1. LIFE CYCLE OF AN ENTREPRENEURIAL VENTURE
Aparna H
IMK Kollam

2. ENTREPRENEUR
The term entrepreneur has been derive from the French word “entreprenere” means to undertake a business venture.
“Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both their advantage.”
Niccolo Machiavelli

3. ENTREPRENEURSHIP
It is the process of creating something new, with value, by devoting the necessary time and effort, assuming the accompanying financial, psychic, and social risk, and receiving the resulting rewards monetary and personal satisfaction and independence

4. THE NEW VENTURE creation process
The environment is the most comprehensive component in the venture creation process.
It includes all the factors that affect the decision to start a business, for example, government regulation, competitiveness, and life cycle stage.

5. Within specific industries and in specific geographic regions, environmental variables and the degree of their impact will differ.
The new venture process begins with an idea for a product, service, or business.

6. Key Issues about the Venture Cycle
There are static and dynamic forces which need a special attention of the entrepreneur
Entrepreneur needs to manage for changes and not changes
The growth stage of the venture is more sophisticated with competition and dilemmas
At a certain stage, you need to decide whether to do more innovation or allow decline

7. Life cycle of an entrepreneurial venture
Life cycle of entrepreneurial firms
Birth stage
Breakthrough stage
Maturity stage
Each stage poses different managerial challenges and requires different managerial competencies.

8. Stages in the life cycle of an entrepreneurial firm

9. The Five Stages of a Business’s Life Cycle
There are five key stages (just typical)
New Venture Development
Start-up Activities
Growth of the Venture
Stabilization
Innovation or Decline

10. New Venture Development
Creativity and assessment
Resource base analysis
Networking including vertical marketing
Vision, Mission, Objectives, Strategies & Tactics

11. Start-up Stage Formal Business plan
Searching for capital (Analyze the risks)
Marketing research
Developing a working team
Identifying any core competencies for Competitive Advantage

12. Growth Stage Any modification on he operating strategy
Positioning and re-positioning
Knowing more details about he competitors (Survival of the fittest)

13. Stabilization Stage Increased competition
High bargaining power of customers
Saturation of the market
The entrepreneur needs to think where will the business be in the near future
It is a stage preceding a great dilemma: to innovate or exit the business

14. Innovation or Decline Without innovation the clear option is ‘death’
Possibility of acquiring or being acquired
Might design new products for new markets (Diversification)

15. A Venture’s Typical Life Cycle
Innovation
Decline

16. Limitations of Life Cycle Models
Growth is rarely as smooth as the curve of the graph suggests. It is more likely to represent spikes of growth and contraction rather than rounded peaks. For example many small businesses have relatively few customers, so that the addition of one new significant client will lead to a sudden growth spurt. Conversely, the loss of one large client can significantly shrink the size of the business.

17. The transition from one stage to another does not necessarily take place in the order predicted by the model. Economic or trade cycles outside the control of the firm may contribute substantially to the growth or decline of an enterprise at any time irrespective of the stage of development. The economic downturn of 2008/9 forced a large number of businesses to decline in size, whatever stage in their development they had reached.

18. The contention that the transition from one stage to the next is triggered by a particular kind of crisis has not been tested through empirical research. The development of an enterprise is likely to be subject to many different internal and external variables so that isolating one primary cause for the evolution of a firm from one stage to another is an over simplification of a very complex process.

19. Many enterprises reach a stable size and never make the transition out of this phase. Once they have developed a business to a stage of survival, life-style entrepreneurs will have little motivation to grow it further. Some take deliberate steps to avoid growth which they see as threatening the very independence they sought when they created the enterprise

20. Conclusion
“ALL STAGES ARE STRATEGIC POINTS OF THE VENTURE HENCE A NEED FOR SPECIFIC STRATEGIES FOR EVERY STAGE!”