Final Reflection

After reading through all the posts from this semester, I have learned that I have become a lot stronger in my arguments and have gained more skills in creating a better platform for my ideas. Some of the highs were when I had to interview people, because it was very interesting to hear what other people thought of my ideas. Some of the lows included assignments where I had to identify things that bothered me. I didn’t enjoy this assignment as much because I truly don’t hate a lot of things and am a positive person overall. The most formative experience for me was finding my secret sauce. This will be something that I remember for a long time because it helps me understand what differentiates me from the other people out there. My most joyous was interviewing my friends and family to hear what traits they thought I had because it made me feel very good about myself. I am proud of myself for creating a venture concept because it took a long time and I really had to focus on what I wanted to do with my company to complete the assignment. After going through this class, I consider myself to be way more of an entrepreneur because I feel as though I know how to think like one better now. I have come very close to having an entrepreneurial mindset because when I see opportunity, I want to do something to fix it. My one recommendation for students who are going to journey down this path is to pay attention to detail and make sure they absorb all of the information that they can from people looking over their ideas and solutions. I would also recommend that the students create a schedule to follow so that they can effectively get their work done on time and make sure that it is solid work. I think that fostering this mindset takes a step forward in improving their work ethic. I think that this class can help improve your work ethic if you put your mind to it.

Venture Concept No. 2

Longer weekend hours for on campus food places

After attending the University of Florida for nearly a whole year, I have encountered many positive and negative aspects about the school. One thing that bugs me all the time is the limited hours for some of the food places on the weekends. I have asked around and it seems like many people also have a problem with this. The more and more people I talked to made it clear who I needed to target for the implementation of my product. The group of students who live on campus and are on the meal plan are the group who would be most willing to backup my idea. This opportunity for change came when I realized that going places on campus during the weekend is quite difficult and not something that is ideal for everyone. I figured that if restaurants on campus kept their stores open on the weekends or extended their hours, they would be able to drive in more revenue than they would anticipate. Currently, a student who lives on campus would go off campus to get something to eat, wasting time and even not using their meal plan effectively. This opportunity could be very big because not only could I create revenue for myself, I could help the stores make more money, and even save the students time and money as well. This window of opportunity could also be open for a very long time, if places on campus accept meal plans and remain open.

Innovation is something that I thought a lot before finalizing the idea for my service. I thought a lot to myself about whether someone would have tried this before or if it was tested and failed. After looking into it, I believe that it has never been a possibility and the school has not tested it out. The school would be foolish not to at least give it a test run. If they try it out and realize that they can gain more money from it, and satisfy the students’ needs more, then they should feel that implementing it is a smart move. What I want to do with my service is charge the students a flat rate charge on top of their meal plan to be eligible to eat at the restaurants any time that the restaurant is open. With the money I collect from the students, I should be able to pay the companies to keep the stores open longer on the weekends and give the students optimal times for eating there. I think that a flat rate charge of $50 per semester would be reasonable because it would allow them to eat wherever they want on their meal plans. This amount of money would be roughly 6 meals somewhere off campus. Instead of buying those 6 meals off campus, they can save that money and use it for something else. The money that they have in their meal plan is money they already anticipated on spending on food, thus allowing the extra 50 to be money they do not have to use off campus.

When it all comes together, you can realize that I have come up with a way to save the students time and money. Instead of using money off campus at places they probably do not even want to eat at, they can use that money to pay for my service which is far more convenient and cheaper. I think that customers would use this service because it is something that will allow students to save time which is a big factor for a lot of people in college. It will not be hard to get them to switch once I put into perspective how much cheaper it would be to just use my service rather than go off campus to get something. I think that the only competitors would be the off-campus places which would make deals during the weekend to pull students back off campus to eat cheaper at their restaurants. My price point is set so that it can help pay the restaurants extra money to be open for longer. This money can be used to pay employees or utility bills that might be racked up for being open during the weekends. The customer experience would be a lot better because they would realize the school and food places care about their needs and want to do something more convenient for them. I would organize this business by trying to show students how nice it would be to have this opportunity.

