Factors Paper: Edwin Duenas

Edwin T. Dueñas                                                                                              MBA-Standard

Ever since I was young I have always set my eyes with two things when it comes to my career path, one is to be a lawyer and another is to be a businessman. It has been a long time dream for me to be a lawyer but being a successful businessman carries the same weight with my desires.  Fast forwarding on my life, I am not a lawyer and still doesn't have a business on my own. I was not given an opportunity to study a prelaw course but proud to say I am a registered chemical engineer. Chemical engineering is a dynamic field. It can be specialize in plant, laboratory or even sales or marketing or creating their own products and reengineering an existing product for a business. One man that influenced me to take up chemical engineering as a stepping stone for business is my dad. He graduated chemical engineering and started his own business. I'm trying to follow the footsteps of my father and I think I've gone one step and that is I've finish my undergraduate degree. The next step is to equip myself with more knowledge in business.

Having business in my mind in the past years and making it as my ultimate career goal, I have never evaluated or asked myself if I have the qualities of being an entrepreneur. So random thinking, I can say that I have desires to be an entrepreneur and have some potential qualities. In academics and in work, I've always wanted to be a leader especially if the opportunity arises. I want to lead people and motivate them to the completion of goals and targets of the team.

 Ever since I was young I want to engage myself into trading, simple buy and sell of stuff. Even in online games, I find enjoyment in selling and trading things. I also do stock trading. I am not sure if those are aligned to my dreams in being an entrepreneur.  An additional quality is that I am driven; I am driven on what I want to accomplish and that is to succeed. I think it's important that I have the ability to think and to analyze things, having undergone rigorous trainings in school and other company trainings. I can say also that I have competence in human relations. I can work with different kinds of people and can easily go along well with people or my team. I have good communications skills and have a technical background in engineering.

            It's only fitting to evaluate what qualities I am lacking to be a successful entrepreneur. First, I can say that I lacked experience and this may affect on how I can see things. Admittedly, a mature and veteran businessman thinks different to a young entrepreneur like me. Decision making is different and intuition I believed favors the experienced. Experienced entrepreneurs also know the ins and outs of the business and other offices that have connections with the industry. Having experienced gives vast networking too.

Aside from this, handling and engaging myself to risk is something unfamiliar to me. I've always been the sure type person where I try to calculate and study and analyze things before I go in to it. Of course one may argue that this is good but sometimes I over calculate things that I lose opportunities.  There is also fear within me that I may lose everything that I saved.

To validate my self-evaluation I recently answered few questions in a website that aims to determine if you have qualities of an entrepreneur.  I honestly answered the questionnaire and the result is that I got a grade of 86/100. Below is the explanation of the grades.

The Entrepreneurship Test (http://www.liraz.com/webquiz.htm).

Grading

Score 100
Excellent. A perfect score. You are a born entrepreneur. If you are not presently running your own business you should definitely start one -- the sooner the better. You are on the way to fame and riches.

Score 91 - 99
Very good. You definitely have what it takes to succeed in a business of your own. Don't hesitate, your way to business success is wide open.

Score 72 - 90
Good. You have the qualities of a successful entrepreneur with some weak spots. Read the interpretation below to identify your deficiency. You should be able to cover that deficiency by either retraining yourself or hiring someone with the necessary skill.

Score 40 - 71
So so. The prospect of your success in a business of your own is questionable. You have some deficiencies that might out-shadow some good traits you have. If you still want to go on with it, be sure to call up all the persistence you can get. You are going to face some tough adversity on the way.

Score 40 and below
Unsatisfactory. Forget your dreams of being your own boss, it's not for you. You'd better keep your comfortable and secure job. Why bother with all the risks and hustles of starting a business.

In conclusion, although I have a strong desire and motivation to accomplish my dream to be a successful entrepreneur the online test shows loop holes in my abilities, personalities and attitudes. This is one of the problems of my generation. There is a strong desire to build on something but the foundation is not enough. They say that not all things can be learned in schools or seminars but having knowledge gives us an edge or advantage because in knowing the rate of uncertainty decreases and the confidence increases.

My purpose in enrolling in this subject is to jump-start my career as an entrepreneur. This will be the first time I'll be taking up an entrepreneur subject. I believed this is essential to address some loop holes or weakness within me. I know that this will be a challenging yet rewarding experience and I'm motivated to finish this course with high remarks and of course the ultimate goal is to apply the learning and improve my knowledge and skills. 3.0