Final Reflection

The most formative experience for me was the two short interviews I had with an entrepreneur, my cousin Rob. He is so knowledgeable and successful in his entrepreneurial ventures and he had nothing but great advice to offer me. I believe this advice is definitely the most memorable experience for me. I will keep it with me as I move my career into the business world. Rob really offered me some invaluable advice. I honestly enjoyed the interviews for my venture. Being able to get outside opinions really shaped the direction of my product development. I believe strongly that potential customers can offer extremely valuable feedback. I believe my most proud achievement in this course is how much I have developed, researched, and worked on my entrepreneurial venture, Sports 4 U. I really enjoyed working on it and I feel I have made astounding progress on both the main idea and specifics.

I believe the many different and unique experiences has shaped me into a developing entrepreneur. I particularly enjoyed the Harvard Business Review articles as they opened my mind to new ideas, markets, and philosophies. I would surely include articles like that for future classes. Overall I really enjoyed developing my entrepreneurship through all the experiences we had, both studying the book, and getting out into the field. I have surely moved to developing an entrepreneurial mindset.

First, my one recommendation for future students is this, manage your time. This class is all about time management, but so is entrepreneurship. It is all about doing the right things at the right time and managing yourself. Get the assignments done on a timely basis and the class flows great! To perform best in this course is simple. You get out of this class what you put in. The more effort the better. The more time you spending developing your posts and truly reflecting on readings or experiences, the better entrepreneur you will be at the end of the semester.

Week 15 Reading Reflection

1. The biggest surprise for me in the reading was the section on 'Rethinking Microfinance.' The fact that stood out to me is that 3 billion people live on $2 a day or less. The micro-finance industry only reaches 140 million people. Essentially their is only a 19% market penetration - "a sure sign of under performance in the industry." If micro-finance firms can figure out a way, by getting access to commercial funds, creating scalable operating systems, etc. they can make a huge profit.

2. One part of the reading that was confusing to me was the section on scale titled 'The Scale Is the Thing.' It was really interesting to finally understand that a key to a lot of business' success is scale and standardization.

3. I would ask the traits needed to enter the micro-finance market successfully. Second I would want to inquire on the best methods to scale up my customer loyalty, as it touched on a bit in the article.

4. I believe the author was correct in what he was saying. He brought some interesting viewpoints and made some good comparisons between different industries. My favorite part was the fact that he opened my eyes to the micro-finance industry, something I did not know much about!

Elevator Pitch No. 4

1)

2) From my previous pitch I received a lot of positive feedback. The most important and I really think only feedback I got was to clarify my introduction a bit more. The body of my pitch was good, as peers suggested, and gave a lot of information. People said I seemed 'knowledgeable' about my app idea, Sports 4 U. I just needed to add more info at the beginning to clarify. 

3) I adjusted my introduction to be more informative and provide the viewer with a clearer view of my entrepreneurial venture for the University of Florida. It was great to receive feedback that was constructive and somewhat critical. Criticism helps you improve!

Venture Concept No. 2

1) Venture Concept Description

Opportunity

My venture opportunity is a phone based application called Sports 4 U, abbreviated S4U. The app is meant to organize intramural sports games for college students, I would start it here at the University of Florida, to get together and have fun whenever they are available. The need lies in athletic or sport-loving college students who want to be active, have fun, and meet new people. The nature of this need is more casual. It is not a necessity in anyway but rather a commodity or an extra benefit of being a university student. With the increase in technology in today's age, almost every college student has a smartphone. Using this app they can connect better with other students and play more sports beyond what the UF intramural program offers. This app has a strong demographic because of both the widespread use of smartphones, and the push towards people leading healthier and more active lives. This market is geographically located in Gainesville and includes college aged students, both graduate and undergrad, so ages 18-22 roughly. Customers are currently satisfying this need by using the vast amount of intramural sports offered by the University of Florida. I would assume they are loyal to intramural sports but this app can only add to their experience, they do not have to stop doing intramurals through UF to use S4U. S4U works on a day-to-day basis so students can work their intramurals around playing pick-up games through the app. This is a pretty big opportunity. I have had plenty of students mention that this idea would be popular and fun. This window of opportunity should be open for a while I believe. Although there is a good demographic, it is somewhat niche.

Innovation

So my 'innovation' is a smart-phone app. It is an app made to organize intramural sports games using the sports facilities made available for use by students. You will link your profile on the app with your UF ID and can connect with students from there. Field availability will be listed and you can organize and join events on a daily basis. The revenue made from this application will come from advertising on the phone app. I will go to local Gainesville companies once the app gets big enough or use ads through the internet to make revenue.

Venture Concept

This app will solve the unmet need for sports at a moment's notice. Many intramural sports are offered only in one semester of the year, like outdoor soccer. With this app, however, you can play whatever sports you want almost any day. Students already use many fields for pick-up games but this app will help organize them and help make the process so much easier. The only competitor I can think of would be UF rec sports. However I would encourage users to get involved with both UF intramurals and the application. This app offers sports whenever while UF rec sports have them on a schedule. This app could eventually be adopted as part of the UF intramural program and then be sold to different universities! I believe I would have to enlist some employees for the technical creation and maintenance of the application, but I would hope I can learn how to manage most of the app myself, eventually.

The Three Minor Elements

I believe the idea in its self is my most important resource. It is a relatively unique idea and I should not be troubled with too much competition. Plus, it will be free for users.

The next step for my venture is to market it to additional universities in the state of Florida and beyond. I believe once this app catches on it will be super popular. First I want UF to adopt it, then I can look forward.

