Unveiling the Entrepreneurial Mindset: A New Approach to Education

Entrepreneurial competencies

Bridging the gap in entrepreneurial education, our newly developed framework, comprising 15 principal competencies, offers universities a comprehensive tool to intentionally cultivate the entrepreneurial mindset. This innovative tool ensures a targeted, nuanced approach to fostering entrepreneurship, replacing hopeful coverage with intentional teaching.

Note: from this introduction page you can click through to our interactive framework where you may explore all the principal competencies and their sub-competencies. You are also able to download a pdf of the full framework from there.

Certain competencies distinguish the mindset of the successful entrepreneur

The entrepreneurial landscape, ever-changing and thrilling, is a captivating world of possibilities and challenges. At its heart lie certain competencies and capabilities that constitute the quintessential entrepreneurial mindset. It is these traits that often distinguish a successful founder and their venture. Moreover, even for those not intending to delve into entrepreneurship, these characteristics can prove invaluable. They are sought after by corporates and organizations alike, underscoring their broader relevance.

Understanding these competencies allows us to know what and how to teach entrepreneurship

As educators vested in the realm of entrepreneurial pedagogy, the comprehension of these competencies becomes crucial. It serves two fundamental purposes: it enlightens us on what to teach, and perhaps more importantly, how to teach it. The competencies, a blend of cognitive and non-cognitive elements, are not merely subjects to be communicated but traits to be nurtured. A deeper understanding of these elements provides us with a robust metric to gauge the efficacy of our educational programs in cultivating an entrepreneurial mindset.

A framework to help design, develop and measure programs has remained elusive

Indeed, significant work has already been undertaken in this sphere. Noteworthy examples include Saras Sarasvathy’s exploration of “effectuation,” the European Union’s EntreComp framework, and the initiatives by the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NTFE). Yet, despite these substantial efforts, a comprehensive framework catering to the unique requirements of designing, developing, and implementing high experiential programs remains elusive.

“Standing on the shoulders of giants” we have developed a framework for program designers

Addressing this gap, we have synthesized our experiences and insights from existing research to develop a set of 15 principal competencies, each supported by several sub-competencies. The product of rigorous research, partially funded by an EU-based Higher Education Initiative, this framework promises a nuanced and holistic approach to entrepreneurial education.

We invite you to use this framework in your programs

We extend an invitation to universities developing and implementing entrepreneurial programs to utilize our work. Whether these programs form part of the accredited curriculum or are extra-curricular initiatives like accelerators or incubators, the framework can prove beneficial. Of course, the complexity and extensiveness of the framework mean it may not be fully covered by all programs, especially shorter ones. However, the framework enables educators to consciously choose which competencies to focus on, replacing reliance on hopeful coverage with targeted teaching.

Let us reshape entrepreneurial education together

Discover our framework at Mashauri Entrepreneurial Competency Framework  (MecFrame ) and join us on this exciting journey to reshape entrepreneurial education. We hope that, through deliberate design based on our framework, we can collectively nurture future entrepreneurs, equipped with the knowledge, skills, and mindset they need to succeed.

News article version of startup failure article

Mashauri (Mashauri.org) is an organization with a mission to significantly increase the success rate of startups across the globe.

Infographic: startup failure rate is too high

They have written a number of articles about startup failure rates – and why Silicon Valley and others are not right in the accepted view that the majority of startups must fail and that failure is “good” because it is simply a learning experience.

Although they recognize that there will be failures and that it should be a learning experience, they believe that we can learn how to be better at launching and growing businesses – and in fact that we can learn from other founders’ success and failures and do a better job at developing viable businesses. They also claim that failure is far less of an option for many entrepreneurs than is the case in perhaps Palo Alto where funding is more plentiful and entrepreneurship is a choice, not the only option.

Mashauri have recently conducted an investigation into UK Government statistics where they have combined a number of databases to  paint a picture of what is the actual failure rate of new businesses and when are they likely to fail. There are good reasons for using these particular datasets and they believe that the learnings are translatable to other countries, although the results might need to be adjusted for local factors.

Their overall findings are:

  1. About two thirds of all businesses fail within the first five years
  2. Almost one third of new businesses never gain traction (ie receive income from customers or receive funding)
  3. We are not getting better at helping new businesses become successful– in fact we are getting worse

These are shown with the relevant charts in the infographic below.

The full article can be found at: Startup failure rate is too high.

Or click the link at: http://wp.me/p7JRbh-IW

The next article in the series is going to look at the “why” of failure and try to map this onto the “when”.

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The author, Simon Gifford, is CEO at Mashauri, Director of Genesis management Consulting and an adjunct professor at IE Business School in Madrid.