14A - Halfway reflection

1.     I have done many things to keep up with the requirements of this course. First off, I set a schedule for all requirements of this class. I devote a certain amount of time each day for this class, and for all my other class. In addition, I strongly believe going to live lectures greatly helps with this class. By going to live lectures, you are forced to watch and interact with the professor and will not be distracted or watch the lecture on double speed. With lectures on Monday and Wednesday, I do one assignment Tuesday and the other Thursday. I then do the cupcake Friday and responses on Sunday. By following this schedule, I am sure to stay up with all the assignments/requirements. This class has allowed me to become much more organized.

2.     A moment I felt like giving up was during week 3 when I forgot to do all the responses on other people’s blog posts for the week. This was an automatic loss of 3 points which made me very upset. This allowed me to create the schedule I previously talked about to prevent something like this from happening again. Another example is when I interviewed someone about my new idea for an assignment and they completely roasted my idea. Although this originally made me upset, it gave me a more tenacious attitude.

3.     Three tips I would offer a student for next semester are:

a.     Go to every live lecture.

b.     Don’t take anything personally; it is okay if people tear apart your ideas, they are just helping you become a better entrepreneur in the long run.

c.     Take time with your interviews, these are the most important part of many of your assignments and will greatly help with the class and how much you learn from it.

                       

13A – Reading Reflection No. 1

1) You read about an entrepreneur: I read Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson

·       What surprised you the most?

• I was very surprised to find that Steve Jobs was not the most well-behaved kid. He experimented with drugs such as LSD and marijuana. I was even more surprised to find out that Jobs dropped out of college after only one year!

·       What about the entrepreneur did you most admire?

• The thing I most strongly admire about Steve Job s is his determination. He knew what he wanted and would not quit until he got it. Even though he didn’t get a college degree, he still persisted and tried his hardest to make a good life for himself. An example of him being determined was when he walked into the Atari head office and said he would not leave until being offered a job.

·       What about the entrepreneur did you least admire?

• I honestly admired everything about him, so I am not quite sure what to answer for this. The only thing that I least admire was when they mentioned in the book that Jobs would tell people there were essentially stupid and take their ideas as his own.

·       Did the entrepreneur encounter adversity and failure? If so, what did they do about it?

• Jobs seemed have faced adversity when his girlfriend became pregnant with his child. This seemed to have completely thrown Jobs off from his life and he didn’t even acknowledge the child as his own. He did although later regret how he handled the situation.

2) What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited? 

Steve Jobs had many competencies that made him very successful. Some of them include determination, courage, decision-making, and commitment.

3) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.

I was confused towards the end of chapter 5 and beginning of chapter 6. It seems as if the simple idea of making computers immediately jumped to him selling millions of them. It didn’t really elaborate on this area, it seemed to have just jumped from not having a business to selling millions of products.

4) If you were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur, what would you ask?

·      What kept you motivated to keep pushing on?

·      Did you ever feel like quitting everything?

I am asking this because I am very interested in his motivation and what his main drivers were to keep him so focused and determined.

5) For fun: what do you think the entrepreneur's opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion?

His opinion of hard work is probably that you get out what you put in. The more hard work you do, the more return you are going to get out of it. Jobs put in countless hours of tireless work which is how he became so successful.

12A – Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 1

Choosing a segment:

·      For this assignment, I chose a segment of college students who have cars on campus and find it difficult and inconvenient to find parking on campus.

Interview 1:

·      My first interview is a student at UF who drives a Ford F150. He prefers to be able to drive to campus for class since he lives off campus but finds it’s much easier to uber to campus due to the fact that there is essentially no on campus parking, especially for his large car. He has to spend a ridiculous amount of money each day just to go to class as a result of the awful parking situation. He really would like something to be done about this.

Interview 2:

·      My next interviewee is someone who lives on campus and has a job off campus every day. She says she is always so rushed and has to sprint back to far locations after class in order to get to her car and to work in time. If there was better parking on campus, she would be able to park near classes and wouldn’t have to rush to her car just to be in time for work every day. This makes her extremely stressed and she has often skipped class because of the inconvenience.

Interview 3:

·      My third interview was someone from my home state at University of Maryland. I wanted to interview someone from another college to see if there is a similar need there as well. It seemed as if the problem was just as bad there as it is here. He often skips class due to the huge inconvenience of parking on campus. Their current solution to this issue is Ubering to campus for class.

Conclusion:

·      Based off the interviews, I know college parking is a serious need. Nearly everyone I spoke to show their passion for this issue. People are getting extremely frustrated by it which is resulting in students skipping class or having to pay expensive prices just for ride services to get to campus for class. Although everyone seems to have this issue, nothing seems to be done about it. I’m not if people are just too lazy to try to change the current situation or if they just don’t think anything can be done, but no one I talked to had any idea on how to solve the issue. Although this is a big need, I guess it is not big enough for large amounts of people to try and create change for this issue.

