The Venture Creation Wheel Model

The process of entrepreneurship, using entrepreneurial skills to create a new venture, involves ability, a set of values, and an overall plan or procedure for action. Venture creation needs more than knowledge: it requires appropriate skills and attitudes to bring about positive results. The Venture Creation Wheel helps explain the entrepreneurial process. It is a good model to consult when undertaking a new entrepreneurial venture.

The model itself should not be followed in a linear way. The process of venture creation involves a great many variables. It combines seemingly chaotic creative thinking and behaviour with highly disciplined critical thinking and decision making. For these reasons, venture creation cannot be described as a set of step by step instructions.

The process of venture creation looks more like a bicycle wheel. In a bicycle wheel, there is a hub with many spokes. Each spoke is connected to and supports the rim. The rim is the part that holds the spoke is place and gives strength to the rest of the wheel.

SPOKES IN THE VENTURE CREATION WHEEL

The foundation of the venture is created by the hub and the spokes. Just as it takes many spokes to give a bicycle wheel strength and stability, so it is with the Venture Creation Wheel. The success or failure of the venture depends on how well the entrepreneur at the hub performs the tasks represented by the spokes.

There are eight spokes in the wheel: Self, Ideas, Opportunities, Marketing and Operations, Resources, Finance, Management, and Intrapreneurship.

The first two chapters look at the Venture Wheel as a whole. The hub of the wheel is the entrepreneur or enterprising person at the centre of the venture creation process. In Chapter 3, the Self spoke represents the student, the prospective entrepreneur. Starting a venture requires effort and skill. It entails commitment and persistence. For these reasons, it is important for aspiring entrepreneurs to questions themselves continually. What are my interests? What are my strenghts? What are my needs? What do I enjoy doing? What are my goals? What do I know? What can I do?

Asking these questions begins the process of self-assessment that will help determine what an individual is trying to achieve and what kind of venture he or she is best suited to.

In Chapter 4, the spoke of Intrapreneurship deals with being an enterprising person, even if one is not pursuing a venture of his or her own.

The Ideas spoke generates and evaluates ideas for a venture. Generating ideas requires the entrepreneur to use the right side of the brain—the creative side. Learning to be a creative thinker takes practice. In Chapter 5, students will learn some techniques to help unlock the right side of the brain.

The Opportunities spoke identifies entrepreneurial opportunities by examining and tracing trends and changes in society that give rise to opportunity. Entrepreneurs or enterprising employees can recognize these opportunities. In Chapter 6, students will discover how to identify and evaluate opportunities.

The Marketing and Operations spoke of the Venture Creation Wheel represents marketing methods and organizational resources used by successful entrepreneurs on a day-to-day basis. Details about marketing and operations are included in Chapter 8.

Knowing how to mobilize and allocate resources is an important skill for any entrepreneur. The Resources and Management spokes are explained in more detail in Chapter 9.

Raising capital and planning the finances of the venture over the short and long terms are essential to the success of the venture. The Finance spoke demonstrates how to organize a financial strategy for the venture. This process is described in Chapter 10.

Once the venture is started, it is crucial for the entrepreneur to develop management strategies for the survival of the venture.

The venture planning process is essential to the success of any entrepreneurial endeavour, with an existing organization or in a startup. Chapters 7, 11, and 12 provide a road map for the successful planning and writing of the venture plan.

Once the venture is successfully on its way, Intrapreneurship can help it grow. Intrapreneurs will need to draw on all the other spokes of the wheel to stimulate and manage changes that will help the business run more efficiently and responsively or extend its reach.