My Exit Strategy

As with any good idea, it may start off doing well, but can fade quickly if you are not aware of your opportunity and whether or not it will consistently be there. With this in mind, my exit strategy would be more short-term than I wish. I wish I could keep my company open for the long-term, but technology is making it more difficult for a venture to stay open for long.

My exit strategy would be to grow this company and see how it goes for about 5 years and hopefully it would be excelling and there would be outside interest in purchasing the company. I would look to sell this company after 5 years because more technology is being developed that would potentially allow for smaller cars that could make parking not an issue on our campus and eventually, flying technology that would solve the problem of parking and transportation issues on our campus. I hope that by selling my company, I would get a large return because I am weary of how long this venture will be available.

As I stated before, I am weary that my venture would close quickly due to all the new technological advances and I am scared that when I look to sell, there will not be as much interest and I will not gain a large return on my investment.

I think my exit strategy mainly influenced my thoughts to make my company a private venture instead of working with the government and being public. The main reason that I chose this was because being private allows me to sell and get out quicker than it would be if the company was public and had more influence from outside of myself. It also makes expansion not as important, other than possibly expanding to more locations around the nation, particularly around college campuses.

Week 12 Reading Reflection

Biggest Surprise:

The most surprising part of the reading was about how important planning is in the venture life cycle and how creativity plays such an important role in making your business successful and pushing it forward past other competing companies.

Confusing Part:

The most confusing part of this section was about the SWOT analysis and how it can be properly analyzed. The issue that confuses me is how a company is supposed to internally dissect their business and truly access how their company is doing in certain categories.

Two Questions for Author:

1. What is the hardest thing about growing a business against the creativity of other companies?
2. What is the most important quality about a business that can set them apart?

Author was Wrong About:

I disagree with some of the fatal visions that the author states because he is making it sound like entrepreneurs should never pursue anything that is challenging and that you cannot maintain a competitive position in. This is just a flaw because all entrepreneurs had to start with no competitive position.

My Venture Concept #1

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, 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. 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.

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 that the venture has taken off and I hope to be expanding into the city of Gainesville and maybe expanding to other college campuses, such as the University of Alabama, the University of Georgia, and Florida State University. 

Amazon Whisperer

Ez2Bike

Our customers gain value from our business by gaining access to instant, on-demand transportation around the University of Florida via our bike station system. We will provide 15-20 bikes at each of our multiple stations around campus. This will help any students that do not have a car or scooter to get around campus and need to be able to go somewhere near campus. My business is service-oriented so

Our primary and only true revenue driver is debit card rentals of our bikes. We plan on charging 2.00$ per hour used. They will swipe there card when they arrive to get there bike and when they check the bike back in, it will charge the card automatically based on the time usage.

As a substitute product for transportation around campus that students could buy instead of using my service would be a old-fashioned Razor Scooter. They would use this product because they would need something to fulfill their need if they didn't want to continually pay for my service.

If they choose to buy a Razor Scooter as a better form of transportation than using a scooter or car, then they will have a better experience as a student at the University of Florida because they will not have to worry about the issues of parking and wasting time without proper transportation because of campus driving rules.

Customer Reviews: People think that it is very well made, both mechanically and aesthetically. They believe that the grips and handles are very sturdy and that the break function is very well made to help with optimal safety among riders. One negative that I saw was that customers thought it wasn't made well for tricks and tail-whips. 

In order to make this product for usable for customers: I would keep it as simple as possible and market it more as a transportation unit. Optimally, we would keep them at red, blue, or black colors in order to not lose any of the market. I also would think about bringing on thicker wheels in order to gain maximum stability. 

This product would mainly serve as a replacement for my service sense there isn't really a product I could bring in with my service-style business model. 

Week 11 Reading Reflection

Biggest Surprise: I was most surprised by how the author discusses different departments of a business when it comes to innovation. He talked about how innovation is impossible unless you use cross-functional departmental teams in order to succeed. The reason he explains this is that each departments views innovation from a different perspective, which was something I didn't think of.

Confusing Part of the Reading: The most confusing part of the reading was the part where he discusses innovation landscape maps and I am slightly confused on how you determine where your business stands on this map.

Two Questions to Ask the Author:
- What is the best way for departments to be set up in order to innovate new ideas cohesively?
- How do you determine your location on the innovation landscape map?

The Author was wrong about: I didn't disagree with anything that the author said, I was just partially surprised that departments actually can limit the business if you're not using them correctly.

Week 10 Reading Reflection

1) The thing that surprised me the most was the section about accounts receivable and how it plays a role in the life of a business owner.

2) Nothing really confused me during this reading, just a few things I disagreed with.

3)
- How important is budgeting to an entrepreneur?
- Why is accumulated depreciation so important for managers and entrepreneurs to take a look at?

4) One thing that I somewhat disagree with is how the author believes that currency is so important in regards to economic growth. I believe it plays a part, but he makes it sound like it is the most important thing.

Elevator Pitch #3

The biggest feedback that I took from the second elevator pitch was that I was told my elevator pitch was too vague and that people wanted to know more about the benefits of this service. Nothing that they said was wrong, but I didn't include the feedback of allowing for a monthly or yearly service fee because I want this to be a on-demand service that people turn to when they are in need.

In my third pitch, I wanted to focus on the benefits of my service which were that we are saving energy, going green, and also are pushing to living a healthier life by choosing to use my service. Also, I tried to be less vague by explaining that there are stations around the university that they can check bikes out from, pay with a card, and take the bike.