I hope this venture will be well established and spread across most of the country in 5 years. Maybe at that point I look internationally to Europe and beyond. This venture will be a good test for me as an entrepreneur, and depending on how it goes. I might continue as an entrepreneur into more ventures.

2) The feedback I received was very helpful. The biggest suggestion for my concept was to make sure it did not overlap what the UF Rec Sports program covers. So if I do construct this concept, I will make sure to have it not overlap UF Rec Sports events. This app will rather be an addition to the UF Rec Sports program, allowing students to play whatever sports they wanted more spontaneously.  I will address the suggestions provided for me in the feedback.

3) Now I know to change my venture concept to be partnered with UF Rec Sports to make sure of no overlap. Additionally I can coordinate what fields will be available. This app can also be expanded to other universities if successful.

4) 

Week 14 Reading Reflection

Kuratko Ch. 3 & 4 (The Entrepreneurial Mind-Set in Organizations – Corporate Entrepreneurship / Social Entrepreneurship and the Ethical Challenges of Entrepreneurship)

1) The biggest surprise for me reading both of these chapters was a section early on in Chapter 3 entitled, "Defining the Concept of Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation." It was a very informative section. I was surprised at the concept if corporate venturing when larger companies take on risky ventures that can pay off or possibly even fail! 

2) One section I found a bit confusing was the importance or need for corporate entrepreneurship and innovation. I did not know that large corporations put such large emphasis on new ventures and changing old processes. I thought they were a lot more focused on internal and trusted ways to do things. 

3) I would ask first which is the biggest obstacle for corporate entrepreneurship and innovation? Secondly I would want to ask more into the objectives and programs for venture development. As they are two different but equally important concepts with guidelines for each.

4) I believe the author was correct in everything he said. He offered great examples of corporate entrepreneurship and used diagrams and sub-sections effectively. Overall very informative two chapters, although quite different in content. 

Google Gold

1) In my blog posts I used a combination of social media and keywords to improve my SEO. I used YouTube as my primary social media source as all my course videos were uploaded there. Additionally I used words like entrepreneur, sales, and many other business terms to help enhance my SEO.

2) My keywords throughout the semester have been business related terms specific to entrepreneurship. No I did not change them too much during the duration of the semester.

3) I used YouTube to enhance my SEO. I was very suprised that YouTube was such an integral portion of my blog. It surely attracted some viewership! I feel like social media generally was receptive and assisted my blog's popularity.

4) My most viral most was "My Entrepreneurship Story" in January. I believe it was the most popular because it contained many keywords and was around the time I started my blog, so it was newer and people were just discovering it.

5) My blog did make it to the front page of Google using my keywords! It is so cool to see it there!

Very Short Interview No. 2

The initial interview I had with cousin Rob was interesting and he offered some great useful and helpful advice for an entrepreneur. After progressing more through this class I believe I understand where the advice he gave me can help my venture. Overall my impression was that it offered vital information for me to help begin my journey as an entrepreneur. Having info from his perspective, owning an entrepreneurial venture, was awesome.

For our second interview, I learned even more. We went a tad off track talking about my venture. Although, he gave me great answers to my questions along with suggestions for my app Sports 4 U. So one of the questions was built around Rob's 4 'golden' rules with entrepreneurial ventures. Rob constantly receives calls from students at the undergraduate and graduate level at the University of Southern California offering ideas for ventures that need funding. These are the 4 things he looks for in a new business/venture. Firstly, sales. By sales, he told me he means basically how the product or service is marketed or communicated to potential customers. The most important part of this section is to have people understand the product/service quickly so they know what they are getting. Second is the value created. This is a concept that we have been working on all semester in class. Your idea, Rob says, has to create some sort of value. The more value created for potential customers the better. You have to fill some sort of need or necessity, he said. Third, how the venture is operated. You have to have a good idea of how you are going to distribute your product and/or service. Additionally once your venture is put into place, you need to be prepared for success. In this, Rob explained, you have to be able to operate your venture if it starts working out. You have to be able to handle both the day-to-day and long term duties as owner. Finally, and most importantly, is there a profit to be made and how much. Rob told me that he believes having concrete numbers to present is the best way to communicate an entrepreneurial venture. When he talks to students, he looks for them to have numbers in the first or second time he talks to them. If they do not, he begins to doubt the legitimacy of their venture and starts to ask questions.

The other portion of our interview was about what traits or abilities an entrepreneur truly needs to succeed. Rob gave me the following 3 abilities/traits. First, iteration. You have to be comfortable around people you do not know. Also, you have to be open to change your idea. When your bring your plan to an investor or whatnot, you need to be open to suggestions and understand that the first draft of your idea will most likely not be perfect. One final point for iteration was to always look to open new doors. Look for new opportunities for your ventures and always look to expand. Second, he stressed the importance of networking. I am very familiar with this from our assignment where we talked to experts in our market. Rob said you should research specific people in your field of business you want to get to know and put in the effort to get to know them. You have to be open to build relationships and grow with people. You need support to grow your venture successfully. Third, and not least, he stressed continuous learning. He thought he learned the most as an entrepreneur, not from a theoretical text book, but from being in the field, interacting with people. and making sales. Also, a very interesting point he had was to look at business history books. They offer great learning experiences and can offer valuable advice for future ventures.

After talking to Rob this second time, and presenting my clear plan for my entrepreneurial venture, he thought I had progressed more as an entrepreneur. We spent some time going back and forth with ideas for my app. We talked more as two fellow entrepreneurs as opposed to a teacher and pupil. I had terminology I had learned from our last interview and my journey in this class to use and convey my ideas. It was really great being able to talk about my venture and receive such valuable advice. I feel very comfortable now as an entrepreneur at this point in the class.