| A | B |
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| Elevator Speech | A clear, concise and compelling way to describe a business or new business concept in 30 seconds; a differentiating vision to encourage potential investors or employees to learn more. |
| Engaging Question | Open ended question that prompts more than a "Yes" or "No" answer. |
| Go / No Go | The decision point at which an entrepreneur makes the final decision on whether or not to launch a new enterprise or abort the effort due to unfavorable market research or pro forma projections. |
| Launch Plan | A complete package that supports a "Go" decision by an entrepreneur to launch a new business. |
| Marketing | How a business communicates to large numbers of customers, motivating them to learn more about the business and its offerings. |
| Mission-Driven | When an entrepreneur’s actions and decisions are guided by a set of beliefs about how he / she wants the business to succeed. |
| Business Ethics | Proper business behavior beyond complying with legal requirements. |
| Confidentiality | Individuals and companies often promise to keep information they learn secret. This promise is often formalized this promise by signing a Non-Disclosure Agreement (or NDA). Example: the bank signs an NDA when an entrepreneur submits lots of personal information on a bank loan application. |
| Conflict of Interest | A situation in which an individual might take an action to his/her advantage that would be to the disadvantage of a person or company that believes this individual is serving them. |
| Corporate Social Responsibility | Actions entrepreneurs and companies take that go beyond their financial self-interest. These actions are voluntary, but often reflect the personal beliefs of business leaders about what their companies can or should accomplish. Many companies tie the actions they take for corporate social responsibility to initiatives that benefit their business. Example: the local pet store promises to donate $1 to the local animal shelter for every pet owner who buys the pet food they have on sale over a weekend. |
| Fairness | Treating stakeholders as the entrepreneur would hope others would treat him/her. |
| Intellectual Property | Non-physical assets created by individuals or companies that hold the exclusive legal right to commercialize. • A copyright gives the author the sole right to benefit economically from what he/she wrote. • A patent gives the inventor the sole right to benefit commercially from his/her invention. • A trademark gives the registering individual or company the sole right to benefit from a brand or image he/she created. In each case the creator of the intellectual property has the right to benefit financially from his/her creation by selling the rights to (or “licensing”) their intellectual property to a third party. |
| Transparency | The practice of operating openly and communicating fully, providing stakeholders with a clear understanding of how your enterprise operates. |
| Copyright | gives the author the sole right to benefit economically from what he/she wrote. |
| Patent | patent gives the inventor the sole right to benefit commercially from his/her invention. |
| Trademark | gives the registering individual or company the sole right to benefit from a brand or image he/she created. |
