The first thing you learn when it comes to teaching entrepreneurship is that you can’t teach it as you would any other subject. There are many reasons for this; from the fact that it is still a comparatively new discipline compared with other subjects taught in business schools, to the reality that it is a very practical field as opposed to the theory that underpins other areas of study. The second thing is learning what it’s not. Entrepreneurship is not synonymous with innovation. It is about engaging with the market, not creating a service or a product. The greatest failing I have found among entrepreneurs who do not succeed, is their inability to converse with the market. I spent almost seven years working with the UK government, conducting tens of thousands of interviews with British entrepreneurs and small businessmen and women helping to formulate the government’s SME policies. I was looking to discover why entrepreneurs fail. My respondents fell into two categories: a small m...

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