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Smart Women and the Game of Entrepreneurship

Guest post by: Joy Chudacoff

Article Overview: This game is about designing a business that will be successful. Entrepreneurship can be both exciting and challenging. There are questions that you can ask yourself and action steps that you can take that will make your game of entrepreneurship successful and you will feel like a winner!

Smart Women and the Game of Entrepreneurship

A few days ago, my 7 year old daughter came home with what I thought was a challenging school project---designing and creating her own game from scratch. Jenna was stumped at first. She came up with a few ideas but then quickly gave up as she found some "glitches" in her plan. This got me thinking about Smart Women and the game of entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship can be fun, exciting, challenging and risky all at the same time-just like any other game we play. There are days when I'm on top of the world because everything is working out just the way I had planned and, there are days when I want to crawl in bed and pull the covers over my head because it feels like every move I make or card I play turns out to be ones that don't move me forward at all.

Jenna's game will be graded on several factors; easy for anyone to understand how to play, organized and neat presentation, and of course, turned in on time. If you want your business to get high marks and become successful, there are several questions that you need to ask yourself:

1. Decide what game you're playing. What type of business do you have or want to have? Is it something that the marketplace needs? Are there other people doing the same thing or a version of your business that have been successful? Jenna sat down in her room and I put her favorite games all around her---Chutes and Ladders, Sorry, Trouble, etc. This exercise helped her to see how other games were put together in terms of pieces, die, cards and rules.

It's always a good idea to research other people who've been successful in your industry. It's not to copy what they're doing but to see similarities-what's working, what's not working.

2. What's the object of your game? What product or service are you offering? When your ideal client makes a choice to work with you, what will they receive at the end of your time together? This is critical to your business process. Helping the client understand how they will be better or different after working with you is of high interest to them.

3. How do people play your game? In other words, how do they work with you? Is it in person? By phone? Online? Do you offer packages or bundle services together? You have to make the access to your service easy for the client.

4. Make the experience rewarding! People want to enjoy the relationship they develop when working with someone. Price is not always the major factor in why people buy. They want to work with someone who has the expert knowledge they need and who will make the process enjoyable.

Jenna created a game called, "Math Baseball." It's a game that she knows a lot about and enjoys playing. The rules she made up for the game are both fun and challenging involving some risk. Sounds a lot like the game we play called "Entrepreneurship."

Anything is possible. Everything is waiting for you.

*****

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Article Tags: action steps, attract, business, client, entrepreneurship, game, service, smart women, successful



Related Forum Posts
The Game Inventor's Guidebook - by Brian Tinsman, 2002 I checked this out of my local library today and its pretty interesting... didn't address what I wanted to know, which was how to actually design an online gaming system (indeed this doesn't cover online games at all), but for board games etc. it's pretty good. Here's the TOC: 1. How they diid it: Trivial Pursuit Magic, the Gathering Dungeons & Dragons Pokemon Trading Card Game Interview with an inventor Interview with a publisher 2. How the industry works 1. What's in it for you 2. How new games happen 3. Anatomy of a publisher 4. Markets for games 3. Games and companies you should know 1. Mass market games you should know 2. Mass market companies you should know 3. Hobby games you should know 4. Hobby companies you should know 5. American specialty games and companies you should know 6. European specialty games and companies you should know 4. Self publishing 1. What am I getting into 2. Before you print 3. After you print 5. Selling a game step by step 1. How to invent a game 2. Game design 3. Game development 4. Targeting publishers 5. Before you submit 6. Eight submission strategies 7. Contacting publishers 8. Protecting your property 9. What to do if they don't say yes 10. What to do if they do say yes! 11. The game industry's dirty little secret 6. Resources and examples Publishers and mnufacturers Distributors Brokers Game conventions and trade shows Industry publications Sample query letter Sample record of disclosure Sample licensing agreement Sample option agreement
Re: History of Women in Business in the United States - Yes. Women have increasingly made positive economic contributions to society and their position is being recognized more and more as seen on the Forbes List of Executive Women. In general, women can be a bit more practical in their approach as entrepreneurs too.
A ton of Great Women - You might want to profile Teresa Cascioli of LakePort Brewery. She has an amazing story! I met her at at the celebratory luncheon for the Profit/Chatelaine Top 100 Women Business Owners. The Top 100 list is also a great resource for inspirational stories of Women Entrepreneurs.
Re: Are entrepreneur women more organized than men? - Women are generally more organised than men. They have good instincts more than men. Women are generally aggressive when it come to business. You don't want to mess up with them.
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