Celebrating Failure

A time that I failed was outside of this class. I was working at my internship and found out I had been booking some hotels wrong. Basically I was giving the wrong rate to the wrong people and that rate was supposed to be hidden and I wasn't hiding it. When I found out, I was embarrassed, and worried about what would happen going forward (I had only been working there for a few weeks).

Basically, my supervisor took me and the other intern and walked us through making the reservation correctly. She showed us what was going wrong and we learned from it. It showed me to pay more attention to what I was doing. But it also showed me that I was in an environment that facilitated learning from mistakes.

I've always seen failure as a way to make things better. Even when my supervisors have told me I didn't fail, I ask them how I could have handled it better. If I really think I did something right, and I find out I've done it wrong, I'll usually be embarrassed. I try to handle it privately and just think about how I'm going to do it better. I'll usually keep my head down for a little bit just thinking and then I shake it off. If I'm being perfectly honest, my perspective hasn't changed in regards to failure. I won't look at risks more or less than I did previously. 

My Exit Strategy

My exit strategy would be to sell my business in the next 5-7 years for a large return. I would want to make sure that the business had grown into a worthy competitor of fast food chains before selling. I would sell it to a competitor under the terms that 1. They are trying to expand their menu to include healthier options and 2. That they kept my policies and procedures for providing healthier food. 

I chose this exit strategy because I am not passionate about my venture. I see an unmet need, and I thought of a way to fill it, but I don't want my life's work to be starting a healthy fast food restaurant. 

It definitely affected how I made decisions. I didn't think too much into the future with expansion and new ideas because I knew I would not want to do this forever. I didn't put my all into this idea as far as looking for potential funding or thinking of ways to be extremely competitive. 

Venture Concept 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.

              

The Amazon Whisperer

My revenue drivers will be my customers that come to my restaurant in search of quick, healthy food. It will also be the real food I use. Although it will not be organic, it will be healthy and keep costs down.

I think the next thing customers will want will be a vegetarian menu. Right now, I haven't focused on that. I've focused more on healthier alternatives to what is already offered at classic fast food restaurants.

I think it will bring in another market niche. It won't increase switching costs. In fact, I think it will decrease them. It will improve the customer experience by offering more variety to the existing menu. It would foster customer loyalty by having none-vegetarians bringing their vegetarian friends and having a place for the group to eat.

Amazon doesn't offer restaurants yet. The best thing I know of would be the Amazon pantry option. It's used to deliver food to people in certain areas, but the customer still has to wait for the delivery and cook the food, which is besides the point of my business.

Because there is not a product similar to mine, there were not customer reviews to look at or modifications to suggest.

Week 11 Reading Reflection

I was confused by how the author said "don't use someone else's system, but don't be afraid to learn from their system, but know it won't work for you." Of course no one's system for any operation will work across the board, but businesses still take that system and modify it. So I think it would have been better for the author to say that no system works for everyone, but take an existing system and make it work for you.

Two questions I would have for the author would be "Doesn't having a strategy facilitate execution?" and if companies struggle so much with innovation systems, why do we have so many innovating companies?"

I disagree that the author thinks there is a difference between a failure to execute and not having an innovation strategy. I think without a strategy, it is difficult to execute, but I think having a strategy helps facilitate execution.

My Venture's Unfair Advantage

1. Responsibility-This is a very valuable resource. People like knowing they can trust someone. While it might not be the most rare, there are only a certain number of people that have this. It can not be imitated. You have the attribute or you don't, which makes it impossible to substitute as well.
2. Loyalty-Again, very valuable, as people like to know someone is on their side. It can be rare, not imitated, and cannot be substituted
3. Honest-Always valuable, not as rare as the others. Cannot be imitated, and cannot be substituted.
4. Use of non-organic food-People might see this as a weakness, but it is actually my secret weapon. There are not many differences in organic and non-organic food as far as health,  just price. This is rare knowledge, as many people think organic food is the new frontier. However, it will be what keeps my prices low. I think this is very valuable and rare. It can be imitated, however the only way to substitute it is to spend more.
5. Work ethic-I am very determined to find the best options possible. This very valuable, can be rare, cannot be imitated or substituted.
6. Contacts-I know people in the food service industry that can help me with starting a food business. This is very valuable, not really rare, but it cannot be imitated. However it can be substituted. 
7. Leadership-This is very valuable and rare. In theory it can be imitated, but not substituted
8. Sociable-I'll always have a smile on my face. This is very valuable, but it is not rare, can be imitated, and can be substituted
9. Market-I have a huge market for my product. This is extremely valuable, rare, cannot be imitated, and cannot be substituted.
10. Support-This is hugely valuable, cannot be imitated, is rare, and cannot be substituded

I think my most valuable resource is that I'm not going to use organic food and keep my prices down. Organic is not the definition of healthy and I will show that in my business.

Week 10 Reading Reflection

I was surprised how much I knew in this chapter! I've taken a few accounting classes and macro/micro, so this made so much sense! It really tied in the math part of business, which I really enjoy.

This isn't so much confusion as much as curiosity. Would an entrepreneur be more likely to have his/her own accounting background or would they partner with an accountant or accounting firm? Which statement would be the best to give to potential investors?

I don't know how many investments an entrepreneur would be making for a capital budget. I understand the initial investments, but if an entrepreneur is only there to start the company and exit, why are they making significant investments?