Guidelines for Entrepreneur Interview Paper

The Entrepreneur Interview is intended to serve two basic purposes:
1) help you gather information that may be relevant in the preparation of your business plan. 2) further your understanding of the requirements of being a successful entrepreneur.

Each student in the class is responsible for finding an entrepreneur that is currently or has previously been involved in a venture that is related to, or at least relevant to, the idea you plan to develop in your business plan for this class. To help prepare for your interview, see the link on the web page for possible interview questions and format suggestions.

Once you have you conducted the interview, I want you to distill your thoughts into a short (6-8 double-spaced typed pages) written paper that consists of two sections. Please start by briefly introducing the entrepreneur and explaining the connection between the entrepreneur and your business idea.

After the introduction, the first major section should identify and discuss the extent to which the entrepreneur you interviewed is consistent with our class discussion of an entrepreneur. Does this entrepreneur exhibit the traits/behaviors we identified in class? If yes, what are the three most prominent traits/behaviors of the interviewed entrepreneur that are consistent with the traits/behaviors we have discussed (in class and those which are discussed in the text)? You can refer to the six themes or to individual traits/behaviors within those themes. If the entrepreneur does not fit our class discussion, identify three traits or behaviors you identified that are contrary to our discussion. In either case, please discuss and give examples that illustrate and support the existence of the trait or behavior.

The second major section should discuss (in 2 subsections) the lessons learned as a result of