Very Short Interview No. 1

The entrepreneur I interviewed is Donald Raskin. After receiving his MBA in marketing from Syracuse University, Donald Raskin worked a few jobs before starting Manhattan Marketing Ensemble in New York City.

Questions:

1. What does it mean to be an entrepreneur?

     An entrepreneur is somebody who creates, develops and implements their own ideas in the form of a new business. These people are typically highly creative but bold business people who do not want to work within the confines of a corporation or somebody's business. As a result, they create their own business and run that business based on their own principals and values. 

2. What do you think I should learn in an entrepreneur course?

    Any good entrepreneur course should teach a student how to start their own business. It should be begin with when the time is right to venture out and start a business which is typically after you have worked for somebody else for several years. Once an entrepreneur determines that the time is right, they need to have a great idea for a business, money to start the business, outstanding people to work in the business and customers or clients to support them with ongoing business. 

3. What do you wish you had been taught in school before setting out on your own path as an entrepreneur?

     When I was in graduate school earning my MBA, most of what I learned through case studies was about how to solve complex business problems in large corporations. Not very much was taught about how to create your own business, manage a small business, and be successful on your own. I wish I had been taught the best way to start a business including: how to get financing, how to get and maintain a base of ongoing client business, and how to recruit the best and brightest employees possible. 

From this interview I learned that business courses should truly focus more on the logistics of beginning your own business. Chapter 1 in our textbook tells us that the majority of start up companies fail. Maybe if business courses taught more about how to successfully run a business, more start up companies would succeed.