Final Reflection

Final Reflection 

1) Read through your posts from this semester. Recall all of the experiences you've had a long the way -- the highs, the lows -- the fun moments, and the moments of drudgery, and even the moments of dread.

My favorite assignments this semester have been the ones where I have been able to be creative and brainstorm for the future and its endless possibilities. The worst assignments I thought were the elevator pitches. It is hard to hear and see yourself on camera. I always cringe when hearing myself on camera, so that was a bit difficult for me. The other challenge in the elevator pitches was the timing and remembering what to say. 

2) What sticks out to you as the most formative experience? The experience that you'll remember years later? What was your most joyous experience? What experience are you most proud of yourself for accomplishing?

The most formative assignment, in my opinion, was the unfair advantage assignment. Having to think of all the challenges to your possible future business was very difficult especially because it is really all make believe and I have never owned and operated my own business before. The Bug List was an interesting assignment and one that I will definitely remember mainly because of the name and the receptiveness of it. The aspect of this course I am the most proud of is being able to stay on top of all the assignments, as there were quite a few of them and due at different times. 

3) At the beginning of the semester, I mentioned that I wanted each of you to develop an entrepreneurial mindset. Now, at the end, do you see yourself as an entrepreneur? Do you think you have moved closer to developing an entrepreneurial mindset?

I definitely see myself now as someone who could potentially become an entrepreneur. I think it requires a lot of dedicated, hard work and planning but this class has given me a peek as to what to what it would be like and the challenges I would face. While I do not know if I would be ready to own and operate my own business anytime soon, I do think I would be interested in it down the line. 

4) What is the one recommendation you would make to the students who are going to journey down this path in the future? What would you recommend they do to perform best in this course? What would you recommend they do to foster that mindset?

My advice would to be to try and complete every assignment because none of them are impossible. Also time management is key, it served me best to pick one a day throughout the week to do my assignments so I wasn't being rushed on Friday and not completing my best work. 

Venture Concept No. 2

Food and Culture Festival
Opportunity:

• The opportunity I am presenting the community with is the idea of a company that will partner with elementary and middle schools in order to put on a food and culture festival that will introduce kids to cultures and ethnicities for all over the world. The environment most kids are in today does not expose them to cultures outside of their own mainly because peoples lives have become incredibly isolated to their own unit. Because there is seemingly a lack in kinds worldly knowledge this service will be extremely useful 
• The market will mainly be targeted to kids 5-13 and their parents, this is due to the fact that the festival id intended to be a family bonding experience held at local elementary and middle schools. The demographic will honestly depend on the demographic of the school the festival is being held at. 
• As far as I know now, this service is a completely unique one. Customers will not be presented with the opportunity to have to choose in-between my service and mother because it does not exist. 
• This opportunity is very big and will benefit a large group of people. While it will be targeting elementary/middle schoolers and their parents, anyone can attend. 
• In mind this will be something that is available as often as the school allows us to be of service. This means we could run a food and culture festival every month or just do it once a quarter. 

Innovation: 

The service that I have created is extremely innovative, a company that works in partnership with a school and the teachers lessons plans to provide a valuable learning and growth opportunity is one that does not exist today. Many parents may feel a responsibility to educate their children on the differences amount the various culture of the world but are either not quite sure of them theirselves or  do not have the time/resources to present that knowledge to their kids. This "event planning company" will have the time and money to dedicate to creating fun interactive stations providing food, games and learning opportunities all centered around a few closely related cultures in order to convey some worldly knowledge in a fun way. The best way we could turn a profit from this event would be to partner with the school and get paid directly through them, or charge a basic entrance fee that would supplement the costs. Each ticket price, if charged, would depend on the costs associated with planning the event. 

