of founding
business venture with the help of experienced people. An effective research and having
leadership ability is vital. So, Lucas should focus on only one thing at one time rather dong
multiple jobs and with hard work and support from peers, friends and family members Lucas can
accomplish his goals and can also get out of his current dilemma (Lucas’ Leaps, 2021). Also,
Lucas need to make an effective plan that consists of some steps and backup plan as how
functions of starting a new venture will be performed and who will be key partners. An effective
research, an effective plan, sources of funding can help out in following his dream and getting
out from this dilemma.
CONCLUSION
It has been summarized from the above study that communication and customers’
relation play a vital role in becoming successful as a marketer and accomplishing goals. Other
main skills that are require for meeting goals and performing functions are leadership,
negotiation skills. Entrepreneurship and consumers behaviors are key for success of becoming an
effective entrepreneur.

REFERENCES
Books and Journal
Chang, Y., Wang, X. and Arnett, D.B., 2018. Enhancing firm performance: The role of brand
orientation in business-to-business marketing. Industrial Marketing Management. 72. pp.17-
25.
Honary, M. and et.al., 2020, July. What Happens in Peer-Support, Stays in Peer-Support:
Software Architecture for Peer-Sourcing in Mental Health. In 2020 IEEE 44th Annual
Computers, Software, and Applications Conference (COMPSAC) (pp. 644-653). IEEE.
Kreusel, N., Roth, N. and Brem, A., 2018. European business venturing in times of digitisation-
an analysis of for-profit business incubators in a triple helix context. International Journal of
Technology Management. 76(1-2). pp.104-136.
Lyndon, S. and Pandey, A., 2021. Deconstructing the shared leadership emergence process in
entrepreneurial teams. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development.
Parhankangas, A. and Renko, M., 2017. Linguistic style and crowdfunding success among social
and commercial entrepreneurs. Journal of Business Venturing, 32(2), pp.215-236.
Powers, A. and Zhao, J., 2019. Staying alive: entrepreneurship in family-owned media across
generations. Baltic Journal of Management.
Tur-Porcar, A., Roig-Tierno, N. and Llorca Mestre, A., 2018. Factors affecting entrepreneurship
and business sustainability. Sustainability. 10(2). p.452.
Online
Lucas’ Leaps. 2021. [Online]. Available through <
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