Week 15 reading reflection

Business Basics at the Base of the Pyramid by Vikram Akula

I found this article to be very informative and it took an interesting perspective on customer growth. I would most interested to hear about the three entrepreneurial principles that make up SKS's business strategy. These three principles include adopting a profit-oriented approach, standardizing products in order to boost capacity, and using technology to reduct costs and limit errors. All of these strategies seem very useful. They described the most important part of their growth as increasing customer loyalty which is definitely something I agree with. One question I would ask the author is why they chose these as their business concepts, what pushed them to take an entrepreneurial, customer based approach to their organization? The other question I would ask would be why the organization decided to invest so much time and energy into a market where they receive little profit margin in return. While it is a new and innovative idea to provide microloans to less fortunate, it does not seem like a good return for the organization. Nothing was confusing about the article and it was easy to follow along with the ideas and business concepts behind SKS.

Final Reflection

I definitely will remember the elevator pitches. I mostly remember being uncomfortable recording myself talking to a computer, without a script. However, it got a lot easier as the semester progressed and I became more comfortable. I'm definitely proud of myself for the elevator pitches and the venture concept/idea napkin as well. I will remember the fact that I created such a realistic business idea that could easily be implemented in real life and be successful. 

I wouldn't say I see myself as an entrepreneur but I definitely think like an entrepreneur would throughout my day-to-day life. Whether I am at a convenience store buying something, or waiting in a long line to get food, I am always thinking of ways businesses can be more efficient and modernized to better accommodate customers. I didn't really think this way before taking this course so it is interesting to see things from a different point of view. I have definitely moved closer to developing an entrepreneurial mindset.

One recommendation I would make to future students is to plan out when you are going to complete each assignment at the beginning of every week. You will perform better in the course if you have a plan. Especially with the video assignments, it will be important to plan out the days you are going to interview people. In order to foster the entrepreneurship mindset I would recommend that students do not just go through the motions of the assignments and get them done quickly or last minute in order to get the points. This class really is helpful for the real world so it is important to take every assignment as a useful challenge.

Venture Concept No. 2

Opportunity.

There is an important opportunity I have identified for my app FuturePay in the University of Florida community, and possibly other college communities as the app gains success. The potential customers are college age students who enjoy night life and the social scene of college, specifically bar-goers. The market will geographically start in Florida, but has the potential to expand to other college campuses and cities in general with a big bar scene such as New York City, Miami, Boston, etc. The recent breakthroughs in technology in the past few years have allowed for a high possibility that this app will be successful in a college community. I do not believe that the window of opportunity will last very long. Although nobody has created something quite like this app, as technology continues to improve and cash becomes even more obscure, I do not believe paying cover will be nearly as popular across the country.

Innovation. 

FuturePay is an app available to iPhone users that allows you to upload credit/debit card information so that you can pay cover at a specific bar you wish to go to in Midtown. This would essentially diminish the extensive wait time to get into the bar. You will be able to upload a picture of your ID to the app, but will also have to show your ID at the door as verification that you are over 21. Once you have shown your ID in person to a bouncer at any bar, you will be placed into an online system so you will never have to show your ID again. As FuturePay gains popularity and success, you will be able to open and close your bar tab to avoid the annoyance of trying to get the bartenders attention to order a drink. This, again, will diffuse the necessity to get cash out at the ATM before going out. I will make money by selling this idea to the bars in Midtown. This will make everything easier for bar managers and bouncers because everything will be put into an online system where they can see everyone who is at the bar and what their drink orders are. The price will start at $100 a month on a minimum 1 year plan.

Venture Concept.

I do not think it will be hard to get students to use this app, however, I will probably experience difficulty trying to get the actual bars to use this service. I am sure that they have their own system at their establishments and may be unwilling to change if it is something that works for them. The bars may end up making even more money because it will force them to charge a cover, where some bars do not charge cover for those over 21. I will have to explain to them how secure FuturePay will be and how much more efficient it will make their bar. They will have the opportunity to track how many drink orders they receive and how many people attend their bar on a given night which may be important information to the finances of their business. If people are using cash to pay for drinks and ordering them by word of mouth, there is no way to tell what they are buying and how much. I don't think packaging and price points will play a major role in my business concept. It will be more about selling my idea in an effective manor so that bar owners view FuturePay as a necessity in our ever-changing technologically advanced world. As one or two business establishments begin to understand this idea, it will help others realize the necessity for it. There are not currently competitors besides the app BarEye which allows you to buy drinks for friends on the app. But nothing that is as specific and innovative as FuturePay. Some weaknesses may be the fact that IDs need to also be checked at the door for first time users.

Three minor elements.

• My secret sauce: the fact that nothing like this exists, along with the fact that cash is becoming more and more useless.
• What's next for the venture? I think that FuturePay will start as just a way to pay ahead of time for your cover charge. As the app grows, I would like to expand it into a way to order drinks and open/close your bar tab. I would also like to expand the use of the app to other universities and cities around the U.S
•  What's next for me? I hope to continue on with other business ideas in the social scene to help make life easier for college students in any minor way I can. With the success of this idea, I think I will realize that a simple concept and a simple problem/solution can go a very long way and make a very large impact on the community. 

