Week 15 Reading Reflection

     In “Vikram Akula: Business Basics at the Base of the Pyramid”, I was surprised to learn more about microloans and how they work. In my economics class in high school we talked briefly about the challenges of offering these types of loans and the effect that they could have on the economy in developing nations. It was nice to see how microloans can help improve a nation. It was a little surprising that they only offer loans to women but when they mention that “women are more likely than men to reinvest profits in the household and to support others in their borrowing group” (Akula), it makes a lot of sense.

     In this article I didn’t find any section to be particularly confusing. It’s been a while since I’ve taken an economics class that covered microfinance, but overall the article was simple to understand.

     It would be interesting to know Akula’s view on loaning money to single fathers. Since in developing nation there are such a large number of women who die during childbirth it stands to reason that there would be at least a small population of single fathers. Based on Akula’s reaction to first having to deny the women a loan before he started his own business, it would interesting to know his reaction to single fathers. I would also be interested in knowing what the secret was to overcoming the challenges of having a successful microfinance business since I’ve always heard most attempts at starting one have failed.

     For this article I didn’t disagree with anything that Akula mentioned. I found most of the article to be somewhat like a narrative so it was refreshing to hear about a real life story instead of reading about concepts and how they supposedly apply to the real world.  

Final Reflection

     Looking back on the variety of assignments that we’ve completed this semester it’s crazy to think about how much this class has changed me. I found that any assignment that challenged me to go out and interview people really took me out of my comfort zone and as a result will probably be the assignments that I will always remember, mostly because of how proud I am for completing them. The reading assignments probably taught me the most about what entrepreneurship is but the other assignments taught me what being an entrepreneur means.

     I don’t know if I would fully call myself a full entrepreneur but I’m definitely closer to being one than when I started this class. Throughout the past fifteen weeks I’ve noticed that I’m more aware of problems around me and I’m slowly starting to think of ways to solve these problems. The most important aspect of being an entrepreneur that I’ve taken away from this class is that I’m more open to the idea of failing. I realize that while you need to try your best at everything you do, you need to be able to accept the fact that you will fail but that doesn’t mean you’re a failure, what I’ve taken away is that, it means your succeeding at being an entrepreneur.

     My biggest advise for anyone considering taking this class is to ask yourself why you want to take this class. What do you really want to get out of it, an easy A or validation of your business concept? If you take this class with the right intentions then you won’t view the assignments as mundane tasks. Actually do the assignments. This might seem obvious but the best way to experience what being an entrepreneur is, means doing the assignments. To have the best success in this class try and work a week ahead, I’ve found that there’s a lot less stress involved when you have a week buffer for some of the assignments.