SBIR Phase I: Web Enabled Expert System to Scale Diagnosis and Improvement of Entrepreneurial Skills

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目将开发一个产品，旨在帮助早期创业者识别他们的知识差距，商业风险和市场挑战，并规定可行的措施，使创业者能够减少或改善他们的风险，从而增加创新新企业成功的可能性。今天，这种诊断和规范性补救措施是在与企业家的一对一接触中提供的。这个应用程序致力于诊断和解决企业家的知识差距，这是一项可扩展的奋进。 如果凯德维亚集团的专业知识可以封装在这个平台中，并以高度可扩展的方式交付给企业家，这个项目可能会改变企业家评估和改善其业务绩效的方式。美国经济严重依赖创业活动来实现经济增长，这已经不是什么秘密了。每年都有成千上万的企业家开始新的业务。但根据美国小企业管理局的数据，超过50%的企业在头五年内失败。SBA估计，2007年有637，100家新雇主公司开始运营，当年有560，300家公司关闭。SBA引用这一统计数据的首要原因是企业家缺乏经验。 第一次创业的人往往缺乏经验来验证他们的判断，限定他们的行动，并评估他们的表现。然而，由于评估和指导企业家通常是不可扩展的活动，因此几乎没有采取任何措施对这些企业家的商业可持续性或业绩产生重大影响。 SBIR第一阶段项目中提出的系统有可能以自助服务、基于Web的应用程序的形式提供市场领先的诊断专业知识，从而比以往任何时候都更广泛地分发可操作的诊断。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will develop an offering designed to help early stage entrepreneurs identify their knowledge gaps, business risks and market challenges, and prescribe actionable measures that enable the entrepreneurs to reduce or ameliorate their risks, thereby increasing the likelihood of success in innovative new ventures. Today, such diagnostics and prescriptive remedies are delivered in one-on-one engagements with entrepreneurs. This application strives to make diagnosing and addressing the knowledge gaps of entrepreneurs a scalable endeavor. If Guidewire Group's expertise can be encapsulated in this platform and delivered to entrepreneurs in a highly scalable fashion, this project may shift the way in which entrepreneurs evaluate and improve their business performance.It is no secret that the U.S. economy relies heavily on entrepreneurial activity to deliver economic growth. Each year, hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs start new businesses. But according to the US Small Business Administration, over 50% of businesses fail in their first five years. The SBA estimates that in 2007, 637,100 new employer firms began operations and 560,300 firms closed that year. The number one reason the SBA cites for this statistic is lack of experience among entrepreneurs. First-time entrepreneurs often lack the experience to validate their judgments, qualify their actions, and assess their performance. Yet because evaluating and coaching entrepreneurs are typically un-scalable activities, little has been done to make a significant impact on the business sustainability or performance of these entrepreneurs. The system proposed in this SBIR Phase I project has the potential to make market-leading diagnostic expertise available in the form of a self-service, Web-based application, thereby distributing actionable diagnostics more widely than ever before.