Week 15 reading reflection

SKS's success stood out to me the most. I thought they had a really cool business plan and were doing amazing things in India. You can tell they really care for their consumers.
What confused me the most was the part about microfinance. I'm just in general not good at economics so these sections always take me longer to understand.
The two questions I have are:
Why do they only lend money to only women through SKS?
How do you successfully microfinance?
I did not disagree with anything the author wrote.

Elevator pitch no. 4

People kept encouraging me to be more enthusiastic and so I really wanted to make it interesting for our customers and investors! I thought about incorportating our refillable cups into my video so that investors want to fund them.

Final Reflection

Reading through my blog was really fun. This semester flew by and I really enjoyed this class. It stretched me a lot as a person and challenged my way of thinking. I'll never forget the first time interviewing customers. A friend and I went to Starbucks on 13th street and approached random people and asked to interview them and we were so uncomfortable. We just kept laughing out of insecurity. It's crazy to think how much i've grown just in that manner over the last semester. I hated every moment of being on camera. The elevator pitches were my worst nightmare. Hearing my voice on camera makes me cringe and I always had to take like 20 takes to get just the right one. I think a lot of the class was a low for me because I was always worried about missing assignment deadlines. I would of loved to see all 6 of the weeks assignments all due on Sunday.
The most informative assignment was the very short interviews. I will always be a firm believer in mentors because they are so much older and wiser than you. Learning from someone who has already done it and knows the hard parts, the fun parts, and the tricks to it all, was an incredible experience. I left both my meetings with Morgan so inspired. The experience i'll remember years later will be the free money experiment because it was so uncomfortable to do and the guy eating a donut in my video was so funny. I think he was trying to be super funny but I loved him. My most joyous experience was when we got to research the world's biggest problems and find solutions to them because this is where my passion lyes. I love serving in third world countries and it was so fun to write about what i've learned in Haiti. My most proud moment was when I finished recording a video, I would always feel so proud of myself for stepping out of my comfort zone.
I'm not quite sure I see myself as an entrepreneur yet. I think I understand entrepreneurship way more, but i'm not sure i'll ever have the passion to be one myself. I have definitely learned about and moved toward an entrepreneurial mindset through all of the assignments. They challenged the way I thought about the world around me, business opportunities, my frustrations, and money.
The best recommendation I could make to next semester's students would be to make a list of things they are passionate about and create a venture based on something on that list. If you don't love your venture and don't believe in it than the course work will feel more like a chore. To be more successful in this class, students should plan far in advance and not wait until the day of to do the assignments because sometimes they will be longer and more tedious than you expect and you don't want to lose simple points. Do ones with recordings a couple days before the deadline so you have ample time to find people to do it. I think the best thing they can do to foster that mindset is to put on this facade that THEY ARE an entrepreneur and really try to believe it for their duration in this course.

Venture Concept No. 2

The opportunity for my smoothie and healthy food cafe emerges from the change in society that is happening where people want healthier, more organic, gluten free, and vegan food readily available. This opportunity is also due to the fact that there are very few healthy food options in midtown, especially that are open late at night. Geographically this location is convenient to the students at the University of Florida and to young adults who live near or drive by on their way to work. Demographically we are trying to reach 18-26 year olds who are passionate about eating clean food. I think customers are having a hard time satisfying this need due to lack of healthy options, but Grill Fresh just opened so they do have a new healthy option available now. I think this opportunity is fairly large because I know many people would jump at the opportunity to have a smoothie that isn't filled with added sugars and syrup soaked fruit. I think the trend toward eating healthy is only just beginning so this window of opportunity will be around for a long time.
My product is a healthy food and smoothie cafe that uses only organic ingredients. We will serve sandwiches, pizza, salads, smoothies, and juice. Our sandwiches, salads, and pizza are $5.50 a piece, and our smoothies are $4.99. We will also have a gluten free bread and pizza crust for a $1.00 up charge.
Customers will value our product because we are selling healthy food at a really low price. I think college students avoid healthy options because they are often too expensive for them, but we will become their first choice food because they will feel great after eating it and it won't cost them much. People will also come in because we will be one of few healthy options in midtown and the only healthy option open late night. We will attract people coming from the library and coming back from the bars. Our biggest competitor is Grill Fresh but they will be serving a different kind of food than us and they are way more expensive. Our location defines our venture plan because our business is built for the students of UF. I would hire on 3-4 employees as we started out and do a lot of the work myself to save money until we began turning a profit. My employees would prepare the food and smoothies and clean the cafe.
Our secret sauce will be our only organic food. No one is doing this in Gainesville so it will draw a lot of people to us. We will also have an app that will allow you to order ahead and pick up your food already prepared for you. Customers love convenience.
The next step for the cafe would be to offer baked goods and coffee and create a great study environment for students to come study at.
The goal is to be working minimum hours at the midtown store and be opening a new location in downtown Gainesville.

