Entrepreneurship: Are the Risks and Hard Work Worth the Benefits

The recession has driven many to consider the possibility of starting a business.

Ventureneer.com responds by offering a series of three webinars to help would-be entrepreneurs determine if entrepreneurship is for them. Necessity entrepreneurs people who can’t find jobs increases during economic downturns, according to UC Santa Cruz economist Robert W. Fairlie, author of the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity.

Baby boomers will redefine retirement by starting their own businesses, which the Kauffman Foundation found as a major trend in “The Coming Entrepreneurship Boom,” a report it recently published. Accessibility, ease-of-use, and lower technology costs, coupled with cheaper and more effective online marketing tools, are providing the impetus for people to start enterprises. These factors, along with a new wave of skilled professionals affected by the economic downturn, will give rise to a new age of venture creation, according to Small Business Labs.

As a result, both the Kauffman Foundation and Small Business Labs expect the number of small businesses to increase in 2009 as well as failure rates, although not enough to offset the overall gain in number of entrepreneurs.

Education increases the survival rates and prosperity of small businesses, including nonprofits. “I saw a surge in the number of people taking my entrepreneurship class at The New School in the fall of 2008, which led the university and me to offer the class over the summer,” said New School adjunct professor and business mentor Geri Stengel. She added, “However, many people aren’t ready to take the plunge without knowing what they’re getting themselves into.”

Stengel’s Ventureneer website provides a new approach to learning that blends traditional formal instruction with informal learning derived from peers using Web 2.0 technology to capture and share this knowledge including blogs, virtual classes, peer-to-peer learning, coaching, web events and articles.

Ventureneer also offers a series of three free webinars to help would-be entrepreneurs sort through whether the risks and hard work are worth the rewards of being their own boss and in control of their financial destiny. Among the topics covered:

• Entrepreneurship: Is It for Me?
• Ways Entrepreneur Wannabes Can Determine What Kind of Business to Start
• Is Doing a Business Plan Worth the Time for a Startup?

Geri Stengel has served as a mentor for social enterprises entered in business plan competitions at Columbia Business School and New York University (NYU), Stern School of Business, and has served as a nonprofit board member. She honed her online experience at companies such as Dow Jones and Physicians’ Online. She cofounded Women’s Leadership Exchange, an online and conference resource for women-led businesses, and founded consulting practice Stengel Solutions. To learn more about Stengel, Ventureneer and the free webinar series, visit her website, located at http://www.ventureneer.com.

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