Final Reflection

As I recall the year of blogging and developing a more entrepreneurial mindset, I remember the fact that there were times were I felt discouraged by the comments and things that people said about how my idea wasn't plausible. But what I am encouraged by has been the criticism that has pushed my idea along and made it into not only a more plausible idea, but a business that I could see my self operating. My highs definitely were the blogs were I discovered more about my self, "World's Biggest Problems", "Bugs List" and "Celebrating Failure". The lows of the year were the interview, which were awkward, difficult, and time-consuming, but I sure am glad I stepped out my comfort zone to complete them. I definitely remember dreading the fact that, it felt like, I had a new blog to write every day.

The most formative experience I had in this class was the "Free Money" activity, where I had to offer money and see if people would take it. This activity was very awkward, but it was so formative because it made me engage with people and understand what made them unique. One thing that I will always keep with me is that during the "Google Gold" assignment, I realized the importance of marketing yourself. I am definitely most proud and joyous about the fact that I stepped out of my comfort zone and did something I wouldn't normally enjoy, talking to people.

I definitely see myself as an entrepreneur, someone who is willing to look at the world, notice a problem, and offer a well thought out solution. This class has greatly shaped how I look at the world and its many issues, especially in the sports world, where I do my studies at the University of Florida. I see that I can change the aspects of youth sports that I believe need reform, by offering plausible solutions and being an entrepreneur.

If I had one recommendation for students taking this class down the road, I would suggest that they be open and willing to engage with anything, even if it's awkward. One way to perform well in this course is to stay on top of things, stay dedicated, and treat every assignment as an opportunity to grow and to further an idea that you actually can achieve. In order to foster a mindset of being an entrepreneur, you have to go out there and be yourself. Create ideas and solutions that interest you!

Week 15 Reading Reflection

Biggest Surprise: The most surprising part of this chapter was that micro financing is such a big deal. I didn't realize how financing was going to be so detailed when it came to starting a business.

Most Confusing Part: I was kind of confused with how to properly leverage the brand. I understand the importance of doing so, but didn't understand what they were telling us to do.

Two Questions to Ask the Author: 
- What made you start the business that would allow you give out loans to people who wanted to create a future of success?
- What is a pyramid in regards to business? What is another example?

The Author was Wrong about: I disagree with how the author suggests that text messaging is a good form of communication in regards to business and particularly, loans.

My Venture Concept No. 2

Opportunity: 

We have an opportunity to help with the needs of many college students at the University of Florida. Our customers will be these students and almost all of them have one thing in common; they all need transportation to some extent. From the grocery store to the mall to the gym; we all have places to go. With this need for transportation in mind, we have the solution. The reason that this problem has grown larger is that each class of students coming on to our campus each year is getting larger and thus we see an increase in demand to have places to park there cars. With this increase in demand from the students, we also see a demand among professors and faculty to push for new and better facilities to operate their craft in. The problem with this is that both of those things cannot happen, we cannot produce more buildings for teaching and research and construct more parking lots and garages. Geographically, the problem is focused mainly on-campus and for about five blocks in each direction. Demographically, our target market would consist of mainly college students from the age of 18-23 that do not have a car or that are so fed up with trying to park on campus, that they have just given up. Most of these students will be busy and in need of a fix to their problem whenever it arises, immediately. Currently, most students substitute this need by using their feet to walk to campus or using a scooter. Unfortunately, students cannot all afford scooters and often, it isn't feasible to walk to some parts of campus because you are either in a hurry or it is too far and hot. Most scooter operators are loyal to how they satisfy this need because it is relatively quick and eco-efficient. Potential customers that walk are not satisfied mostly because it takes longer and is more exhausting. This opportunity is pretty big, with nearly 55,000 students attending the University of Florida. This window of opportunity will be open as long as the University of Florida doesn't decide to build more garages across campus. But even if that were to occur, our solution would still be viable for people who do not own a car either.

Innovation:

I will be providing an on-demand, Eco-friendly, pay-as-you-go biking system that has stations located conveniently around campus to help students get where they need to go on time and quickly. My innovation includes having about 15 bicycles located at each of our 16 stations around the campus and surrounding neighborhoods. This will help meet the need because they can come to any station or use our app at Ez2Bike and they can rent a bike at a charge of $1.00 an hour by using their debit/credit card to pay. They will input their card information and then it will unlock the bike for the user and they will have free-roaming usage of this bike until they are finished. When they are finished, they can return the bike at any of our 16 conveniently located stations and they will insert their card again. At this point, the machine will read how long they had used the bike and will charge their card based on the hourly rate. If a renter chooses not to return the bike, we have their credit card information on file and are more than willing to charge the fee for the bike that they have stolen, this way we are not liable to any lost bikes without full reimbursement. If we cannot access their card any longer because they cancelled it, we will have a master list of names and will file a police report. This bike that they will rent will come equipped with securely attached lights for night riding. The app that we will be using will show the user how many bikes are available at each station and allow them to rent a bike in advance if they believe there will be a high demand at any given time.



Venture Concept:

When a student needs to go to a class or exam and they are late, they cannot worry about finding a ride or walking, they need a quick fix to their issue that they can solve on-demand. Our innovation provides a quick, on-demand fix for the opportunity because they no longer have to worry about how they will make it to their destination on time. Customers will buy access to our bikes because their simply isn't enough parking and that will always be a need at our campus. I do not believe it will be hard to get them to switch because it is simple and cheap, which makes it much easier to get someone to use once, which is all you need to get someone invested in your company. The main competitors that we have are the local bus transportation system and the Zip Car company because they provide different opportunities that people can use to get almost exactly where they need to be. These systems are vulnerable because they require more time to use. For buses, you have to wait for the bus to arrive and it isn't always convenient for your schedule. While for Zip Car, they do not have many stations to drop off the vehicle and driving a car on campus is typically a nightmare. I would organize the business for our new innovation by hiring tech assistants that could repair any system damages within the access points and a group of bike mechanics who work on any of the bikes that are not taken care of well or are in bad shape. The main thing that we hope to focus on to gain a competitive advantage over other transportation issue companies is that my company is so Eco-friendly and that we are looking to expand into that market.

