Final Reflection

1) Read through your blog from this semester. Recall all of the experiences you've had a long the way -- the highs, the lows -- the fun moments, and the moments of drudgery, and even the moments of dread.

Fun: Writing my idea napkin, writing my weekly reading reflections, and interviewing customers.

Dreaded: interviewing an entrepreneur and elevator pitches!

2) What sticks out to you as the most formative experience? The experience that you'll remember years later? What was your most joyous experience? What experience are you most proud of yourself for accomplishing?

I think the most enjoyable experience that I will utilize in the future was the interviewing customers and the idea napkin. I felt like these were both things that allowed me to express my ideas and gave tangible results!

3) At the beginning of the semester, I mentioned that I wanted each of you to develop an entrepreneurial mindset. And we repeated the mantra -- I am an entrepreneur. Now, at the end, do you see yourself as an entrepreneur? Do you think you have moved closer to developing an entrepreneurial mindset?

Though I have not actually began a business venture, I feel that I am constantly looking for unmet needs in markets all around me. Entrepreneurship, at its core, is the meeting of people's needs and helping them! I feel that I HAVE achieved this mindset, finally. 

4) What is the one recommendation you would make to the students who are going to journey down this path in the future?

I would recommend creating a calendar in your phone for all of the assignments with reminders 24 hours out from each one. I missed a few assignments because of this mistake and I would hate for this to continue in the future. 

Venture Concept No. 2

Opportunity. An opportunity may be defined as a group of customers with unmet or under-met needs.

Students all over the country need to study to complete their education. It is a fact of the university life that cannot be avoided. Because of this, students deeply desire to have their own special place to get away from the world and set their mind to truly learning more about what they want to do for the rest of their lives. This provides us with a unique opportunity to create a place that someone, hopefully many, claim as their secret place. College students also have a funny way of always wanting to express themselves; to make themselves stand out from the rest of the crowd. This being so, we have a unique niche to fill as not many restaurants, libraries, or coffee shops currently allow students to “make themselves at home”, so to speak.

Our market currently consists mainly of 18-25 year old college undergraduates, graduates, and young faculty. Geographically speaking, they are relatively centered around the better part of the University of Florida campus, or within the parallelogram that archer road, 34^th, 13^th, and University make. This window of opportunity will begin to close as prime locations begin to be bought out by large apartment complexes and successful chains make their way into the hot spots around mid town.

Innovation. An innovation may be defined as a new or creative service, product, or process that maybe applied in the marketplace to address customer needs.

My innovation, The Smoothie Pit, is a casual, modern, hipster smoothie café with a specific focus of creating spaces for students and professionals alike to escape from their homes to work diligently on whatever it is that their needs call for. We will be selling healthy smoothies using real fruit, natural ingredients, with a heavy dependence on natural flavors and add-ins. Coffee, cinnamon, peanut butter, almond butter, coconut milk, and chia seeds are all examples of the kinds of options that customers will have available. Our cost drivers will include a flat rate smoothie price for three categories; Simple (Strawberry Banana, Mango Orange, etc.) starting at $4.50 for our one size, more complicated (Chia seeds, acai, coffee, protein powder, dragon fruit, etc.) at $5.50, and build your own with 4 add ins for 5.75. This will give students the option to stay under $5 for those who want to save money and go for a more basic smoothie. Our other cost drivers will be sandwiches that range from 2.99-5.99, depending on the ingredients and size. Salads will also be on the menu, from 2.99-10.99, depending on the size and ingredients. We want to make healthy food available for students, but also keep in mind the success of the business.

We will provide free WIFI of course, and will have hammock racks available for their own use if they choose to bring their own (This of course could be a liability, but we will look into legal matters later).

We will also have an app that they can acquire rewards points to earn free add-ins, smoothies, and even a free hammock with enough points.

Many of these perks are irreproducible in larger chains such as smoothie king or tropical smoothie. Because we will be local, we can provide unique options that give us a competitive advantage. 

