28A – Your Exit Strategy

1.     For my exit strategy, I plan to sell my company to a larger company and let the company be merged with another similar one. For this, I hope to receive a large return as a result of selling my company.

2.     Although I do enjoy everything I have done with this company, I really do not see this as how I want to spend the rest of my life. When looking into the future, I see a lot of things, but this is definitely not one of them! I hope to use the money I made from selling this company to start a family and eventually be able to start a job that I actually would be happy doing and spending the rest of my working years pursuing!

3.     I think I have thought about my exit strategy a lot both on purpose and not on purpose while planning out my company and its opportunities. For example, nearly every opportunity of growth I talked about had been connected with someone else/a larger business. This is because I wanted to make connections with larger corporations and other businesses to grow my company and one day eventually fully sell my business to one of the businesses I am involved with/partnered with. By making these connections and partnerships early on with other businesses, It would be much easier to sell my business in about 5 years or so for a large amount of money!

27A – Reading Reflection No. 3

The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users, Guy Kawasaki

1)    What was the general theme or argument of the book?

The general theme/argument of The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users, Guy Kawasaki is the relationship between social media and the growing business world. Guy emphasizes how to build a strong social media in order to get the most out of it and based off how well you make your social media, there are different levels of success you can accomplish from it. It really is just a book teaching about the various ways social media can positively impact a business and how it can help grow a company.

2)    How did the book, in your opinion, connect with and enhance what you are learning in ENT 3003?

This book greatly connected and enhanced what we learned in entrepreneurship. This book greatly related to expanding your network and social capital which has been ah huge aspect of ENT 3003. We even have to submit all our assignments in a blog, which is a form of social media, showing how even in this class, social media is very important. In addition, many people’s business concept was based off apps, which definitely corresponds to social media.

3)    If you had to design an exercise for this class, based on the book you read, what would that exercise involve?

If I were to base an assignment for this class on the book I read, I would probably have students create a social media account for their product. Nearly all businesses advertise through social media accounts such as Instagram and Facebook, so I would have students experiment with the same. I have friends at the University of Michigan who had to do this assignment and it ended up being very successful and a very good learning opportunity. The goal of this assignment would be to see how other students would react to the posts and see how customers would like the business,

4)    What was your biggest surprise or 'aha' moment when reading the book? In other words, what did you learn that differed most from your expectations?

My biggest surprise or ‘aha’ moment was when Kawasaki was talking about how social media can be used and perfected by anyone, not just experts. Just by being an active user, your social media presence can be greatly grown and strengthened. I thought this was super cool as not a lot of things can be done well or perfected by people with no real education on the topic. I was also surprised when he talked about how sometimes it is better to post stuff the customer wants to see rather than what the company wants to post. This seems to be going against your intuition which doesn’t seem like a practical thing to be, but what do I know.

26A – Celebrating Failure

1.     A time I failed this semester was in one of my other classes I am currently taking, called financial accounting (I am sure many of you are familiar with the class). I knew this was a difficult class, however I do not think I fully understood the caliber of tis courses difficulty. For the first exam, I did not do nearly as well as I would have hoped to do on a college exam. It was the first exam of the course and it did not set me on a good path for the rest of the semester. I relied on study edge too much for studying and did not do nearly enough practice problems. I also waited too long to start studying. This was my first real hard class I’ve taken at college, so I definitely wasn’t prepared, and it was a bit of a wakeup call.

2.     As I previously mentioned, this exam was a wakeup call for me. It made me realize I am in college now, not high school and I cannot BS my way through courses anymore. This is the real league and I need to do my best and study hard for all exams. I also learned I cannot rely primarily on external things such as study edge and that I need to begin studying at least one week prior to the exam. I ended up learning my lesson as for the first exam, I fully followed my new approach and ended up doing much better on the second exam! I am happy I failed once early on in my college career so that from now on going forward, I can take what I learned from failure and apply it so that I can now succeed.

3.     Failure really sucks but it is a necessary component of life. Everyone grows from failure and without failure, no one would get better or master anything. Although failing is definitely hard, you have to take a different perspective on it and instead of getting mad about failing, you should reflect on it to see how you can grow from it and how you can improve in the future. I think this course has helped me see failure as a more positive thing rather than negative. I also believe the things I learned in this course  make me more excited for risks which usually results in more failure, but then results in more growth as well!

