Ideation & The Lean Canvas
This is a person who takes on the financial risk of starting and managing a new business venture in search of profit.
What is an Entrepreneur?
This represents the threat of financial loss, failure, or absolute uncertainty that an entrepreneur accepts when launching a business.
What is Risk?
This 9-digit number assigned by the IRS—the Employer Identification Number—is used to identify a business entity for tax reporting purposes.
What is an EIN?
This foundational model represents the "Four Ps" of marketing: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion.
What is the Marketing Mix?
This economic term describes the total amount of a specific good or service that is currently available for purchase by consumers.
What is Supply?
A dynamic group creativity technique used to generate a large volume of diverse ideas and solutions for a business problem.
What is Brainstorming?
A brief, visual presentation (usually 10–12 slides) used by entrepreneurs to provide investors with a quick overview of their business plan and vision.
What is a Pitch Deck?
These five distinct legal frameworks dictate how a company distributes profits, manages liability, and files taxes: one individual owner, shared ownership, a separate legal entity, a flexible hybrid, and a purpose-driven organization that doesn't operate for profit.
What are a Sole Proprietorship, Partnership, Corporation, LLC, and Nonprofit?
These are the two primary geographic channels where a company can choose to sell its products: a physical, in-person storefront, or an e-commerce platform.
What are Brick-and-mortar and Online locations?
This describes the loss of potential financial or operational gain from other alternatives when one specific path is selected.
What is Opportunity Cost?
The strategic act of fundamentally changing a business's direction, product features, or target market after receiving customer feedback that the original plan isn't working.
What is Pivoting?
This is the absolute simplest version of a product that a company can release to the public to gather maximum validated learning with the least amount of effort.
What is an MVP (Minimum Viable Product)?
These are three primary forms of intellectual property protection: one protects creative works like music and writing, one protects functional inventions, and one protects brand logos and catchphrases.
What are a Copyright, Patent, and Trademark?
This process involves dividing a massive, diverse consumer market into smaller, distinct groups based on shared characteristics like demographics or interests.
What is Market Segmentation?
This is the collection of all digital touchpoints a business establishes across the internet (like a website or social profiles), which is tracked and measured using this data-driven technique.
What is an Online Presence and Digital Analytics?
This type of business focus prioritizes environmental sustainability and eco-friendly practices as a core part of its mission and operations.
What is Green Entrepreneurship?
This federal government agency—the Small Business Administration—provides support, loans, and counseling to help Americans start and grow businesses.
What is the SBA?
This is a clear, written statement outlining the tasks, duties, required skills, and organizational responsibilities of a specific employment position.
What is a Job Description?
This specific sub-mix describes a company's total communication strategy and consists of Advertising, Public Relations, Sales Promotions, and Personal Selling.
What is the Promotional Mix?
The strategic relationship between these three elements dictates that what a business pays to create an item, combined with the retail price it charges consumers, directly yields its net financial gain.
What are Cost, Price, and Profit?
These are the first five sequential steps of the Lean Canvas Model used to map out a new business idea rapidly.
What are 1. Problem, 2. Customer Segments, 3. Unique Value Proposition (UVP), 4. Solution, and 5. Channels?
While this business option offers the advantage of a proven brand name and established operational systems, its disadvantages include high initial fees, ongoing royalties, and a total lack of absolute creative freedom.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of a Franchise?
This is a comprehensive risk-management tool that businesses purchase to protect themselves from catastrophic financial losses resulting from lawsuits, property damage, or natural disasters.
What is Business Insurance?
Doing this type of evaluation allows a business to see its rivals' strengths and weaknesses, which directly impacts its ability to capture a larger percentage of total industry sales, known by this term.
What is a Competitor Analysis and Market Share?
This is the commercial practice of bringing goods or services into a country from international markets abroad for sale.
What is an Import?