Venture Concept. A venture concept may be defined as the application of a specific innovation to address a specific opportunity

I truly believe that my idea for the new smoothie business will satisfy the desires of students and professionals currently. No other place allows college age students to bring their favorite hammock into their place of study, or even have a comfortable place to sit. My competitors would be Starbucks, tropical smoothie café, and Pascal’s. Price point is huge because students will go where the cheapest, most fun place is to be. If we have fun, but our product is too expensive, no one will come. We will need a team of about 30 employees to staff each day and market our business around campus. We will give our employees access to free smoothies and discounted food while working and a 60% off while not on shift. I believe that a good business starts with treating your employees right from the beginning.

The three minor elements

First, describe what you think your most important resource will be.

I think our hammock racks, natural ingredients and options, study rooms for groups, and our comfortable, unique seating will give us the competitive advantage that we need. Second, what’s next for the venture? After we launch, we will need to get in contact with study organizations and connect with their managers to see if hosting one of their study sessions would be an option. Third, what’s next for you? In five years, I hope to have 2 locations around Gainesville and one-two in Tallahassee. I think that Florida State is another school with a great opportunity for students to experience something new with their eating habits and study space.

FEEDBACK: The majority of my feedback revolved around me needing to differentiate my company from the other competition. I feel that the execution is where I will make this distinction. By housing organic and fresh options, this allows me to have a unique brand that most large chains cannot carry. 

Week 14 Reading Reflection

1) the biggest surprise in this weeks reading was how ethics and morals are shared by entrepreneurs all over the world. Doctors have issues when it comes to ethics since most of what they perform, such as projects if failure is included can cause someones life; with entrepreneurs, accounting practices and financing are hard topics to cover with the people.

2) The most confusing part of this weeks reading was the concept of technical know-how licensing. I was hoping that there would be examples of how this is played out in the real world.

3) If I could ask the author a couple of questions those would be : since Chinese people are said to be very smart people and by default innovative, most things we buy are made in either China and Japan. Wouldn't it make more sense to incentive innovations from both countries instead of trying to catch up and then do better than them?Second question: Since there are so many issues with ethics in the entrepreneur world, does that keep entrepreneurs who mess up on their first attempt from ever trying again?

4) I do not believe the author was wrong during any part of this reading since I do not have enough knowledge of the subject to contest his words.

Google Gold

1) What were some of the activities you did for each blog post to pursue SEO? 

To be completely honest, I did nothing to strategically go for SEO. I simply completed my posts with the words that best described my vision for my company.

2) What were your keywords. How did you select those keywords? Did you change or refine your keywords through the semester?

Keywords included: Accessible, available, healthy, college, smoothie pit. I kept my key words relatively the same. 

3) How did you use social media to enhance your SEO efforts? What your your surprises or general impression of using social media to improve your blog's profile? Was social media generally receptive of your blog, or did it get ignored?

I completely ignored the use of promoting my blog via social media. I felt like this blog should mainly be trafficked by students in the class. 

4) What was your most "viral" post? In other words, which post obtained the most traffic? Why do you think?

I think my idea napkin received the most traffic because of the images and amount of time that I put into it!

5) Finally, did you make it to the first page of Google results for your keywords? If not, what page of results did you make it to?

After checking nearly 10 pages, I did not find my blog on any of the pages listed. I think this is because my key words are so general and are included very commonly in other posts!

Very Short Interview With Entrepreneur, Part 2

From where you stand now, what is your impression of that initial interview?

I feel that the initial interview was extremely basic. I did not have any idea of what I wanted to venture into creating or how I would do so. I think that the advice that Bruce gave me was great and was relatively in line to how the course played out. 

Second, visit the entrepreneur again.

I had the opportunity to call Bruce, but was unable to record due to how short notice the call was and he was in a hurry. I was writing as we talked so I recorded the questions and answers:

Q: After spending much time developing an idea in this course, I feel that I have a great direction for starting a business. What would you say would be something that you wish someone had told you prior to actually launching?

A: Great question. I really wish someone had told me how much overtime I would be putting into the business for the first few years. There would be weeks where I would not get a day off between ordering products to working shifts for missing employees, or pursuing marketing efforts daily. You need to know it takes a LOT of dedication.

Q: What did you do to gain most of your beginning capital in order to launch your business?