25A – What’s Next?

Existing Market. 

Step 1: I honestly do not know what is next for my venture. I am currently just focusing on making this product, taking it one day at a time.

Step 2: Interviews cancelled 

Step 3: Although I did not get to do any customer interviews, I was able to brainstorm for myself and pretend I had customer interviews to do this assignment! I think the main goal I need to accomplish is to just go through with actually designing the app and making it a real concept. Once I design the app, I will need to go to restaurants to actually make the app work.

Once doing this, I can focus on expanding my existing market. Some ideas I have are advertising. Create a social media account to advertise. Social media now-a-days is the best way to advertise. I can also ask restaurants to help advertise for me at their locations. In addition, I need to try to expand to all different types of restaurants ranging from all different cuisines. This way, everyone will feel a need to use this business idea.

New Market.

Step 1: My different market would be people over the age of 60 years.

Step 2: Old people don’t have a ton more time to live so they don’t want to waste the little time they have left waiting in lines to get food (sorry that is kind of derepressing)

Step 3: Because of covid-19 I did not get to interview people, but I did the best I could to imagine what they would say. They would want the app to be simple to use as older people tend to have issues with technology as they are not used to it as much as the younger generations. That was the main concern they had. They also don’t get fast food often but would enjoy the app to work for sit-down restaurants as well.

Step 4:  I still do not think this new market is as attractive as my current market. They expressed concerns about how to use the app and even if I make it extremely easy to use, I think some may still have issues with it. In addition, the restaurants on the app are mainly for fast food type restaurants and they expressed that they don’t go to fast food restaurants anymore

Although they may not be my idea customers, I think a decent amount of them would still enjoy the app so I would not want to exclude their desires on the app by any means. My expectation/assumptions were about 50% correct I’d say.

24A – Venture Concept No. 1

Opportunity:

How many times have you gone to chipotle for dinner and said to yourself “hey you know I love waiting in hour long lines!” … that’s what I thought. Now, what if I told you that you would never need to wait in a long line again. Seems intriguing right. 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. In today’s day and age, it seems that almost everyone is in a rush as all times. However, some people are busier than others. My product would relate mostly too college students, as well as the working class, mostly those who work long hours and also have families to care for. I believe this is a very large opportunity that is open here and I know there is nothing similar currently on the market, making it an even better opportunity. This window of opportunity may not be open long as hundreds of apps are added to the app store every single day!

Innovation:

Especially today when fast food is such a large aspect of life, this concept is very important. The concept of fast food literally has the word “fast” in it, so when you are going to one of those restaurants, you are not expecting to wait in 30-minute lines. With my app, you will never have to do that again. This app will tell you how long (estimated) the line is at every restaurant in town. It will be updated by restaurant workers hourly, so it stays current and up to date. With this, you will know which restaurants are super crowded and which are empty. With that, you will know exactly how long it will take you to get your food. If you are in a rush, you will go somewhere that doesn’t have a long line. If you aren’t in a rush but do not want to wait in long lines because you hate lines like me, you will just keep checking the app until the line starts to decrease, and then you will go to that restaurant to get your food. Nothing is worse than driving to a restaurant only to find the line is too long and you don’t have time to wait. With this app, that will never happen again.

This concept can be a huge money maker. To download the app will be free, and there will be a one-month free trial for everyone. After the free trial, it will charge a monthly subscription fee (I haven’t decided exactly how much yet, but probably around $4.99). Restaurants would also get a certain amount of profit for joining the app. They will either get a certain amount of the profits, or a monthly payment, I still haven’t figured out the details. The goal is that enough restaurants join the business and enough people download the app so that both me, the businesses, and the people who use the app all profit in the end.

Venture Concept:

            As I previously mentioned with this app you will know which restaurants are super crowded and which are empty. With that, you will know exactly how long it will take you to get your food. If you are in a rush, you will go somewhere that doesn’t have a long line. If you aren’t in a rush but do not want to wait in long lines because you hate lines like me, you will just keep checking the app until the line starts to decrease, and then you will go to that restaurant to get your food. I am hoping this app one day turns into something as common as checking how long it takes to drive somewhere using apple/good maps/waze. Since there is no other product like this, I wouldn’t have to convince people to switch from another one to mine, which definitely gives me an advantage. I have no competitors.

