Heidi M. Neck, PhD, is a Babson College professor and the Jeffry A. Timmons Professor of

Entrepreneurial Studies. She has taught entrepreneurship at the undergraduate, MBA, and executive

levels. She is the academic director of the Babson Academy, a dedicated unit within Babson

that inspires change in the way universities, specifically their faculty and students, teach and learn

entrepreneurship. The Babson Academy builds on Neck's work starting the Babson Collaborative, a

global institutional membership organization for colleges and universities seeking to increase their

capability and capacity in entrepreneurship education, and her leadership of Babson's Symposia for

Entrepreneurship Educators (SEE), programs designed to inspire faculty from around the world to

teach more experientially and entrepreneurially. Neck has directly trained more than 3,500 faculty

around the world in the art and craft of teaching entrepreneurship. An award-winning teacher, Neck

has been recognized for teaching excellence at Babson for undergraduate, graduate, and executive education.

She has also been recognized by international organizations, the Academy of Management and

USASBE, for excellence in pedagogy and course design. In 2016, The Schulze Foundation awarded her

Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year for pushing the frontier of entrepreneurship education in higher

education. She was again recognized as Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year in 2022 by the United

States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) for her contributions that have

substantively advanced how scholars think and approach entrepreneurship teaching and learning.

Most recently, Neck was the recipient of the 2023 Karl Vesper Pioneer Award from the Experiential

Classroom at Notre Dame for her work to expand the reach and impact of entrepreneurship education.

Her research interests include entrepreneurship education with a specific interest in building entrepreneurial

mindsets. Neck is the lead author of Teaching Entrepreneurship: A Practice-Based Approach,

Volumes 1 and 2 (Elgar), books written to help educators teach entrepreneurship in more experiential

and engaging ways. Additionally, she has published 40+ book chapters, research monographs, and

refereed articles in such journals as Journal of Small Business Management, Entrepreneurship Theory &

Practice, and Entrepreneurship Education & Pedagogy.

Neck speaks and teaches internationally on cultivating the entrepreneurial mindset and espousing the

positive force of entrepreneurship as a societal change agent. She consults and trains organizations of all

sizes on building entrepreneurial capacity. She is the cofounder of VentureBlocks, an education-technology

company, and achieved a successful exit with FlowDog, a canine aquatic fitness and rehabilitation center

located just outside of Boston. She also served on the board of a 100% family-owned, seventh-generation

land-management company in Louisiana, A. Wilbert's & Sons. Heidi earned her PhD in Strategic

Management and Entrepreneurship from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She holds a BS in