2) Overall, I received a lot of useful feedback. While a lot of it was positive, some of the advice was critical and really helped shape my idea. Almost everyone was on board with my idea and agreed they would download my app. One student brought up a good point about legal issues with checking vs not checking IDs from regulars. One student agreed that most difficult thing would be to get the bars to use it, like you said, but if you got 1 bar to do then the others would follow suit. One of the most valuable comments I received said "At the door, you would still have to show your idea and have them scan your app or you would have to give them a code. How much longer does it take to hand over $10? Perhaps hand over $10 and be handed back $5? How much time would you end up saving?" This really made me think deeper about the logistics of FuturePay and if it would actually be successful. 

3) I changed  my concept by creating a database that stores previous users so that IDs do not have to be checked over and over again. Once a user becomes a "regular" they will be placed into a system and confirmed as 21 years or older. In terms of getting the idea to sell to the actual bars, I changed my venture concept by stating that I will provide a full financial outline of the potential added revenues that will created when students get the app. For example, bars like Fat Daddy's do not even charge cover so creating this app will force them to charge a cover charge to everyone. They will see an influx of new revenue while also making their bar system much more efficient.

Going For Google Gold

1) For each blog, to pursue SEO I posted each of my assignments not just to my blog, but also made them public on my google account. They are able to be seen by anyone. I also added the Week label. In my comments on other people's posts I always put a link to my blog/assignment in order to gain more SEO.

2) My main key word was definitely entrepreneurship, innovation, venture, business, and words related to my business idea such as app, customers, product, efficient, and experience. All of these are general and can be applied to a variety of different things so this definitely helped my blog gain traction.

3) I did not use social media to enhance my SEO efforts but I did publish all of my posts publicly to my Google account so that they can be seen by anybody, not just class members who look at my blog. This gave my blog posts a lot more views. Posting videos to my youtube account also gave more views to my posts because they were able to be searched with a few key words such as "pitch" "elevator" and "entrepreneurship"

4) My most viral posts were my elevator pitches and my venture concept. I think these obtained the most traffic because the pitches both contained public youtube videos. The venture concept was a big assignment with a lot of content which I think contained a lot of key words. I also think that it gained views because there were 4 peer reviewers assigned to comment on my post.

5) When I typed in my key word with "ENT3003" after it I was on the first page.

Week 14 Reading Reflection

Chapter 3 discusses corporate entrepreneurship and chapter 4 discusses social entrepreneurship and the global environment for entrepreneurship. Both of these chapters were very well written and helped give a good explanation of the topics at hand. I was most surprised to find out that rules are set for innovation within a company. Some of these rules include "use formal meetings whenever possible," "reward and promote innovative personnel," and "put people on small teams for future oriented projects."  One question I would ask the author would be whether these rules/guidelines can be applied to any type of company, or if there are specific types of companies, maybe larger ones vs. small businesses, that would benefit more from following these rules for an innovative environment. There was nothing in these two chapters that I disagreed with or where I thought the author was wrong. Everything was very straightforward and the reading made me realize a lot about entrepreneurial environments. One part of the reading that was confusing to me was that one of the corporate innovators commandments was to "come to work each day willing to give up your job for the innovation." I'm not sure this is something that creates a community environment and a truly entrepreneurial environment for the company. It seems that it is contradictory. Employees should not have to give up their job.

Celebrating Failure

1) In class this semester I have failed during the interview and video assignments. Most of the time I immediately chose not to complete these types of assignments because it seemed like such a big task to take on and I always had other things to do instead. I rationalized my decision to not complete the interview assignments because of the extra credit opportunities.

2) By opting to not complete these assignments throughout different points of the semester I learned that there are going to be things in life, especially in my job later in life, that I will have no desire to do but I will have no choice. In this class, I did have a choice to not do an assignment because there are extra credit opportunities to make up for it. However, I realized that this will not be the case when I am assigned a tedious, even annoying, project at my job.

3) There are not many times where I have truly failed throughout my life. If I ever have it has been something very small that eventually becomes irrelevant and I forget about it. I am starting to realize that as I get older my failures may become more and more relevant and important. However, it is something we all just have to accept because nobody is perfect and things are going to go wrong at some point. Emotionally, I try to handle failure by always staying positive and trying to make up for a failure in a different way with something that I excel at. If you accept your failure, find a silver lining, and learn from your mistake, you will become a better person because of it. The biggest thing I have learned about failure is that it is not a bad, negative thing. It is a regular occurrance throughout life and there is nothing you can do about it. So the best option is to learn from it and move on.

Week 13 Reading Reflection

Valuation of Entrepreneurial Ventures

               I found this chapter to be very interesting. What stood out to me the most was the idea of "rollups." I had never heard this term before but I realize it has become more and more popular in business. A roll up is when investors acquire and merge multiple small companies together in order to achieve cost savings. This seems to be a very innovative and modern way of business that could potentially have a very large impact on an industry. Something that surprised me while also confusing me was that "the stated net income of a private company may not truly reflect its actual earning power." I wish this author explained this a little bit more for the reader to understand. Overall, this chapter had a lot of useful information for entrepreneurs that could easily be applicable to real life. If I could ask the author something it would be to give a real life example of when a start up business or entrepreneur has used the "checklist for analyzing a business" to give it credibility and show how it is applicable to the real world of business. Otherwise, there wasn't anything that I disagreed with the author about.