Three Minor Elements:

• My companies most important resource is its immediate accessibility and the fact that college students often demand quick services. 
• The next opportunity that I believe we could capture moving forward would be the community of people living near and around downtown because those people often need to travel much farther distances and our innovation could help with this if they used our service daily. 
• In five years, I hope to have sold my company to a friend who can push this company into other major college towns around the United States.  

Major Feedback Received:

The overall feedback I received was that my venture concept was very well constructed and that people continued to think there was a definite need for my idea. One of the comments made note of the importance of my idea being Eco-friendly. Also, one of the comments mentioned the worries of stolen bikes, which is a worry of the company. But overall, I didn't receive much negative feedback at all and didn't have much to change. 

How It Changed Because of Feedback:

In my innovation section, I made sure to include a part that described the price and how we would handle theft situations in regards to either charging their credit card with the rate of the bike or by choosing to file a police report. Many people throughout my comments noticed that I have looked to promote a Eco-friendly company and they love that, so I tried to embrace that more in my venture concept.

Google Gold

1) Generally, I tried to increase my overall social media exposure by linking my blogs to different pictures and even featuring articles that I had read in some. I also used a title that has some meaning and shows a little bit of my character so that it would entice people. I used the handle: "UsingMediaForGodsGlory" because it shows that I am a Christian and would maybe increase interest and media exposure.

2) Other than the required titles and labels, I didn't really use any keywords. I did use a hashtag (#Entrepreneurship) once and this may have helped link my post to any search engine.

3) I used social media by posting a link to my blog on both Facebook and Twitter, which I hoped to bring more traffic to my page, but in fact, it was mostly ignored. When I look at the views for each of my blogs, I see that they increased during the days following my post, which mean social media did help bring some viewers to my blog.

4) The blog post I had that went the most viral was "Celebrating Failure" with 28 views. The reason this post had the most amount of traffic was because the title is counter-cultural and makes you really think about how much our society values success over all things and almost makes us believe that failure isn't natural or necessary, which it is.

5) Unfortunately I didn't use key words so I wasn't located on the first page of google searches, but when I searched "God blogs" I was on the eleventh page. So I guess my blog's handle acts as a keyword in this situation.

Week 14 Reading Reflection

Biggest Surprise: The biggest surprise for me was how we value a firm and the different accounting methods we use to access how the firm is moving forward in regards to its current and potential success.

Most Confused By: I was truly confused by the corporate entrepreneurship assessment tool and how it effects the work environment.

Two Questions for the Author: 

- If you were creating a new business, what organizational structure would you choose to implement?
- Why do companies, such as Proctor & Gamble, choose to use so many different brands?

I Disagreed With: I kind of disagreed with the thought that men and women will always naturally manage differently and that we are rule-based and that women are people-based. I believe I am much more people-based and I am a man.

Celebrating Failure

As a student, we continually search for better ways to do things. We are constantly trying to cut down our wasted time and use it for better things. Of course, I have fell to this often and it has made me very burnt out. 

1) Tell us about a time this past semester that you failed:

I am a member of a Christian ministry on campus, CRU, and I love to meet up with people and help mentor them through their times in college. Like I said earlier, I often am looking to limit my time that I am wasting and optimize the things I do. I have the desire to meet up with people and get to know them better and try and mentor them, but I want to optimize my meetings so I have tried to limit the time I spend with people. The other day someone told me that they felt that they weren't actually friends with me because I was always on the go or trying to push the speed of our meetings instead of letting them be authentic. I failed because I want to mentor people, but they felt it wasn't natural and called me out on it. 

2) Tell us what you learned from it:

I learned that you have to choose and value your friendships instead of optimizing your time and trying to do everything perfectly. I want to do great in school, build great relationships, and serve the community, but its impossible to do all those things perfectly and that I will have to sacrifice certain things for the things that I value the most. 

3) Reflect, in general, on what you think about failure:

I think that failure is natural and that you have to fail in order to truly find the things that you are pursuing and the things that you loved. When I got to school, I was mechanical engineering, but I never wanted to be an engineer. I failed a few classes and had to switch majors and I switched to Sports Management. Failure led to me finding the major that I love and that I have truly flourished in. I do not handle failure well, but I embrace that it will happen so I am not upset when it happens. I feel that this class has made me realize that I can accomplish more than I think I can, but I have to be prepared for failure and be willing to pursue the next idea. I feel like this class has made me more of a risk taker because I have seen the different things about my business idea and how those things were wrong and had to make adjustments. 

Week 13 Reading Reflection

Biggest Surprise: The thing that most surprised me was the idea that the value of a business isn't determined by its short-term success, but by the value of its potential earning power. Naturally, I would assume that short-term success generally mean long-term success, but that may not be the case because of the time necessary for something to be marketed correctly, to increase awareness.

Confusing Part of the Reading: The most confusing part of the reading was the table about the different kind of ventures that are available and what those different ventures look like.

Two Questions for the Author: 
1) Why is due diligence so important in this chapter?
2) What made you create the "checklist for analyzing a business"? Why was it created?

Anything that was Wrong or you Disagree with: I didn't disagree with anything in this chapter because I had no background knowledge of this topic.