Venture Concept: 

• Because this opportunity does not yet exist I do not think it would be difficult getting people to "switch" over from not doing anything to really educate their kids on worldly concepts to instead attend regular culture festivals. The only main difficulty I would anticipate would be the very first event and convincing people that it will be not only beneficial but fun to attend. People are typically wary of trying new things but I believe they will be more inclined to attend  due to the face that it is run through the school and they would trust it. 
• There will be no real professional competitors to this opportunity. Like I have already mentioned this is a unique service/business that is not offered yet. The only competitors I would really have would be individual homes/parents who feel they do not need to attend the event because they can do  better job of teaching their kids about different cultures on their own. Or the parents who do not seem the benefit of it in the first place. 
• Customer support and and experience will play a very large role with the services offered by my business. If the customers do not enjoy or have a passion for food this experience may not seem beneficial in their eyes, when in reality food is just one way a culture can be easily transmitted to people. The event, while primarily food focused will have other elements of cultural learning tied in. The customer will need to be open minded and willing to try new things in order for the event to be successful. Along with an open mind support will be needed to continue to put-on these events. Parents will need to show that the value the idea and see it as beneficial. 
• My role would most likely be oversee and director of the event. The way duties would be delegated would be assigning teams and team leaders to individual components that would need to be completed for the event to be successful. teams would be broken up into set up/clean up, marketing, food preparation, booth workers, information gathers etc and from there the teams would work to get each specific task done. 

3 Minor Elements: 

1. My "secret sauce" that would allow for leverage over the competition is the fact that this service has no competition. There is no other company working to provide an opportunity to families to expose them in various cultures in the world. Once the event proves successful once, there is no stopping them from continuing. The trust the school board will also have with us will also be a great advantage. 
2. The next venture I would like to tackle, once the business roves successful, would be trademarking the name and franchising it out to states across the nation so that our mission can be spread. I think people across the country would benefit from more culture, but I cannot everywhere at once to assist with the set up. 
3. Due to the idea of franchising, I see my roll as the spokesperson of the company in 10 plus years. As spokesperson I will be the one promoting the company and bringing it to as many school that will hear by pitch. The idea of making this event a standard within American schools is the dream. Not only would it be great for the business but truly emulate the main goal of the company which is to educate families in a fun and interesting way. 

Feedback:
Overall, the feedback I have received in the duration of this course in regards to my business plan has really allowed me to analyze the exact market I plan on entering and the specific tactics I will need in order to be successful. The feedback has also made me see the future possibilities that await in this venture and the markets I did not expect to be apart of my business plan that can also be available. because of this feedback I will not just be limiting my venture concept to school but also business and established organizations.

Exit Strategy

1) Identify the exit strategy you plan to make. Do you intend to sell your business in the next 5 years for a large return? Do you intend to stay with the business for several decades and retire? Do you intend to protect the venture as a family business, and pass it down to your children?

Depending on the success and growth of the business, I may decide to make a career out of running it. As I discussed in the last few posts, I would love to expand the business into other states and make it a nation wide service. Because of my dreams of grandeur I think the best exit strategy for me would to retire at the end of my career and pass leadership over to the person who would know the company best and was most qualified to run it. 

2) Why have you selected this particular exit strategy?

I selected this strategy mainly because it felt like the most professional and logical thing to do. Of course, many things can change in the course of a businesses life but if the company becomes a franchise or a national name there are certain procedures that would have to be implemented. 

3) How do you think your exit strategy has influenced the other decisions you've made in your concept? For instance, has it influenced how you have identified an opportunity? Has it influenced your growth intentions or how you plan to acquire and use resources?

My exit strategy has influenced the other decisions I made within my concept by firming up my desire of wanting to expand. I think expansion would be the best next move and take the company to a whole other level. Due to the desire to expand I will most definitely need to recruit many more employees and set up an executive board to help make al decisions. 

Reading Reflection No.3

For my last reading reflection I chose The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users, by Guy Kawaski

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

This book talked about all the various uses and benefits of social media, apart form the common personal reasons people use it to post about themselves. It goes deeper into the self promotion, marketing and displacement functions that people should be taking advantage of rather than posting the same picture of your dog or where you vacationed this summer. 