11A - Idea Napkin Number 1

My name is Aaron and I am a freshman business major from Potomac, Maryland. I am extremely passionate in helping others and I strive to live my life being as selfless as possible. I also consider myself a hard-working, driven and ambitious individual. I believe I am very creative and innovative and one day hope to make a difference in the world. I am a huge food fanatic and my biggest hate in life is waiting in line, thus where my business idea was born. If I were to actually start a business, I would see it having a large role in my life. I do everything with 100% of what I have in me and me never half-ass anything. Therefore, I would give it my all.

I am offering a product/app that will solve everyone’s favorite and least favorite things in life: food and lines! As humans we are extremely busy every day. Eating is a must to live, however most of us just want it to be a quick and easy activity especially during our busy weeks. Every day we walk and drive to restaurants only to find there is an hour-long wait. What now? We then either miss our plans for later that day since were waiting in line for hours or we are forced to skip a meal so we can get on with our lives. Either way doesn’t seem like a win to me With the New app “No wait”, all restaurants will have access to post the current wait time at their respected restaurant. These will be updated every 30 minutes, so people know the current wait times of that restaurant. It will be a $2 per month subscription fee for users which in the long run will save you money since time is money and with the amount of time you will be saving by using this app, you will be a millionaire in no time!

My customers could be literally anyone. Nearly all people go out to eat at some point and I can guarantee no one genuinely enjoys standing in lines. Although this app is meant for anyone, it is specific for those who are food fanatics but also hate lines. People with less patience would enjoy this app most.

It is as simple as time is money. People would much rather pay a few dollars a month rather than spending hours in lines every month. People could spend more time at work, with family, and with friends which ultimately could help save money in the long run.

I strive for success and I believe I care about others more than most business owners. I truly want the best for my customers, and I am not just worried about how much money I am making.

Conclusion:

Although I really do like my business concept, it is based on an app and I have no experience with coding/apps. Therefore, I am not sure how successful I would be with this concept. With apps, you typically would need to be more experienced with technology and coding as that is the forefront of the business. It may also be hard to convince restaurants to join the app unless we provide them with a large amount of money. I really do like my idea however after evaluating it more it doesn’t seem as feasible.

9A - testing the hypothesis part 2

Who: Everyone at the University of Florida has at least one thing in common and it’s that we are all Gators. With that being said, we are also all extremely different and unique individuals and what one person’s needs are may be completely different from another’s. After interviewing five people without cars, it seemed pretty clear that it made no different to them whether or not we had more on campus parking.

What: The needs differ from insiders to outsiders on one sole cause: whether or not they have cars/there friends have cars. If neither they nor their friends have cars, it makes no difference to them whether or not the on-campus parking is fixed.

Why: The underlying cause of the outsiders' need different than people who are inside the boundary is based on their affiliation to motor vehicles. If neither they nor their friends have cars, it makes no difference to them whether or not the on-campus parking is fixed. In fact, two of the individuals I interviewed actually said the complete opposite where they would rather the parking not be fixed as they enjoy how campus is so walkable and would prefer to keep cars out of the beautiful campus.

Inside the Boundary	Outside the Boundary
Who is in? Students with cars, students with friends/roommates who have cars, people with a higher disposable income.	Who is not? Students without cars and without friends with cars, people with less disposable income
What the need is? The need for more on-campus parking for students to be able to drive to class. Can be in the form of underground parking garages beneath buildings/dorms.	What the need is not? The need is clearly not met but all and is not a necessary aspect of college life. It would just add the convenience of the campus and of having a car.
Why the need exists? There are not nearly enough central campus parking spots. As a result, students are skipping class or are having to walk long distances just to learn.	Alternative explanations? Some people don’t see a need for more on-campus parking and are actually against the idea of adding more to preserve the campus’s beauty.

Assignment 10A - elevator pitch 1

https://youtu.be/nzYfogeH34c

8A – Solving The Problem

Solving the Problem

            My initial problem was the lack of parking at The University of Florida on campus. There are more parking passes granted than actual spots on campus, and the majority of the spots of not in a central part of campus. As a result, most people cannot drive to classes and when parking have to often park as far as a mile away from there dorm to get a spot. This is a large issue at UF and needs to be solved.

            A solution I have for this is to first of all, have UF stop giving out so many parking passes when there aren’t enough spots. They need to stop worrying about making money and start focusing more on the experience of the students. Next, I would make underground parking garages in central campus. Every dorm should have an underground parking garage that all residents of the dorm should be able to park in. Every time a building is being redone, which is often as there is nearly always a construction project on campus, there should be an underground parking garage built under that building.

            For example, I know Rawlings hall is being redone in the near future. This is a prime location for where an underground parking garage could be made. I am aware that this is a slow project, however if every building in the next five years that is redone is made with an underground parking garage, it will greatly help parking on campus.

            With underground parking, it does not distract from the beauty of campus as the garages would not be visible. Simultaneously, it will add thousands of parking spots in central campus. This will allow better parking for students, staff, and visitors. In addition, this will allow for UF to sell more spots and eventually may be able to remake the money it cost to build the underground garages.