A: For me, I took out a relatively large loan and began from there. As our profits grew, we were able to pay off much of those loans and get our accounts in the green so we could take out more accounts payable. 

Q: What is one thing that I should be aware of in terms of my competitors?

A: Know that they can be ruthless. At times, they may counter market, try to lowball your prices, or even threaten your very existence in their market. Just continue doing what you do best and try to ignore the heat and only recognize the details that will help your business succeed. 

Discuss your comfort level in talking about entrepreneurship in this interview now, compared to three months ago. Did the entrepreneur convey a sense that they thought you had progressed in your journey?

I feel that I have a much better grasp of what the market wants and needs. I think that my entrepreneurial skills have been sharpened and I fee comfortable talking to others about my product and will have the framework down for if I do choose to pursue this in the future. He seemed to realize that I was serious about this the second time and that I understood the jargon much better. 

Week 13 Reading Reflection

1) What was the biggest surprise for you in the reading? In other words, what did you read that stood out the most as different from your expectations? 
The thing that surprises me the most is the way to perform a complete due diligence. I thought it was a great addition to the process.

2) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.
Nothing confused me because the author explained the context throughly.

3) If you were able to ask two questions to the author, what would you ask?

Is there a most important step of due diligence? Why?

4) Was there anything you think the author was wrong about? Where do you disagree with what she or he said? How?
I think the author was accurate with his statements. 

Celebrating Failure

1) Tell us about a time this past semester that you failed -- whether in this class, or outside of this class. Don't spare any details! It'd be even better if there was something you tried several times this semester, and failed each time. 

Well, taking Business Finance has taught me a lot of failing forward. I scored nothing better than a C on all of the exams so far. I started at a 62 and then just scored a 49 on the last exam. This was slightly embarrassing because most of my friends were scoring close to perfect on both of the exams. 

2) Tell us what you learned from it.  

I had to change the way that I study for the class. I will be studying with my friends that know the material well. I tried doing it by myself and utterly failed every time. 

3) Reflect, in general, on what you think about failure. Failure is hard, isn't it? It's embarrassing, sure, but it also means that we have to change something about ourselves. Talk about how you handle failure (emotionally, behaviorally). Finally, talk about how this class has changed your perspective on failure -- are you more likely to take a risk now than you were four months ago? 

I love failure. Yes it is hard but I think that we learn more from failure than we do from success. 

My Exit Strategy

1) Do you intend to sell your business in the next 5 years for a large return? 

I intend on handing over the management over to another college student that wants to get involved with a food business in a college town. 

Do you intend to stay with the business for several decades and retire?

No, I intend on passing it on. 

Do you intend to protect the venture as a family business, and pass it down to your children?

Possibly, if the branding works, I would love to bring my family back for years and remember what I started. 

2) Why have you selected this particular exit strategy?

I believe its important to be intentional and elevate other's abilities and give them opportunities to grow. Giving a young leader the ability to lead my store would help him/her learn what it takes to be successful in the real world. 

3) How do you think your exit strategy has influenced the other decisions you've made in your concept? For instance, has it influenced how you have identified an opportunity? Has it influenced your growth intentions or how you plan to acquire and use resources?

I think that my strategy has helped me to disconnect the ideas from my personal identity. I would not be offended if it were to change, or not succeed after I hand it over because it was not connected to my personal self. I used my ideas, but it was not named "Travis' Smoothie Stop"or something along those lines.

Week 12 Reading Reflection

1) What was the biggest surprise for you in the reading? In other words, what did you read that stood out the most as different from your expectations?  

The value of strategic planning stood out most of all for me.  The fact that over 80% of the firms involved in the study did well above the industry average proves how valuable strategic planning is in any business.

2) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.  

I feel that moving from entrepreneurial to managerial should really be transitioning from entrepreneurial to Chief Executive Officer.  I feel they need to keep focus on what is coming up, the entrepreneur should have managers to take care of daily managerial duties. 

3) If you were able to ask two questions to the author, what would you ask? Why?  

How can a business expect to keep a constant growth if a business is limited to innovation?

4) Was there anything you think the author was wrong about? Where do you disagree with what she or he said? How?  I don't feel I have enough knowledge in this area to be able the determine the accuracy of the author.