Marketing from Louisiana State University and an MBA from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Preface
Acknowledgements
About the Authors
Part 1. Entrepreneurship is a Life Skill
Chapter 1. Practicing Entreprenuership
1.1 Entrepreneurship Requires Action and Practice
1.2 Entrepreneurship May Be Different From What You Think
1.3 Types of Entrepreneurship
1.4 Entrepreneurship Is A Method Not a Process
1.5 The Method Involves Creating the Future - Not Predicting It
1.6 The Key Components of the Entrepreneurship Method
1.7 Entrepreneurship Requires Deliberate Practice
1.8 How This Book Will Help You Practice Entrepreneurship
Chapter 2. Activating an Entrepreneurial Mindset
2.1 The Power of Mindset
2.2 What is Mindset?
2.3 The Self-Leadership Habit
2.4 The Creativity Habit
2.5 The Improvisation Habit
2.6 The Mindset As The Pathway to Action
Part II. Creating and Finding Opportunities
Chapter 3. Creating and Recognizing New Opportunities
3.1 The Entrepreneurial Mindset and Opportunity Recognition
3.2 Opportunities Start With Thousands of Ideas
3.3 Four Pathways To Opportunity Identification
3.4 Opportunities Through Alertness, Prior Knowledge and Pattern Recognition
3.5 From Idea Generation To Opportunity Recognition
Chapter 4: Using Design Thinking
4.1 What is Design Thinking?
4.2 Design Thinking As A Human-Centered Process
4.3 Design Thinking Requires Empathy
4.4 The Design-Thinking Process: Inspiration, Ideation, Implementation
4.5 Needs Discovery Technique #1: Observation
4.6 Needs Discovery Technique #2: Interviewing
4.7 Variations Of The Design-Thinking Process
Chapter 5. Building Business Models
5.1 What is A Business Model?
5.2 The Four Parts of A Business Model
5.3 The Customer Value Proposition (CVP)
5.4 Different Types Of CVPs And Customer Segments
5.5 The Business Model Canvas (BMC)
Chapter 6. Developing your Customers
6.1 Customers and Markets
6.2 Types of Customers
6.3 Customer Segmentation
6.4 Target Customer Group
6.5 Customer Personas
6.6 Customer Journey Mapping Process
6.7 Market Sizing
Chapter 7. Testing and Experimenting New Ideas
7.1 Experiments: What They Are and Why We Do Them
7.2 Types of Experiments
7.3 A Deeper Look at Prototypes
7.4 Hypothesis Testing & the Scientific Method Applied to Entrepreneurship
7.5 The Experimentation Template
7.6 Interviewing for Customer Feedback
Chapter 8. Developing Networks and Building Teams
8.1 The Power of Networks
8.2 The Value of Networks
8.3 Building Networks
8.4 Virtual Networking
8.5 Networking to Build the Founding Team
Part III. Evaluating and Acting on Opportunities
Chapter 9. Creating Revenue Models
9.1 What is A Revenue Model?
9.2 Different Types of Revenue Models
9.3 Generating Revenue From "Free"
9.4 Revenue and Cost Drivers
9.5 Pricing Strategies
9.6 Calculating Prices
Chapter 10. Planning for Entrepreneurs
10.1 What is Planning?
10.2 Planning Starts with a Vision
10.3 Plans Take Many Forms
10.4 Questions to Ask During Planning
10.5 The Business Plan Debate
10.6 Tips for Writing Any Type of Plan
Chapter 11. Learning From Failure
11.1 Failure and Entrepreneurship
11.2 The Failure Spectrum
11.3 Fear of Failure
11.4 Learning From Failure
11.5 Getting Gritty: Building a Tolerance for Failure
Part IV. Resourcing New Opportunities
Chapter 12. Bootstrapping and Crowdfunding for Resources
12.1 What is Bootstrapping?
12.2 Bootstrapping Strategies
12.3 Crowdfunding Versus Crowdsourcing
12.4 Crowdfunding Startups and Entrepreneurships
12.5 The Four Contexts for Crowdfunding
12.6 A Quick Guide to Successful Crowdfunding
Chapter 13. Financing for Startups
13.1 What is Equity Financing?
13.2 The Basics of Valuation
13.3 Angel Investors
13.4 Venture Capitalists (VCS)
13.5 Due Diligence
Chapter 14. Navigating Legal and IP Issues
14.1 Legal Considerations
14.2 Types of Legal Structures
14.3 Legal Mistakes Made by Startups
14.4 Intellectual Property (IP)
14.5 Global IP Theft
14.6 Common IP Traps
14.7 Hiring Employees
Chapter 15. Engaging Customers Through Marketing
15.1 What is Entrepreneurial Marketing
15.2 The Basic Principles of Marketing
15.3 Building a Brand
15.4 Marketing Tools for Entrepreneurs
15.5 Creating Your Personal Brand
Chapter 16. Supporting Social Entrepreneurship
16.1 The Role of Social Entprenreneurship
16.2 Social Entrepreneurship and Wicked Problems
16.3 Types of Social Entrepreneurship
16.4 Capital Markets for Social Entrepreneurs
16.5 Social Entrepreneurs and Their Stakeholders
16.6 Differences Between Social Entrepreneurship and Corporate Social Responsibility
16.7 Social Entrepreneurship and Audacious Ideas
16.8 Global Entrepreneurship
Glossary
Supplement A - Financial Statements and Projections for Startups
Supplement B - The Pitch