            For my concept, I really wouldn’t need too many employees at first. To start off, I would need one or two people to design the app. As time goes on and the app gets more popular, then maybe I would need to hire more to keep the app up to date and working well. I would need a few other people to drive around to restaurants in order to get that restaurant to join the business. I would then need someone to write out the contracts, and one person to figure out the finances of paying each business back/recording money.

The Three Minor Elements:

            My most important resource is the competition. A businesses hardest task is convincing the public to switch to their business from another. Lucky for me, there is nothing currently available that is similar to this, thus I will not have other competition, making it my “unfair advantage”. I honestly do not know what is next for my venture. I am currently just focusing on making this product, taking it one day at a time. In five years, I don’t even know if this product will still exist. It would be great if it did, however I wouldn’t be surprised of it didn’t. I’m just a college freshman. In five years, I would have just barely graduated and will probably be trying to make it by myself in the real world.

23A – Your Venture’s Unfair Advantage

Resources of my venture:

1. Employees

a. Valuable: very valuable to get the business going

b. Rare: Depending on where you are located (cities/college towns it’s probably easier). Can be rare at the beginning of the start-up to have many employees

c. Inimitable: Anyone can find employees, but they might not be good ones

d. Non-substitutable: No, you need employees to start a business

2. Funding

a. Valuable: Very important for a start-up

b. Rare: not too rare; depends on your idea/who you are

c. Inimitable: You can’t really copy funding, but anyone can copy the amount of funding I guess

d. Non-substitutable: No not really. Money is money so if you don’t have it there’s not really any other options

3. Customer loyalty

a. Valuable: very valuable

b. Rare: Rare but once you have it not too hard to keep. Usually builds itself

c. Inimitable: Not inimitable, but anyone can have it with time.

d. Non-substitutable: No!

4. Equipment

a. Valuable: valuable in making the product

b. Rare: not rare, most people have computers

c. Inimitable: Most people have computers, but do they have the correct ones to program apps?

d. Non-substitutable: yes, there are other resources

5. insurance

a. Valuable: very import

b. Rare: not rare

c. Inimitable: not hard

d. Non-substitutable: essential to have business insurance

6. Good Management

a. Valuable: important for employees and businesses

b. Rare: not too rare, but very nice to have

c. Inimitable: not hard if you know the right person

d. Non-substitutable: yes, human resources. The more people you know the better chance of finding someone to be a good manager.

7. Educational resource

a. Valuable: it is essential to know your industry

b. Rare: rare to find people that are professionals in it and willing to work/help you.

c. Inimitable: Hard to find people with the necessary skills/knowledge

d. Non-substitutable: Anyone can technically go to school/college to learn the necessary educational resources.

8. Organizational culture

a. Valuable: very valuable

b. Rare: not too rare but definitely very good to have in order to succeed

c. Inimitable: Unique for every company

d. Non-substitutable: No, you must create this on your own

9. partnerships

a. How Valuable: very valuable

b. How Rare: rare and hard to form

c. Inimitable: all about relationships with others and personal skills

d. Non-substitutable: yes, many partnerships available but still hard to actually get

10. Little Competition

a. Valuable: Extremely

b. Rare: very rare

c. Inimitable: It isn’t. Very hard to get. Most businesses have competition as competition is in nearly every industry

d. Non-substitutable: Anyone can technically make an industry that is new without competition, but it is very difficult to find/make.

My most important resource is the competition. A businesses hardest task is convincing the public to switch to their business from another. Lucky for me, there is nothing currently available that is similar to this, thus I will not have other competition, making it my “unfair advantage”.

22A – Elevator Pitch No. 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fQS2BAY5Y8&feature=youtu.be

On my last elevator pitch, I received mostly positive feedback and some negative feedback as well. It seemed pretty consistent that my peers really like my attention getter. They also mentioned how I was very descriptive which allowed them to paint a mental picture of my solution/problem in their head. The negative feedback was that I should just choose one solution and hone in on that one. I also need a better, less abrupt ending.

I tried to do all the positive things that I did in my last class and I tried to incorporate some of the other things that my peer said I could improve upon, such as choosing one solution to hone in on rather than multiple. I also tried to add a better, less abrupt ending.