Final Reflection

The experience I'll remember the most and am most proud of accomplishing would be interviewing random customers. I never thought I would have the courage to go up to random people and offer them a dollar or ask them questions about the opportunity I saw. At the end of this class I do see myself as an entrepreneur, now more than ever. I always wanted to start my own business and now I am more confident in being an entrepreneur and wanting to start my own business because of this class. I recommend to future students to try their hardest and try to think of the best idea. Doing every step correctly in this course could possibly be a stepping stone to starting your own business!

Elevator Pitch No. 4

The feedback from my third elevator pitch was not very helpful, all they said was that I did a good job and offered no criticism. So, I just decided to make my pitch sound more like the pitch that was given in class and hopefully I did a good job in doing so.

Venture Concept No. 2

Opportunity
The opportunity I found is that students who pay for the meal plan are extremely dissatisfied with the quality and variety of the food served, as well as the people serving the food. Even just today I was dissatisfied because of the mood the server was in. We live in a society with an increasing standard of living, everyone always wants the best thing. In this case, students want better food and better service without having to go out to eat at a nice restaurant every night. This market is defined geographically by the University of Florida and demographically by students who live on campus. Customers are currently satisfying this need by their current meal plan, but many students have cancelled their meal plan coming into the second semester because they were not satisfied. Most students are loyal to the meal plan because not all students know how to cook, making it a necessity for some. This opportunity is huge because of the many dissatisfied customers that I have interviewed, and also by the feedback in my posts promoting my idea. This opportunity will be available until someone else fills in the need that students currently have.

Innovation
Currently the unlimited all access meal plan at the University of Florida is $2235. This price is ridiculous given the feedback from customers. Parents and students shouldn't be paying this much for food that lacks quality and variety. With my service, I do not plan on changing the price. I would much rather change the quality and variety of the food, along with hiring a new friendlier staff. Instead of making it cheaper, I plan on making it fairer for those paying for it. The need for a meal plan will always be there, so it is only a matter of time before someone steps in and updates the quality of the meal plan. If successful, I plan on moving off campus and creating my own buffet style restaurant mimicking the food served on campus. Many people love a good buffet, and if I can offer the food at the same price to adults as students, I'm positive it will be successful.

Venture Concept
Students would definitely be ready to switch to better food and service. Since the meal plan is paid through to the University of Florida, my only difficult task would to propose my idea to the university and hope they accept it. My competitors are people currently in the industry such as fresh foods who currently runs the dining hall. Along with fresh foods, other who may be trying to enter this industry would also be competing with me. Distribution is very key to my business. I want to locate local producers to purchase good quality and variety of food, that way my prices for the meal plan will remain the same price. Using local producers will help keep costs low. My business organization would include around 100 employees, with jobs such as: managers, servers, chefs, distributors and janitors.

Three Minor Elements
1) My most important resource are my connections in the food industry. Knowing local producers will definitely help make my opportunity come to life.

2) I plan on moving to different campuses all over the country who's students are also dissatisfied with their meal plan. After this, maybe even creating a buffet style restaurant if my meal plan idea become successful.

3) In 5 years I plan on being close to selling my venture concept, after reaching out to many different universities all over the United States. As an entrepreneur in a decade, I want to be involved in other businesses and hope to create multiple successful businesses.

Summary

I learned from my feedback that everyone is supportive of my idea. A lot of students are dissatisfied with the meal plan and some even shared stories of bad times they have had from the food in the dining hall. I changed my venture concept only slightly, including the needed change in service from what some students have said, and from my experience today in the dining hall. 

Going for Google Gold

1) The best way to increase search engine optimization is to make your blog look nice and also use good labels that will increase the chance of someone stumbling upon the post on a search engine. I tried to post my blog on many different websites so that way my blog will get more attention, along with this posting it with every comment helped increase traffic for my blog.

2) I used the key word entrepreneurship for some of my posts. I did not really think of using other keywords to help out my posts

3) I used social media to share my blog posts. This method helps because I am basically promoting my own blog to my current followers or audience. This is probably the best method because they are able to see what I am doing and be more involved in my life.

4) My post titled bug list received the most interaction. I'm not really sure why because I did not really use SEO for this post. Maybe the title interested people more than other posts.

5) I did not make the first page of google results with my key words and unfortunately I couldn't find it on any pages.

Week 14 Reading Reflection

1) What was surprising to me in the reading was table 3.2 about the Sources of and Solutions to Obstacles in Corporate Innovation. I thought this table was very interesting and definitely helpful in solving certain problems in businesses.

