Final Reflection

I have had plenty of new experiences during the course of this semester. I have never had a class that was run like this before and it required me to stay on top of all of my work. There were plenty of times I felt like not doing the work and really dreaded some of the assignments. There was a lot more moments of drudgery than fun but the class taught me a few things for sure.

The most formative experience this semester was interviewing random people about whether they would use my product and what they thought of my idea. I will remember doing these interviews for a while because it made me think on my feet and take criticism. I have to say I enjoyed doing the elevator pitches because all the attempts taught me how to progress when giving pitches. I am definitely most proud of not giving up. There were a lot of assignments in this class and it took a lot of effort to keep up with it all.

I don't see see myself as an entrepreneur yet. Although I learned a lot and definitely developed an entrepreneurial mindset I still think my venture has to come into fruition to consider myself an entrepreneur. I want to be still and am striving to be but I don't believe I am there yet.

 My biggest recommendation would have to be to get ahead of the schedule for when work is due. I found myself rushing assignments too often and it made me stress and not produce the best assignments. I would recommend to finish assignments a week or two before they are due so you don't have to stress. To foster this mindset of getting ahead I recommend jumping on the assignments from week 1. Do not wait at all and just start working hard from the start. Tell yourself that you will never get behind and that you will not rush your assignments.

Week 15 Reading Reflection

1) What was the biggest surprise for you in the reading? In other words, what did you read that stood out the most as different from your expectations? 

I was surprised by how the base of the pyramid is so successful and how it is profitable. I can definitely see the top of the pyramid being able to be profitable but did not realize that the bottom can make just as much.

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

I found the description of how the base of the pyramid can be so profitable confusing. If they are working with people with no money how does that equate to success.

3) If you were able to ask two questions to the author, what would you ask? Why?

1. What are the success rates of startups that cater to the poor vs the ones that cater to the wealthy? I would want to know this because there are more poor people but I would want to have clients and customers that have money.

2. Do you think micro financing is a form of exporting the poor? Business models that try and make large amounts of money form the poor can be seen as unethical.

4) Was there anything you think the author was wrong about? Where do you disagree with what she or he said? How?

I do not believe the author was wrong about anything in this section of the book. I agreed with most everything he had to say and actually found this section more interesting than mist others.

Elevator Pitch No.4

Again, I took the feedback from my last pitch and applied it to this one. This time I spoke much slower , because last time I went way too fast and I also decided to sit down, because one commenter had mentioned that my camera was moving last time and that I was swaying. I definitely progressed from my first pitch to my last but I still have a lot of learning to do. Im glad these are over now, but I hope I have to do many more in the future.

Week 14 Reading Reflection

1) What was the biggest surprise for you in the reading? In other words, what did you read that stood out the most as different from your expectations? 

 I was somewhat surprised to hear how important social entrepreneurship and having social support was. I knew social support is important and has been mentioned previously but the author stressed it more than normal in this section.

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

 Although some of the vocabulary was new to me, I took my time reading it and nothing was very confusing to me in this section. The charts and explanations were good enough to make things seem clear.

3) If you were able to ask two questions to the author, what would you ask? Why?

1.) In today's age do you think a new business should create a strong social support system before other support systems, especially if there is only enough time to create one quickly?    I would ask this because today many things are social but not everyone has the time and capital to support a social team.

2.) Do you believe ethical dilemmas are becoming more frequent in today's age or have they always been around?  There are more people and ideas now and more people that your business may affect.

4) Was there anything you think the author was wrong about? Where do you disagree with what she or he said? How?

I don't think the author was wrong about anything in this section. He explained most concepts thoroughly and really didn't have many strong opinions that differed from my own. I would say I agreed on most things mentioned in this section.

Very Short Interview, Part 2

Looking back at my first short Interview with entrepreneur Frank Howell, I think it went real well and I can say that his answers to may questions made me think more about what being an entrepreneur means. The first question I asked Frank was what advice he would give to a young entrepreneur. He told me to take risks. After everything this course has taught me, I still think that nothing will ever come from anything unless you take risks. I knew this already, but I'm glad I could here it from another entrepreneur during that interview. 

