Final Reflection

The most formative experience that I found were the elevator pitches. I think they are immensely improtant for a lot of people. Many people do not know how to present themselves or their ideas, I myself struggle with it sometimes. I think the assignment taught me a lot on how to think and project my thoughts in the best way possible. I will remember giving away the money years later. I didn't really find any of the experiences joyous. I am most proud of the money assignment. I hate giving away money.

I do not really see myself an entrepreneur. The reason isn't because I think that this class didn't teach me how to be one, but merely that I don't felt like I really pursued anything that has made me an entrepreneur. I have definitely moved closer to developing an entrepreneurial mindset.

I would recommend to go into this journey with an open mind and be passionate about your blog. Always stay on top of the assignments and instead of waiting until the day they are due, do one a day. This fosters a good mindset and lets you be successful.

Week 15 Reading Reflection

What surprised me in this weeks reading was the part about customer loyalty. I find it an intangible part of business and it is difficult to recognize how much it actually effects businesses.
I haven't really heard of micro finance before other than a little here and there and so I was confused about that part of the reading. The two questions I would ask the author would be, "How can you quantify customer loyalty" and "Can a business have success without technology today?"
I don't think the author was wrong about anything nor did I disagree with him.

Elevator Pitch No. 4

What I have noticed that people have told me on my previous pitches is that there are similar services and that if I could offer something new that they would use my service. For this pitch I tried to focus on how my venture is different from others because it will be affordable to students and that will cause them to want to use it instead of going to the grocery store.

Google Gold

1) One of the things that I realized about SEO is that you must include key words that people would look for that is unique to the blog. For example, using the phrase "grocery delivery service" is going to have my blog pop up instead of others because that is my main venture idea. Including labels each week is one of the things I did for each week.

2) I gave 1 example of a few key words I used in the above statement. Some others words I used were, "customer interviews," "target market" and "relationship development."

3) I didn't really use social media to enchace my SEO.

4) My "What's Next?" blog post got the most traffic with 6 comments and 17 views. I think this is because it was the most interesting to people who followed my blog.

5) I did not make it to the first page of google results for my keywords. I couldn't find my post in the pages I went through.

Week 14 Reading Reflection

I did not find anything particularly interesting in this week's reading. Something that I found confusing was what the author meant by corporate venturing. I do not feel like I got a great grasp on the concept. If I could ask the author 2 questions they would be, " Can you further explain corporate venturing" and "What do you believe is the most important part of corporate venturing?" Since this chapter was very straight forward and was not very opinionated I did not disagree with the author on anything.

Very Short Interview, Part 2

1. What do you believe is the most valuable part of a business that makes it successful?

"Well there are many different types of businesses so the most valuable part of a business changes from industry to industry but overall I think the most important thing is finding what your target audience wants and finding an innovative way to provide that desire."

2. How do you feel about emotion in business?

"It's necessary, a lot of the time I interact with people who are just horrible with their finances. They look to me for help and I have to understand where they are coming from in order to understand what happened and how to help them for the future. I think people look at business and believe its a pool of sharks and although that used to be true it isn't anymore. Now business is changing and people are starting to care about others."

3. What is your greatest accomplishment with your business?

"I started at a big accounting company and then left the company to start my own and I was able to take some of the larger clients with me. For example, I was able to get Burger King to side with and because of that I was able to become very successful."

I definitely understand entrepreneurship a lot better and feel better about it all. I understand how I should think about entrepreneurship and have discovered some surprising things. I would say that during the interview she felt like I understood what questions to ask now. 

Week 13 Reading Reflection

What surprised the most in the reading was how important emotion is in business. A lot of people look at the business world and think that it is essential to separate emotion and business to be successful. I thought the same.
The book value part was the part that was most confusing to me.
If I could ask two questions they would be, "what is the most important part of value in a firm?" and "could you talk a little more about anti dilution protection?"
I would disagree with the author about emotion in this chapter. I think that emotion is important but putting too much emphasis on emotion can be damaging to a business.

Celebrating Failure

So this semester I decided that I was going to drop business finance. This is because I basically failed the first exam and considering the entire grade is based off of 3 exams essentially I did not have time to make it back up without doing extremely well on the other 2 exams. I know that I could do well in the class but I did not put in the effort necessary to succeed and that was my fault. Now I have a better understanding of what I need to do to do well in the class so that when I take it next semester I can get an A. I think that failure is necessary. No one is every amazing at something the first time they try it. They may be naturally gifted in it but they are never the best and need practice. In order to be successful in anything you have to fail and learn from it. I handle failure very well, I ask why I failed, I learn from it and move on. I do not think this class has really changed my idea of failure.

My Exit Strategy

My exit strategy at the end of my venture would be to sell the business to the grocery company I work with or to sell it to local entrepreneurs who have held other successful businesses in Gainesville, like StudyEdge. I chose this because I do not think this is the type of thing I want to be involved with in the long run and also because I will not be a student here anymore. This has influenced my idea because it makes me cater to students specifically throughout the development of my venture.

What's Next

Existing Market:
I personally believe that the next step in my venture is creating a service that is more open to what consumers want. So for example, if customers do not know exactly what kind of deli ham they want, if they were in the store they could try a piece each on and decide which one, I want to bring this service to customers. This allows them to have more options in what they want.

I think the thing that makes the most sense for my idea to grow in its existing market is to broaden the target audience. I realized that I have really restricted this service to college students who don't have transportation conveniently. I realize that my main resource is convince and I think it is important but I need to offer something else to open my field of customers.
For example, to continue to grow I should be trying to not just hit the college part of Gainesville but the entirety of Gainesville. This would allow me to get loyal customers who are planning on living here for a long time and not just 4 years before they leave.

New Market:
The radically new market that I believe is the best place for growth of my idea is the group of people in Gainesville who have a means to easily get to the grocery store but would want to use this service. The first step into this market would be college students who do have transportation. This would be a great transition step. I think people would want to use this service because they are already lazy and if they value their time more than the cost of the service then they would absolutely use it. That was one of the responses I got in the interview. I agreed with the interviewee and think that is a great example of a service mix that would make me successful in this market. What surprised me most was that people were so willing to use the service. I guess people really hate chores no matter what wealth class you are in and the higher up you go on that chain the lazier people get when it comes to things they consider "petty." I was not really surprised about anything other than that and I still this market is very attractive.

I have just compiled all of my interviews in one video below.

Week 12 Reading Reflection

The reading this week was very interesting, it was all about growth. One of the things that I found confusing in the reading was the part about misunderstanding an industry's attractiveness. I wish he explained himself a little better when he went over that part. The two questions I would ask him are "What should I do if I am trying to grow but my company requires employees to be highly trained and I do not have the means of doing that training myself?" and also, "Could you explain what you mean by an industry's attractiveness a little more?" I would not say that I disagree with anything he said.