Week 15 Reading Reflection

Something that surprised me was that the business was attacked for trying to convert people to Christianity. I could see attacking a business for not following religious law (taxing the poor, for example) but not converting people to Christianity.

Something that confused me was what exactly the attackers thought this business was doing to think they were trying to convert people to Christianity.

Two questions I have are 1. Did the owner think about leaving after this attack or 2. Did he consider changing his practice of what was considered conversion to alleviate misunderstandings?

There is nothing I disagreed with the author about.

Final Reflection

1. It was a real struggle coming up with my human capital. I'm not good at bragging about myself. It was also difficult thinking about my next move and exit strategies, because I never thought my idea was going to need to be as fleshed out as it was. It was very frustrating to have so many assignments that required interviews. Being in a place I knew nothing about, I felt it more a risk to try to interview random people. But I was honest in not completing the assignments, then I go to comment on posts and see people with "interviews" that did not seem legitimate. I could have easily faked interviews with people and gotten points. I just chose to have integrity about it. 

2. The actual blogging aspect. I used to have a sports blog a few years back and all the blogging here inspired me to start it back up. The fact that the blogs served not only as a place for assignments, but also a place for commentary, showed me my potential in blogging about things I was actually passionate about: sports.

3. No. I don't see myself as an entrepreneur. I have maybe developed a more business savvy mindset, but I never intended to become an entrepreneur after this class and that hasn't changed.

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?

4. Make sure they know that they're going to have to interview strangers. I can't stress this enough. If I had known I was going to have to interview people, I would have taken the class while I was in Gainesville where I was in a more comfortable environment and my hours were more flexible so I wasn't having to go interview people after work at 6 at night. I would recommend to keep pushing themselves to be successful. There are a lot of assignments, but if you sit down for an hour or two, you can knock out a lot of them and be worry free for a week or so.

My face once I complete this semester.

Venture Concept No. 2

Part 1
Opportunity

The group of people with an unmet need is those who are looking for a quick, cheap bite to eat, but also want to feel healthy in their choices. Many students, families, or working people tend to forego a meal because they don’t have time, it is too expensive, or they are worried about what they are putting into their bodies. The nature of this need is one out of convenience. No one needs fast food restaurants in general, they want them. The forces for changes in this environment that are creating this opportunity are an increase in health consciousness. There have been many campaigns to fight childhood obesity, which translates to other parts of the family. Many documentaries and ad campaigns have come out to show where fast food is coming from, and now many businesses want to show that they have the best quality food. The market, demographically, is defined from teenagers to parents ages 16-39. Geographically, the market would start in the United States in larger cities that would spread to smaller cities.

Currently, customers are satisfying this need by either ignoring the health concern, or avoiding fast food all together. There is no happy medium currently. I feel they might be slightly more loyal to their current fast food restaurant if they are ignoring the health aspect. However, those who are ignoring fast food all together would be more willing to try a quick, healthy option. I think this opportunity is huge. It really meets two demands of a larger market. I think this window of opportunity will be open for at least 5-7 years. As long as people are still busy and still health conscience, the opportunity will exist.

Innovation

              My idea is incrementally innovative. There is already fast food restaurants in the world, this one would be a modification of that. My idea is a fast food restaurant that offers healthy alternatives to classic establishments. It would use actual food (not substitutes that are used by competitors), and the same cooking methods used at home on a larger scale. It would serve more healthy alternatives at similar prices to busy people with little time and little money. I would be selling an individual saved time, saved money, and less concern over what they were putting in their body.

Venture Concept

              My innovation would perfectly fit into the opportunity mentioned. I feel customers will buy my innovation because it is eliminating the opportunity cost of health concerns. I think customers would switch to my product because 1. The food will taste good and 2. They will know that they are eating healthier food at similar prices. I think initially it will be hard for the customer to switch to my company, but once the word gets out, more customers will start to use the company. My competitors will be the already established fast food restaurants. They have high customer loyalty and have nearly perfected their model. However, they give up health for cost. Many restaurants use food substitutes to keep prices low (using horse meat instead of beef in burgers, for example.) My ingredients would be what my customers expect. If they want a burger, it will be a certified beef burger. This is one of the competitor’s weaknesses. Another weakness is a lot of these restaurants have to follow corporate standards that they can’t really stray from. These standards have been established for years and have no change in sight. My company would start with the healthy standards from the start. We would start out small to where we had more control over our standards and policies that could grow with us if we were to grow to a corporate level.

              My price points are a huge point of my business concept. I want to keep my prices low. I know using higher quality foods would drive costs up, but the benefits would outweigh the costs. The customer experience would also be huge. I would want employees that are also health conscience. They could advise the customers in making food choice decisions (for example, a light meal before/after a workout.)