My most important resource will be the fact that I want to make everyone happy. With my service, I will try to make it beneficial for both the students who buy my service, and the restaurants who agree to stay open longer on the weekends. My next step for my venture will be to propose my idea to the school. None of this will be able to happen unless I talk to a representative who tells me what I can and cannot do with this idea. What is next for me is a lot of hard work. I will need to convince everyone that my service is the best thing that they can buy and how it will save them so much time and money if they opt to buy it. I hope that this business takes off and I can even look into helping other schools who have the same problem as The University of Florida does.

The feedback I received on my post was very positive. I did not get any negative feedback and I was happy to hear that the people who commented on my post thought that my idea was very good, and they really liked my plans for everything.

The one thing I did feel I needed to change was some of the grammar in my post. Some of the sentences didn’t fully get my points across, so I improved those to make sure that they got the point across better. I think that after rewording it better, I have enabled my followers to get a better idea of what I truly want in my venture concept.

Your Exit Strategy

My exit strategy would be to completely sell the company. I would hope to sell the entire company within the next 5 years. I do not plan on staying with the business for a very long time. I want the business to be something that can be kept within students that attend the University of Florida, so I will not keep it in my family.

I selected this exit strategy because I feel like it is a service that people who attend the university care more about and it would be better able to help the cause if they are located close to the campus to do so.

I think my exit strategy has helped me understand that it is a problem specifically on our campus and it is not something that is a problem all around. It helped me understand that the opportunity group was the students who live on campus with meal plans. It has definitely influenced my growth and focus into who I am targeting.

Reading Reflection No. 3

The book I read was The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users written by Guy Kawasaki. The general them of the book was basically highlighting all of the positive things that come from Social Media. He argues that despite the negative things that are out there about social media, there are a fair number of positive things that really help businesses and people improve.

This book connected directly to the class because we post all of our assignment responses on an online blog which is technically social media. This book also enhanced the fact that things that you do on social media drastically influence how your company is doing. The book liked to highlight all of the positive things for it.

My exercise would be to design a fake Instagram post that advertises your product. You would have to take a picture of something and then come up with a caption to it that made people want to buy your product or service.

My biggest surprise was when I heard that Pinterest is a great way to gain ideas and pictures for your products and businesses. I thought that this was impressive because I never would have thought of it to be a big influence on businesses. This differed the most because I assumed that it would be a different site or not even a social media page, but it turned out to be that.

Celebrating Failure

This semester I have done some great things, but I have also done some things that were not great and impressive. I think that one of the times that I did not do so great and failed was when I was taking a Biology class here at UF. I am more of a math person and biology is something I am not great with and do not understand very well. Despite spending a lot of time studying for my first couple exams, I did not do great on them. I still have one test left that could be my best one yet, and I am trying to improve my grade and prove to myself I know a little bit about biology. From this experience I learned that I have to study multiple days in advance to do better in that class.

Overall, I think that failure can be a good thing because it teaches you how to be persistent and never give up. Despite not doing great on these tests, I have learned to just keep studying harder and longer to do better on the next one. There is no point in giving up, I just have to keep going.

Venture Concept No. 1

Longer weekend hours for on campus food places

After attending the University of Florida for nearly a whole year, I have encountered many positive and negative aspects about the school. One thing that bugs me all the time is the limited hours for some of the food places on the weekends. I have asked around and it seems like many people also have a problem with this. The more and more people I talked to made it clear who I needed to target for the implementation of my product. The group of students who live on campus and are on the meal plan are the group who would be most willing to backup my idea. This opportunity for change came when I realized that going places on campus during the weekend is quite difficult and not something that is ideal for everyone. I figured that if restaurants on campus kept their stores open on the weekends or extended their hours, they would be able to drive in more revenue than they would anticipate. Currently, a student who lives on campus would go off campus to get something to eat, wasting time and even not using their meal plan effectively. This opportunity could be very big because not only could I create revenue for myself, I could help the stores make more money, and even save the students time and money as well. This window of opportunity could also be open for a very long time, if places on campus accept meal plans and remain open.