My peers gave me wonderful feedback about my venture idea. They thought my cafe fit really well in Gainesville because of how much Gainesville prefers local eating. Some great ideas they gave me were to offer gluten free and vegan options at my store because those people would probably already be drawn to my cafe. I also loved the piece of advice to create an app that allows people to order ahead so that my customers could just drop in and pick it up. I love when things are convenient to me so I thought this would be a great addition to my business plan. I incorporated all the feedback I received into my venture concept because I agreed with every criticism and idea I got back.

Week 14 Reading reflection

The thing that surprised me the most was the part about innovation and how much has to go into making it happen. I thought it was really interesting.
The thing that confused me the most was the part about exit strategy because I don't really understand how you know when to exit and when you decide to not continue fighting for your business.
What is the prime time to exit a business and how do you know you are there? What's the key difference between middle managers and first line managers?
I do not disagree with anything the author said.

google gold

 
1) My strategy was to use a lot of phrases that were particular to my post and that way whenever anyone was looking for it they could find it. By making longer posts I was able to draw more traffic and by keeping my content fresh and relevant I could draw more attention.
2)  A lot of my key words were specific to the post. There weren't many that I was using repetitively to really drive something home. I don't think one buzz word will keep your blog popping up, but I drove traffic by putting links to my blog in a lot of places.
3) I should have utilized Facebook more to drive traffic. Most people come from Facebook instead of other blogs, while I attempted to drive most of my traffic from other blogs. None of these blogs had much traffic though, so I should have exposed it to a bigger market.
4) My most viral post was the free money one. People really enjoyed it because it was so bizarre and because videos tend to draw more people than text.
5) I thought the word ENT would be a keyword and would bring people to my blog but it turns out so many people are ear nose and throats that I couldn't find my blog anywhere in google results! That's unfortunate.

Very short interview part 2

Looking back on my interview with Morgan, I see that I knew nothing about being an entrepreneur. I remember being so nervous talking to him because I didn't even know what the word entrepreneur really even meant. He taught me so much. I was so inspired to "dive in" like he said and creature a venture out of something I am good at.

How did you have the money to start your own business?
"I did it much differently than most people. I don't do loans. I saved up enough from my previous job and quit when I finally had enough. I took a risk because that was all the money I had. I don't believe in loans."

What characteristic is most important in an entrepreneur?
"Perseverance. Hands down. You will fail many, many, many times. You will have to get back up and keep fighting. If you fight hard enough you will succeed."

What is your last piece of advice for me as I wrap up my entrepreneur class?
"Keep your feet on the ground. Be ready to admit failure quickly so you can move on. Also, don't do it if you don't love it."

I can't believe it's been a whole semester already. I learned so much in this class and it all started with this interview. Morgan shaped the way I looked at this course. I knew I had to do something with coffee because I love it and I'm passionate about it. My ideas never measured up to much but at least I can continue to develop them. Going back to Morgan for the second time and telling him about my venture idea he seemed proud of me. He knew I still had a lot to learn and a lot of school to finish but I think he believed in me.

Celebrating Failure

The most epic fail I made in this class was the first assignment we had due. I did not realize the assignments were due at 9 and so I completed the whole thing only to turn it in and realize it was past due. This was heart breaking.
I learned that I needed to be more observant when I look at canvas and that I need to not procrastinate.
This failure was embarrassing because it was the first assignment in class and I felt like I was starting off at a disantvatage in the class. I had to make a decision to keep moving forward and stop procrastining on my assignments. It changed the way I approached the whole class.

Week 13 Reading Reflection

What surprised me the most was how you can value your business and how most entrepreneurs don't take advantage of this and know their value.

What confused me the most was all of the math and accounting sections. I had to read it multiple times to get a grasp.

How do you get your adjusted tangible book value? And what are the most effective ways to improve the value of your company?

I did not disagree with anything the author said. 

My Exit Strategy

My exit strategy is to keep updating and innovating my coffee delivery food truck so that it will be able to stay along and become a family business I can pass down to my children. I have selected this exit strategy because I am passionate about my venture and coffee not just the money my venture will make me. I would love to stay invested in my venture until the day I die and be able to pass the venture I put so much hard work into to someone in my family. My exit strategy has changed the way I have made decisions because I have to be intentional about growing and updating my product so I can assure my venture sticks around. It has helped me better decide on resources to use and helped me to pick great human resources who will help the longevity of my venture.

Week 12 Reading Reflection

1) Although I knew there was a lot of thought and planning into a venture, the venture life cycle really surprised me because it reminded me how much planning is put into a venture. I thought it was really cool how they assess creativity in the new venture development stage because that will probably determine how successful and different your product will be.
2) Something that confuses me about the entrepreneurial strategy matrix and how they value and or measure risk adequately. I feel like it is difficult to successfully and accurately measure risk.
3) What resource is most valuable when leveraging yourself above competitors? What are the best ways to keep your venture from declining without starting a whole new venture?
4) I did not disagree with anything the author said.