              The organization would probably start with two cooks, two cashiers, a manager, and a CEO. The CEO and the manager would work together to fill the other needs in employment. The manager would also help in advising for budgeting and expenses for the CEO to consider.

Three Minor Elements

              My most important resource will be my knowledge of normal people wanting to eat healthy. I am not a nutritionist, nor do I want to be. I took Man’s Food for the credit. I don’t like documentaries like Super Size me or Food, Inc. I enjoy a quick meal every now and then. But I know I am getting older, and my metabolism is not what it used to be, and I need to start taking care of my body. So providing customers with little things they can do to work towards a healthier lifestyle would be great is something I value and something my customers are going to see.

              I think the next step for my venture would be to expand my business and exit. I am not interested in going into the food service industry. I thought this would be a good idea so I pursued it, but it’s not how I want to spend the rest of my life. I think what would happen is one of the huge fast food chains would want to buy the business and incorporate a healthier menu into their model. That would be fine with me, so long as they kept to the standards and policies I implemented. It would be cool to see frozen meals in the grocery store from my business (like how taco bell does their taco mix line.) Just seeing the business expand to more people in different capacities would be what I want.

              If we launched tomorrow, in 5 years I would want to be a staunch competitor of the traditional fast food chains. I would be taking buyout offers, but not considering them for another year or two. After this venture, I don’t see myself as an entrepreneur. Maybe I could make enough to buy ownership into an NFL or NBA team. This venture would simply provide me the capital to do so.

Part 2

Some of the feedback I received was mostly from my what's next assignment. I wanted to add a strictly vegetarian menu. It was suggested to me that I integrate it into the normal menu and just differentiate it as vegetarian, or even vegan, with a label. The other feedback I got was concern that I wasn't passionate about my venture. A suggestion I got was to change my idea to something sports related, but I couldn't think of an unmet need in that industry, and I didn't want to change my idea halfway through the class.

Part 3

I didn't really change my venture concept. None of my feedback was revolutionary, and there wasn't a space to include the "What's Next" of the venture.

             

Google Gold

1. I've been adding tags to my post. I always use the Week label, but I also include UFENT and ENT3003. I also used consistent language in assignments that were about my venture.

2. I think my keywords were probably healthy and fast food. I used these in almost every blog post about my venture. My theory was if I used them enough, the consistency would increase mt viewership.

3. I did not use my social media at all. I wasn't trying to use this blog to get exposure, so I didn't want my social media followers to think I was really trying to pursue something.

4. My post with the most views was my Venture Concept No. 1. Honestly I think it's because we were assigned 4 reviews for this assignment. Normally we have 2 or 3 assignments. 

5. No. The results I got were reviews of existing fast food restaurants that are healthier than others. 

Very Short Interview with an Entrepreneur No. 2

This time around, I had a better idea of what the answers would really mean. I know that sounds weird, but before they were just questions. This time I just have a better understanding of everything that goes on.

These are the questions and answers in my interview:

1. What is your best networking/marketing tactic? How do you get your name out?

Word of mouth. I stage houses for realtors. I make sure that the houses are listing ready. Clients are so impressed with the work that when they are ready to sell their next house, they call me back to stage it again.

2. Do you have a social media presence? Why or why not?

No. It's too time consuming.

3. Did you ever or have you considered an exit strategy? Are there other ventures you would like to pursue.

I haven't thought of an exit strategy. I would want to expand my current business instead of trying something new. I've wanted to open a store front, but that hasn't materialized yet. My ultimate dream would be to have a show on HGTV.

We didn't really talk about my progression. He knows that I don't want to pursue entrepreneurship so we talked mostly about him and his ventures. I'm fine talking about entrepreneurship, and I have a better sense of what it is if I were to go into that field, but I didn't ask him for advice. 

Week 14 Reading Reflection

What surprised me about these chapters was that there is such an exodus of bright minds to pursue small business entrepreneurship. One would think a large corporation that facilitates corporate entrepreneurship would be able to pay a bright mind more than he/she would make being a small business entrepreneur.

What confused me was the distrust of  traditional corporate management methods. If companies today aren't using them, why are we learning them?

The two questions I would ask are as follows:
1. If corporations are distrusting traditional management methods, what are they using now? Corporate entrepreneurship isn't a method in itself.
2. How would a company like Southwest Airlines use entrepreneurship? Wouldn't it be more new ideas to help the company run smoother, as opposed to totally new innovations?

Week 13 Reading Reflection

I was surprised there were so many methods to valuing a business. I figured there would be maybe 1 or 2 preferable ways to valuating. I thought valuating would be standard by an accounting standard.

The price/earnings ratio was a little confusing. I'm just a little confused at how it is calculated.

My first question would be how is the price/earning ratio calculated? And my second question would be is the multiple given or is it calculated by a different method?