Innovation is something that I thought a lot before finalizing the idea for my service. I thought a lot to myself about whether someone would have tried this before or if it was tested and failed. After looking into it, I believe that it has never been a possibility and the school has not tested it out. The school would be foolish not to at least give it a test run. If they try it out and realize that they can gain more money from it, and satisfy their students needs more, then they should feel that implementing it is a smart move. What I want to do with my service is charge the students a flat rate charge on top of their meal plan to be eligible to eat at the restaurants any time that the restaurant is open. With the money I collect from the students, I should be able to pay the companies to keep the stores open longer on the weekends and give the students optimal times for eating there. I think that a flat rate charge of $50 per semester would be reasonable because it would allow them to eat wherever they want on their meal plans. This amount of money would be roughly 6 meals somewhere off campus. Instead of buying those 6 meals off campus, they can save that money and use it for something else. The money that they have in their meal plan is money they already anticipated on spending on food, thus allowing the extra 50 to be money they do not have to use off campus.

When it all comes together, you can realize that I have come up with a way to save the students time and money. Instead of using money off campus at places they probably do not even want to eat at, they can use that money to pay for my service which is far more convenient and cheaper. I think that customers would use this service because it is something that will allow students to save time which is a big factor for a lot of people in college. It will not be hard to get them to switch once I put into perspective how much cheaper it would be to just use my service rather than go off campus to get something. I think that the only competitors would be the off-campus places which would make deals during the weekend to pull students back off campus to eat cheaper at their restaurants. My price point is set so that it can help pay the restaurants extra money to be open for longer. This money can be used to pay employees or utility bills that might be racked up for being open during the weekends. The customer experience would be a lot better because they would realize the school and food places care about their needs and want to do something more convenient for them. I would organize this business by trying to show students how nice it would be to have this opportunity.

My most important resource will be the fact that I want to make everyone happy. With my service, I will try to make it beneficial for both the students who buy my service, and the restaurants who agree to stay open longer on the weekends. My next step for my venture will be to propose my idea to the school. None of this will be able to happen unless I talk to a representative who tells me what I can and cannot do with this idea. What is next for me is a lot of hard work. I will need to convince everyone that my service is the best thing that they can buy and how it will save them so much time and money if they opt to buy it. I hope that this business takes off and I can even look into helping other schools who have the same problem as The University of Florida does.

What’s Next?

Existing Market:

The next step for me is to talk to a representative from the school to propose my idea. Since I have enough support, I think that I now must talk to someone with the power to use my plan and implement it into our school.

After interviewing the three people who are already in the market for my service, I learned some good information from them. They informed me that I should first come up with a pitch to them using numbers showing how I could make them more money by using my idea. I think that the most logical move from here is to pitch my idea and come up with an anticipated revenue stream for them if the restaurants stayed open on the weekends.

Based on my ideas and the feedback I got from the people I interviewed, I think that I will plan to show the school my idea by pitching them it and by showing them potential numbers if they keep them open. Another idea I have is to do a couple test runs to show the school how much money they could be bringing in if they go with my idea. We could try a couple of different time frames for keeping them open and test the profitability while also testing customer satisfaction.

New Market:

A different market for me is the group of students at UF who live off campus. Despite their limited needs to go into campus on the weekends, if there are places to eat for longer hours, then there is a greater chance that these people would come in and eat on campus. This could be because it is cheaper for them, or they like the options that the campus has to offer.

After interviewing two people from the new market group, I learned a little bit more about if I could rope them into my idea. The problem I faced was that one of them thought it was a great idea, and the other one thought that it was a poor idea. The person who thought it was a good idea thought that he would come into campus more if the longer hours were an option. He said that I should continue my journey by going to the school and pitching my idea through giving the benefits of implementing my service. However, the other one was not able to see himself coming into campus and said that it would not be something he would be interested in.

I am not discouraged by this however, because if roughly half of the people who live off campus are interested in it, then it could work out well. I think that this group can help my plan a lot because they are a group that the school wouldn’t think would be interested in my service, but if I can prove to them that they are, I can earn a lot of credit from the school and maybe be able to push my service farther.