2. How did, in your opinion, this book connect with and enhance what you are learning currently in ENT 3003? 

The book talked a lot about how to expand your business through the various uses of social media. This is right on track with what we have been covering in the class, especially with the many proposals of our own "future" business and how we would expand it. Social media today is the most prevalent strategy in expanding the reach and visibility of the business. 

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

I would probably ask for a mock of social media strategy plan. This would include which social media they would use, amount of posts, expected number of likes/shares and a strategy they would employ to increase the likes and shares each time. As a marketing major this is stuff I would most likely be needing to know/doing in my future career. So it will definitely be beneficial. 

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

My personal "aha" moment was when he started talking about feeding the "Content Monster", which is what they call the moment when you figure what type of content it is that you need to be posting on your social media accounts. I liked the term they used and how it was a play on words for a real need. 

Celebrating Failure

This semester I have been trying to stick to a regimented eating and diet schedule, that I have started and failed multiple times. Overall, I am known to be a pretty healthy eater but recently with my hectic schedule and increased events it has been harder for me to remain on a constant health streak. I first started this diet in the beginning of October and have struggled to complete one successful week of the program. Each week there seems to be something, and event or another temptation, pulling me to the "dark side" of unhealthy foods. Week after week I say I will have a fresh start on Monday and get back on track yet once the weekend rolls around I tend to let the ball drop.

Through these failures I learned that I need to work on my self control. College is full of temptations and it is easy to get sucked into things that may not be beneficial with to your life. It is important to remember that while things may sound great in the moment they may cause more lasting hurt than good in the moment. I learned that maybe a strict diet is not the best thing for me, and to maybe start with a smaller goal such as a more flexible diet that would allow me to slowly ween of the temptations.

Why failure can be a hard pill to swallow it can also be a big learning curve. The biggest thing in failure is the story and the lessons that come out of it. As it was mentioned in the prompt,  Edision failed over 1,000 times when creating the lightbulb but learned from the failure. After failing it can be very easy to let your stress and emotions get the best of you, I have wanted to throw in the towel and give up many times myself. Giving up is the worst idea when it comes to failure, the best thing you can do is push through it and use it to your advantage. There are always lessons to be learned whenever you try something new.

Whats Next?

Existing Market:

• In terms of my current market, I think what should come next is trying to infiltrate as many school systems as possible. I would like to cover multiple states not just Florida and the areas that are easy for me to reach. My expanding into more states I think we could create more of a name for ourselves and ultimately impact more people. 
• After talking to some parents who would already be included in my target market, they  gave me the feedback of trying to expand outside of just elementary and middle schools. They informed me that churches and maybe even big office companies would appreciate events like this. They thought it would be a good way to promote something beneficial to their employees or members who may be more secluded within their daily lies. One person in particular informed me that companies may specifically like the idea as they are always trying to promote diversity and not get pegged to secluding any types of ethnicities. Once I told them about my initial thought/plans for expansion, they agreed that more states would be good but it could not hurt to expand my target audience. 
• After taking into accountant the responses I got and thinking about my future I think the plan for my business should be to start off expanding into more states. Once I am able to measure the success had in different geographical climates I can then decide if expanding my target audience would be worth it. My first step to expand into another state would probably go to one where I already have connection, as an entrepreneur your own personal and business success is very close tied with who you know. Getting your foot in the door is typically the foot step to pursuing something great. I would most likely reach out to someone of my contacts in New York, my mom taught there for 10 years before moving down to Florida and has a lot of established relationships with school board members in the county she used to be employed. From there I would utilize her contacts and make my way ti the School Board Superintendent, pitch my idea and show her examples of the past success and the effects it has made n the community. Hopefully, this will be successful and the business can grow form there. I would continue to network and expand the business to other school counties in order to keep growing. The more connections I am able to make the better. After then impacting at least 5 states and measuring the overall success rates within each community, I would decide to open up the opportunity to other businesses and organizations that were interested. 

