Markets don’t stand still, and neither can businesses. Market shifts bring major changes to industries, influencing everything from consumer behavior and technological advancements like AI to economic shifts, regulatory changes, industry trends and global events. These shifts often have a ripple effect across industries, creating long-lasting impacts.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 20% of businesses fail within their first year, 49% by their 5th and 65% by their 10th year. Business owners across industries must be mindful of the decisions they make. Understanding how market shifts impact business is crucial for entrepreneurs, helping them stay prepared to reassess and adapt their strategies when needed to stay on track. However, market shifts aren’t the only reason to adjust your decision-making as a business owner. Sometimes entrepreneurs choose to innovate not because it will profit them more but because it makes a difference in the communities they serve.
Reframing Challenges and Remaining Adaptable
Entrepreneurs, at their core, challenge the status quo by interrupting the current market with ideas, solving problems and making an impact where it’s needed. By choosing to embrace innovation, you are able to reframe challenges from something negative into opportunities. By doing so, you are able to create a sense of urgency and empowerment in those involved. Remaining adaptable allows for flexibility of mindset, allowing for a larger expanse of opportunities. As a student, embracing change and learning to adapt is part of what will determine your success long-term as an entrepreneur.
At Arizona State University, you have access to an array of support, from 1:1 mentoring to assistance with patent research and access to funding opportunities, among many other opportunities. We actively want to see you succeed in school, and for many that includes starting a business, or translating their research, projects or other ideas into ventures. Students are constantly in the process of learning, creating and iterating. This means they are constantly reinforming their decision-making process as they evolve within the educational market
Serving Students and Advancing Ideas
As a student, you are uniquely positioned around other learners, and building a supportive ecosystem is extremely important in helping students pursue their ideas. This includes professors, friends, family, other entrepreneurs of varying ages and success levels and many others who influence an entrepreneur’s pathway. At an institution like ASU that prides itself on innovation, there is always room to grow and learn. There is strength in being able to receive feedback from anyone, both positive and negative. It’s your resilience in response to the feedback that is the difference between success and learning to fail forward.
You have access to new information, often having the opportunity to adopt new technologies or radical ways of thinking. For entrepreneurs, this could be access to prototyping technologies for engineers or recording arts spaces for music majors, all available at ASU. Leveraging these opportunities and technologies allows students to have a leg up on the competition. During your time in college as a student, you are always learning, receiving feedback and growing. By promoting early adoption of tools like ChatGPT and Zoom, you are able to be efficient and effective in the work you do.
Innovating for the Right Reasons
Ethical entrepreneurship, or as we like to refer to it, Principled Innovation, is not just about innovating for innovation’s sake but rather asking how and why we are innovating. By taking a humanitarian approach, Principled Innovation centers around making positive change by placing people at the beginning of the solution, therefore helping the communities served by the idea. Principled Innovation allows you to learn how to balance moral, civic, intellectual and performance as character assets. Moral assets guide decision-making from multiple perspectives. Civic assets support collaboration, community, and public service. Intellectual assets focus on reflection and critical thinking. Finally, performance assets allow us to match our emotions to the work that we are doing, and include traits such as courage, creativity and resilience.
How to Handle Change
- Embrace a growth mindset: View change as an opportunity to learn and grow. Focus on what you can gain rather than what you might lose, and accept that change is part of the process. Additionally, stay open to new ideas or ways of thinking. If you are looking to look for new skills or how to learn something that could be beneficial to your team, check out the Training and Development Resources available as on-demand modules that are free to anyone!
- Act proactively: Anticipate changes in the market as best as possible. Take the initiative to adopt technologies or adapt to the market. Trying to be proactive rather than reactive allows for more reflection to occur, allowing us to not repeat history. This means keeping up to date on research and current events, including places like ASU News and national and international news.
- Communication is key: Sharing your thoughts is an important part of collaboration. By providing your opinion, you are able to impart your perspective on the overall process, allowing people to reflect on a mutual understanding. Here is a free skill-building exercise regarding effective communication in the workplace.
- Stay organized: Use tools like to-do lists or calendars to keep track of tasks during a market shift. Organization allows for changes to be tracked and impacts to be evaluated. Breaking things down into manageable steps or phases allows for you to determine short-term and long-term goals. Utilizing tools beyond Google Drive like Dropbox or Trello, you can help organize your work into shared spaces allowing for easier project management. For more ideas check out the following article, Easy Ways to Stay Organized and Productive.
- Seek support: Reach out to mentors, friends or colleagues for advice or reassurance. You don’t have to do this alone, in fact, we want to set you up with help and mentorship as early as your first year at ASU. Seek out mentorship through our Venture Devils program.
- Practice self-care: Practice patience. Ensure you’re managing stress through healthy habits like exercise, proper sleep and mindfulness. The grind is possible for some, but for others, a work-life balance is still necessary. Prioritizing your emotional and physical health is paramount in supporting others’ development. While pursuing your idea, practice self-care when it comes to your deadlines. Make sure they are achievable, and set yourself up for success from the beginning.
Thriving as a Student Entrepreneur Through Market Shifts
Market shifts are inevitable, but as a student entrepreneur, you can navigate these changes by embracing a growth mindset, remaining adaptable, and seeking support. By reframing challenges into opportunities and innovating for the right reasons, you can create a positive impact while building a successful venture. Remember to prioritize self-care, stay organized, and communicate effectively throughout the process.
To learn more about how ASU’s Edson Entrepreneurship + Innovation Institute can support you in your entrepreneurial journey, please visit our website at www.entrepreneurship.asu.edu.