For this second short interview, I talked with Frank on the phone and asked him a few more questions. This time my questions were based around being an entrepreneur and not about becoming one:

Me: How do you keep yourself motivated and wanting to grow your business?

Frank (paraphrased): Its not hard when this company is what I like to do and is what pays my bills. I am not just working for myself, but since I am the owner, I am working for my employees, my family and my employees families. Knowing that they enjoy the company they work for and that my customers enjoy the services we provide makes me happy and motivated to keep doing what I'm doing.

Me: Do you ever have other business ideas or concepts that you know could work but are too busy with your current company that you can't pursue them?

Frank (paraphrased): Yes, I have had several concepts that I would have loved to pursue during my career. When I took the risk and started my fencing business I was committed 100%. I am still committed fully to my company now and we are doing well enough to where I don't have to start another business. I think it would have been fun to run with some of my other ideas, but I am happy where my company is now and am glad I didn't give up on it.

Me: What is the biggest perk of owning and running your own company?

Frank (paraphrased): I never liked listening to other people and being commanded to do things. The best part about being the boss is having no one tell you what to do. I end up working harder because I don't have a boss. Because the company is mine, the success of it is directly correlated to how hard I work. So I work real hard, but i work for myself and my family.

Over the course of this class, I have definitely gained some good communication skills. I have realized that entrepreneurs must be good listeners but not let any opinion get in the way of them reaching their goals. Communicating with people and gaining knowledge from others takes some guts and I think I am more willing to reach out to people now than three months ago. Frank did not mention anything about me progressing from the last time I spoke with him, but he told me stay motivated. I personally think I am progressing and am glad where I am at. 

Reading Reflection

1) What was the biggest surprise for you in the reading? In other words, what did you read that stood out the most as different from your expectations? 

The Roll Up Frenzy story was surprising. I have not heard of those stories and deals before and did not know that had happened.

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

One part that was slightly confusing was the section on valuation and pricing techniques. I have studied how business are valued before, but the way the author explained it in this section was different and a little confusing.

3) If you were able to ask two questions to the author, what would you ask? Why?

Is there a way to know what valuation method to use based on what type of company is being valued?

- I would ask this so I know which method would be best at valuing my business.

What is the average difference in the valuation price from in house valuations and third party valuations?

- It would be an interesting thing to know, and to see by how much people over price their businesses.

4) Was there anything you think the author was wrong about? Where do you disagree with what she or he said? How?

I do not think the author was wrong about anything is this section. He explained everything pretty clearly. I just wish he went into more detail on the valuation methods and when specifically they are used.

Celebrating Failure

This past semester, I failed to get into the shape that wanted to at New Years. At the beginning of the year I set a goal for myself to workout consistently and get get into great shape for the summer. Although I worked out frequently, I did not reach my goals for the body I wanted at this point in time. I did not get in worse shape but simply did not get to where I wanted to be. The main reason I didn't reach my goal was because I would find excuses for not going to the gym and would not push myself hard enough to diet correctly. From this failure, I learned that it is hard to push myself sometimes and sometimes I need a little motivation to help me.  I also learned that it is very hard to keep a strictly healthy diet and that I must change my habits if I want to see results. 

Failure is hard to come back from sometimes. When you expect to succeed yet fail, it is hard to get back up and keep pushing forward. Failure can halt you from progressing and reaching your goals. Personally, I do not like to fail at all and I admit that sometimes, I will avoid failure. Avoiding failure is not a good thing to do and I have to work on this trait. If we recognize failure, it can have many teaching points. Learning how to accept failure and keep moving in stride is a great trait to have and can help you reach your goals faster. 

Over the course of this semester, this class has taught me that big ideas come with big failures and that if you want to achieve many goals in life there will be many obstacles that try and make you fail. Starting a business takes a lot of guts and accepting that failure is part of the process is the right mindset to have.