New Market: 

• As I mentioned earlier the new market I would consider targeting would be well established businesses looking to encourage, promote and celebrate diversity within their company through the my businesses culture festivals. This would target an extremely different group of people than my original market, by going directly to businesses there is a chance most of them will not be parents but young professionals who are extremely work focused. This is a stark comparison to the K-8th grade students I was originally trying to inform. 
• This entirely new market, I believe, will find value in the idea of food and culture festival mainly because it will be a well deserved break from their already hectic work day and honor some of the cultures that are possibly already displayed in their office. I think company executives will primarily value this opportunity because they are constantly under a microscope making sure they are taking appropriate measures to increase diversity. There are many laws regulating employment discrimination when it comes to race, gender and age. Because of this I think businesses executives will think providing their workers with an opportunity to be exposed too many cultures in a fun and discrete way will make their business look better as a whole. 
• For my first interview I decided to reach out to my uncle who is the CEO and runs his own company with over 100 employees. I explained to him the concept of my business and the service it would offer and asked if it was something that his company or one like his would be interested in partnering with a few times over the year. He immediately responded saying that while he thought it was a great opportunity to expose his employees to more cultural diversity and shed a positive light on his company within the community, I would have to change a few aspects of the service first. He did not want it to feel too gimmicky, I would be dealing with grown adult who would most likely not enjoy little games that were meant to be educational. He did however love the food aspect. The second person I interviewed was the VP of a success marketing firm here in Gainesville. After giving them the same run down I gave my Uncle their response was pretty similar. They loved the idea but definitely wanted it more catered to their adult employees. They also thought this would be a great event to run on their lunch hour not a whole separate event. 
• Reflecting on my interviews and original ideas, I think that this market would be a great one to get involved with. It makes sense to change the event slightly to cater more to the adult professional demographic, and the changes would not be hard to make. The idea of making it more food centered would also attract more people, especially if the event would go on at the business during their lunch hour because people who aren't necessarily interested in the event itself would be interested in getting lunch. I also learned that diversity and promoting various cultural groups is extremely important in employment today. Title X11 laws and employment discrimination groups are quick to attack business that seemingly are not complying with their laws. Business owners today are always looking for news ways to appear more culturally diverse to the community in order to avoid harassment claims, so by using my services they would be able to shed a positive light other business while also satisfying their employees and future prospects. 

Venture Concept No. 1

Business name: The World to You
Opportunity:

• The opportunity I am presenting the community with is the idea of a company that will partner with elementary and middle schools in order to put on a food and culture festival that will introduce kids to cultures and ethnicities for all over the world. The environment most kids are in today does not expose them to cultures outside of their own mainly because peoples lives have become incredibly isolated to their own unit. Because there is seemingly a lack in kinds worldly knowledge this service will be extremely useful 
• The market will mainly be targeted to kids 5-13 and their parents, this is due to the fact that the festival id intended to be a family bonding experience held at local elementary and middle schools. The demographic will honestly depend on the demographic of the school the festival is being held at. 
• As far as I know now, this service is a completely unique one. Customers will not be presented with the opportunity to have to choose in-between my service and mother because it does not exist. 
• This opportunity is very big and will benefit a large group of people. While it will be targeting elementary/middle schoolers and their parents, anyone can attend. 
• In mind this will be something that is available as often as the school allows us to be of service. This means we could run a food and culture festival every month or just do it once a quarter. 

