Skip to ContentGo to accessibility page
OpenStax Logo
Entrepreneurship

Summary

EntrepreneurshipSummary

Summary

6.1 Problem Solving to Find Entrepreneurial Solutions

Problem solving involves more than making decisions. Problem solving is a necessary component of entrepreneurial genesis, used to manage your business and helpful in addressing everyday personal situations. Entrepreneurs must know their personal strengths and capitalize on applicable problem-solving methods to create innovative products. Moving a startup ahead of the competition requires the entrepreneur to use all problem-solving sources and skills in the entrepreneur’s tool box. Problem-solving models can be adaptive or innovative, the latter being more common among entrepreneurs. Problem-solving skills include critical thinking, communication, decisiveness, resourcefulness, business and industry awareness, and an ability to analyze data. There are various types of problem solvers, including self-regulating, theorist, and petitioner problem solvers.

6.2 Creative Problem-Solving Process

The creative problem-solving process is a logical process. The steps to the creative problem-solving process are clarify, ideate, develop, implement, and evaluate. Each step is an aid to creating a solution. The steps are repeated cyclically until the entrepreneur develops an innovative solution. When entrepreneurs experience creativity block, tools to alleviate the block are available. These tools include crowdsourcing, brainstorming, and storyboarding. Each of these tools assist the entrepreneur in innovative thinking.

6.3 Design Thinking

Design thinking in business and entrepreneurship was made prevalent by David Kelley, founder of Stanford University’s Design School and cofounder of design company IDEO. Design thinking, which espouses an HCD approach, can be applied beyond product and graphic design to include the design of social policy, business strategy, services, and digital interactions. The five stages as espoused in Stanford’s design thinking model are empathizing, defining, ideating, prototyping, and testing. There are numerous design thinking tools that help develop and carry out these processes from various organizations and companies, ranging from IDEO to Google.

6.4 Lean Processes

Lean process is a systematic process for maximizing continuous improvement through minimizing surplus or unused material in the production of a current process. With origins in manufacturing, the lean process can be applied to internal organizational processes as well as external product development. Lean process uses observation, assessment and evaluation, and whiteboarding techniques to solve problems.

PreviousNext
Order a print copy
Citation/Attribution
Reuse and redistribution of this content in digital or print format:
  • This book may not be used in the training of large language models or otherwise be ingested into large language models or generative AI offerings without OpenStax's prior written permission.
  • This book uses the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License, which means that you can reuse and modify the material only for noncommercial purposes, must attribute OpenStax, and must distribute any derivative works under the same license.
  • Any commercial printing of this textbook, including using a local or custom printer, must be approved by OpenStax, and proper citation provided.
  • OpenStax-copyrighted images, activities, assessments, and similar components of this book are subject to the same licensing – CC-BY-NC-SA. They can be used for noncommercial purposes with attribution. Commercial use requires permission.
  • Permission requests: Anyone who intends to incorporate this content (including text, images, and other components) into large language models, use it in AI offerings, use it commercially (including in print), and/or has questions about another use case is welcome to complete our reuse request form.
Attribution information
  • If you are redistributing all or part of this book in a noncommercial print format, then you must include on every physical page the following attribution:

    Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/entrepreneurship/pages/1-introduction

  • If you are redistributing all or part of this book in a noncommercial digital format, then for every page that includes OpenStax content, you must license the derivative work under the same CC-BY-NC-SA license as the original, and include on every digital page view the following attribution:

    Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/entrepreneurship/pages/1-introduction

Citation information

The information below includes the information needed to generate citations in most major styles (APA, MLA, etc.); you must reformat and organize the information as needed to fit the requirements of the style. Use the information below to generate a citation. We recommend using a citation tool such as this one.

© Jun 17, 2026 OpenStax. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License. The OpenStax name, OpenStax logo, OpenStax book covers, OpenStax CNX name, and OpenStax CNX logo, and Rice University name, and Rice University logo trademarks, or wordmarks are not subject to the Creative Commons license and may not be reproduced without the prior and express written consent of Rice University.