2) The different types of innovation in the reading were confusing to me. Kuratko could have done a better job explaining them by giving examples of the types of innovation, like radical and incremental innovation.

3) What is the most important topic for management to master when running a business?
    What makes an I-Team more effective?

4) I did not find anything in this reading that I disagreed with Kuratko on.

Very Short Interview, Part 2

1) My impression of this interview definitely surprised me as I forgot what questions I asked. Looking at it reminded me of all of the things I have learned over the course of the semester.

2) Questions for Gary Brashear:

Q: How did you start your business?
A: I started my business back in 1970 when I noticed the need for a middle man in large machinery parts. I first bought in bulk many different parts and offered to sell them to larger companies like Caterpillar.

Q: Was there ever a time where you felt like quitting?
A: Yes there has always been times where I felt like quitting, when I wasn't making enough money and sometimes even losing money. I always just kept being persistent and hoping for a better tomorrow.

Q: Do you ever wish your business outcome was different?
A: No, I believe my business has been successful, and I am happy that I can give work for my family as well.

3) I am definitely more comfortable interviewing people and talking about entrepreneurship after this course. Gary did think I was more knowledgable and asked more important questions about entrepreneurship than before.

Week 13 Reading Reflection

1) What really surprised me from this reading were the many different checklists, steps, and methods used for analyzing and valuing a business. I assumed there would need to be a lot of things to look over but I did not know how in depth these things are. The tables provided in this chapter are definitely useful for future entrepreneurs and anyone in the business industry.

2) I thought the chapter in Antidilution Protection was confusing. Kuratko never really explained what it is and only talked about forms of it which never really tied into the subject.

3) What is the most important in giving business a value?
     What is the most important when buying a venture?

4) I disagree with the global perspective on page 525, I think that the valuation of Africa and Brazil are not rising at the rate that Kuratko discusses in this section. The 3rd world countries are just not performing that well to say that in my opinion.

Celebrating Failure

1) This semester I failed at getting involved more on campus. Leaving high school I was involved in anything you could think of: NHS, Science NHS, even the competitive weightlifting club. Coming into the University of Florida I had no idea what challenges I would face. Even with a strong 3.92 GPA and all of my extra-curricular activities from high school, it has been a challenge to get involved in clubs/organizations other than my Fraternity. I tried to become involved in the entrepreneurship club and that didn't work out, along with the gators of tomorrow leadership organization.

2) I learned that I am going to have to work harder at what I really want. While I don't believe I have slacked that much, I still have room to improve and become more involved.

3) Emotionally last semester I handled failure terribly; I wanted to drop out and go home or transfer to a different school. But I couldn't be blamed because leaving my high school seen as such a success, and then coming to a massive university like UF portrayed me as a failure because of my lack of involvement. From the readings in this class I have learned that most entrepreneurs deal with failure, and not all businesses are successful. This is a very useful tool in life because instead of handling failure badly, we should learn from them so in the future we do not make the same mistakes.

 

My Exit Strategy

I plan on spreading my business idea throughout the country onto every university possible. Once I feel that this has been done, I believe the value of my company will be significant enough for me to sell and enjoy and rest of my life with the money from the company. I chose this strategy because selling once I have reached maximum expansion, the company value will eventually start to either plateau or fall unless more expansion to other countries occurs. I believe running a company through multiple countries would be too much effort and not enough return, so if an investor is interested in doing so they still could with my business. My exit strategy influence my decisions of not expanding to out of the country and doing more than I can handle. There is no point in working ridiculously hard on my business since I am not passing it on to a family member or anything like that.

Whats Next?

1) After interviewing these three customers, I found that in the existing market there is still a need that my venture concept hasn't met. Some customers wanted fresher food, and also complained about the variety of the food as well. Along with this, some complained about the way the food is prepared.

The complaints of the existing market have been met with my current venture concept. Interviewing this existing market is definitely helpful in growing and planning for what is next for my business.

2) The new market I targeted was students who currently do not have a meal plan. When asking those customers what they want out of a meal plan, I gained a lot of ideas that could help my business. Some wanted delivery and also wanted to be able to order their food.

These students who do not have a meal plan were asking for things that were not exactly feasible. The idea of ordering food beforehand might be an option we can adjust to. I feel that if more people were requesting this type of service then it might be a good way to get this new market of people interested more in my business.