Innovation: 

The service that I have created is extremely innovative, a company that works in partnership with a school and the teachers lessons plans to provide a valuable learning and growth opportunity is one that does not exist today. Many parents may feel a responsibility to educate their children on the differences amount the various culture of the world but are either not quite sure of them theirselves or  do not have the time/resources to present that knowledge to their kids. This "event planning company" will have the time and money to dedicate to creating fun interactive stations providing food, games and learning opportunities all centered around a few closely related cultures in order to convey some worldly knowledge in a fun way. The best way we could turn a profit from this event would be to partner with the school and get paid directly through them, or charge a basic entrance fee that would supplement the costs. Each ticket price, if charged, would depend on the costs associated with planning the event. 

Venture Concept: 

• Because this opportunity does not yet exist I do not think it would be difficult getting people to "switch" over from not doing anything to really educate their kids on worldly concepts to instead attend regular culture festivals. The only main difficulty I would anticipate would be the very first event and convincing people that it will be not only beneficial but fun to attend. People are typically wary of trying new things but I believe they will be more inclined to attend  due to the face that it is run through the school and they would trust it. 
• There will be no real professional competitors to this opportunity. Like I have already mentioned this is a unique service/business that is not offered yet. The only competitors I would really have would be individual homes/parents who feel they do not need to attend the event because they can do  better job of teaching their kids about different cultures on their own. Or the parents who do not seem the benefit of it in the first place. 
• Customer support and and experience will play a very large role with the services offered by my business. If the customers do not enjoy or have a passion for food this experience may not seem beneficial in their eyes, when in reality food is just one way a culture can be easily transmitted to people. The event, while primarily food focused will have other elements of cultural learning tied in. The customer will need to be open minded and willing to try new things in order for the event to be successful. Along with an open mind support will be needed to continue to put-on these events. Parents will need to show that the value the idea and see it as beneficial. 
• My role would most likely be oversee and director of the event. The way duties would be delegated would be assigning teams and team leaders to individual components that would need to be completed for the event to be successful. teams would be broken up into set up/clean up, marketing, food preparation, booth workers, information gathers etc and from there the teams would work to get each specific task done. 

3 Minor Elements: 

1. My "secret sauce" that would allow for leverage over the competition is the fact that this service has no competition. There is no other company working to provide an opportunity to families to expose them in various cultures in the world. Once the event proves successful once, there is no stopping them from continuing. The trust the school board will also have with us will also be a great advantage. 
2. The next venture I would like to tackle, once the business roves successful, would be trademarking the name and franchising it out to states across the nation so that our mission can be spread. I think people across the country would benefit from more culture, but I cannot everywhere at once to assist with the set up. 
3. Due to the idea of franchising, I see my roll as the spokesperson of the company in 10 plus years. As spokesperson I will be the one promoting the company and bringing it to as many school that will hear by pitch. The idea of making this event a standard within American schools is the dream. Not only would it be great for the business but truly emulate the main goal of the company which is to educate families in a fun and interesting way. 

3 Minor Elements: 

1. My "secret sauce" that would allow for leverage over the competition is the fact that this service has no competition. There is no other company working to provide an opportunity to families to expose them in various cultures in the world. Once the event proves successful once, there is no stopping them from continuing. The trust the school board will also have with us will also be a great advantage. 
2. The next venture I would like to tackle, once the business roves successful, would be trademarking the name and franchising it out to states across the nation so that our mission can be spread. I think people across the country would benefit from more culture, but I cannot everywhere at once to assist with the set up. 
3. Due to the idea of franchising, I see my roll as the spokesperson of the company in 10 plus years. As spokesperson I will be the one promoting the company and bringing it to as many school that will hear by pitch. The idea of making this event a standard within American schools is the dream. Not only would it be great for the business but truly emulate the main goal of the company which is to educate families in a fun and interesting way. 

Feedback:
Overall, the feedback I have received in the duration of this course in regards to my business plan has really allowed me to analyze the exact market I plan on entering and the specific tactics I will need in order to be successful. The feedback has also made me see the future possibilities that await in this venture and the markets I did not expect to be apart of my business plan that can also be available. because of this feedback I will not just be limiting my venture concept to school but also business and established organizations.