Extension Activity 2

Real-World Entrepreneurs

Instructions

As you complete the projects in the textbook, you will be building entrepreneurial skills that will help you develop a business idea and create a comprehensive business plan. To review, an entrepreneur is a person who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk for a business venture.

In Project 1, you learned about personal characteristics, experiences, and behaviors associated with entrepreneurship. You even assessed your own potential for becoming a successful entrepreneur.

To build on what you have learned, you will now explore the contribution(s) of a well-known entrepreneur, which may include ventures that benefitted the U.S. economy and/or culture.

Activity

First, select an entrepreneur to research. If you are unsure of who to choose, you may wish to consider one of the following entrepreneurs:

• Elon Musk: Founder, CEO, and lead designer for SpaceX; co-founder, CEO, and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; and co-founder and CEO of Neuralink • : Co-founder of Apple • Jeff Bezos: Founder and CEO of • Tory Burch: American fashion designer, businesswoman, and philanthropist • Pierre Omidyar: Founder of eBay • Rashmi Sinha: Founder of SlideShare • : Co-founder of Microsoft • Mark Zuckerburg: Co-founder of • Sara Blakely: Founder of Spanx • Sergey Brin: Co-founder of • Howard Schultz: Chairman and CEO of

Who have you chosen to research? ______

Using credible sources on the Internet, respond to the following questions about the entrepreneur you have chosen for this activity.

1. List the individual’s strongest entrepreneurial characteristics.

2. Briefly describe the entrepreneur’s major business venture and explain the problem(s) the entrepreneur sought to address with this venture.

3. List any contributions this entrepreneur and/or the venture has made to the U.S. economy and/or U.S. culture.

4. In Project 1 you learned how an individual’s personal traits, experiences, values, interests, and/or abilities can influence the decision to start a business and help determine what type of business to launch.

Describe how the personal traits, experiences, values, interests, and/or abilities of this entrepreneur influenced his/her decision to start a business or stick with it when it may have been easier to walk away.

5. Recall your own entrepreneurial self-assessment. List the personal traits, experiences, values, interests, and/or abilities you think you have in common with this entrepreneur.

If you do not think you have anything in common with the entrepreneur, explain how you can work to develop one of the attributes you admire in this person or that you identified in your response to the first question.