My Exit Strategy

After thinking of all the options for how to exit the venture, I can see myself selling the company down the road to a mother company who would make it grow more in the future. I can not say how many years it would take to get to the point of a sale, but the business would have to be worth enough money that would allow me to start my next venture. The main reason I would sell my venture would be to get cash to start my next venture. I hope that in years down the road I will still be very dedicated to being an entrepreneur. 

The exit strategy, I believe has not influenced the decisions in my concept too much. The main goal of the venture is to create the best possible product that can be used by the most people possible. The exit strategy does affect how the concept is marketed, because if I wanted to exit earlier, the company would need to have more users earlier. Deciding the timeline of the exit strategy and not so much the strategy itself is very important for making decisions now. The overall growth plan of the company should be to grow at a steady but string pace and keep users on board. Exit strategies are very important to have early on and I hope I get to go through with one one day.

What's Next

I think what's next for my business concept is a sure way to make the service more useable for a wider range of people. The target market I had been trying to hit was local neighborhood communities with houses that have room for people to grow fresh produce. I am trying to expand to more and bigger markets so I can reach a larger audience. The new market I concluded would be people in densely populated cities that do not have neighbors that can feasibly grow fresh fruit and vegetables.

Existing Market:

So as mentioned, my existing market is one consisting of people living in suburban neighborhood communities where houses have yards with enough room to grow produce in.

Based off the feedback I got from these interviews, I think the best way to make this service useable for the most amount of people is to make it easy enough for older people to use and make it actively help the users find fruit they want, even when they are not using the app. Older people have more free time and are more able to grow fresh gardens in their yards, however they are not always tech savvy and could not use a sophisticated app or website to sell their fruit. Fixing this problem would create more sellers and more buyers.
Also, making the app help the user, even when the user is not using the app, it would push users to check the app more often and drive more sales. The convenience of having the app help you would also be  a great addition that would get more people to download the app.


New Market:

As mentioned above the new market that I investigate in these interviews is one consisting of people living in densely populated cities that do not have neighbors who grow produce. The cities make it unfeasible to grow fresh vegetables and fruit, but with some help, I think I can get this market to still use the app. In one interview I spoke with a women who is does not care about how fresh produce is or whether r not it is organic. These type of people are also part of a new market that I could potentially hit.

So non of the people who I interviewed for the new market wanted to be visually recorded. I wonder if that has any correlation to the market they are in or their living situation? After these interviews I concluded that the app and website should have features that would be able to show not only local users who are selling fruit, but local farmers markets and produce stands that are willing to be listed. In cities there are plenty of produce stands and shops and not any individual sellers, so buy listing these shops, I could reach people who have historically shopped in these stores and are looking for new options.
Another good idea that came from these interviews was one that would compare the asking price to the local grocery store price for the same piece of produce. By letting users see where they can get their produce from for a cheaper price, it would create an incentive for them to use the app and shop locally, assuming the local prices are cheaper than the commercial store prices.


After all of these interviews and speaking with these individuals, I really think some great new ideas came forward and I'm looking forward to what's next!

Week 12 Reading Reflection

1) What was the biggest surprise for you in the reading? In other words, what did you read that stood out the most as different from your expectations? 

It surprises me to hear how many times entrepreneurs fail to make time and take the effort to create a thorough strategic plan. A goo strategic plan is key and yet many people do not put as much effort into this.

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

 The entrepreneur Strategic Matrix was confusing at first glance. There was a lot going on with the strategic strategies. It just took time to understand what it all meant.

3) If you were able to ask two questions to the author, what would you ask? Why?

1. What is the biggest reason that entrepreneurs do not make a good strategic plan and run out of time? Since so many people make the mistake, I would like to know why and how they make the mistake.
2. How much should the Strategic plan be shifting and changing arms over the course of the first few years of a company? With changing products and markets, I would like to know when and how to change the plan.

4) Was there anything you think the author was wrong about? Where do you disagree with what she or he said? How?

I did not think the Author was wrong about anything in this chapter. He explained every concept pretty thoroughly and made it easy to understand.