Week 15

This week I harvested many of my vegetables including green beans, boy choy, swiss chard, and eggplant. I was so excited about my veggies that I went home and immediately started putting them to use. Last night, I made eggplant parmesan which turned out really great. The remainder of my veggies, I will be transferring to a plot of land I will be allotted when I join the horticultural student club. Overall, this has been an amazing course. In fact, this has been one of my favorite courses I have taken in college. This class was extremely practical and taught me skills that I will carry with me for a lifetime. It allowed me to fulfill one of my longest standing desires that was to grow my own food. Because of this, I was extremely proud of my eggplant dinner, and was truly still in awe that I was eating something that I had grown and something that was so fresh. I think that this class is very reasonable, and I am not sure if there is any way to improve it. I believe this is a well-developed course. I am grateful for being able to learn from this class, and I am thankful for the passion with which Professor Nunez taught.

29A – Venture Concept No. 2

Opportunity

• Many people struggle to find open seating at places like coffee shops or libraries when they are trying to study/get work done. Thus, the need exists for a service that can let an individual know where they can find open seating. This need had by anyone who uses space outside of their homes to get work done, especially students who study much of their time studying. The nature of this need is the need to be efficient and maximize the value of one’s time.
• The changes in the environment that are creating this opportunity is the presence of wifi in public places. This allows people to study at public locations which creates an increased demand for seating, and a need to be aware of where to find these seats?
• This market is primarily defined demographically and geographically in college towns with college students
• Customers are currently satisfying this need by driving to multiple locations to find open seating. They are not loyal to this strategy because it is a time-waster.
• This opportunity is huge because it is not limited to merely one city or one state, there are college towns all over the world.
• This window of opportunity will be open as long as long as people study in public places which could be forever.

Innovation

• My product allows users to know if a location has adequate, available study space before an individual arrives at said location. This product will allow students to see how many seats are available at certain locations. All they have to do is input the number of seats they are looking for and the app will generate all of the locations in their area that have adequate seating. 
• I am selling access to an app with a full database. This will be sold primarily to universities and the price will depend on how many students that university has. For example, if a university has 50,000 students. They could purchase a year long subscription to the service for 1 million dollars. To break that down. A year long subscription for each individual will be $20. 

Venture

• I believe it will be relatively easy to get people to use this product because right now, no service exists that addresses this need. Thus, I have no competitors.
• Price points play a role in my business concept because the service is relatively low cost and affordable for customers. Additionally the cost varies by university because of the differing number of students.
• Customer support will also be crucial because since this is a service on an electronic it is bound to have technical difficulties. 
• I would organize my business by having a CEO, product development team, marketers to speak in front of university officials, and customer support staff. I imagine that I have upwards of 75 employees at the peak of the business.

Secret sauce

• Absence of competitors is my secret sauce because it allows my business to fully stand out. The lack of competition exaggerates the need because currently there is nothing to satisfy the customer need.

What is next?

• Right now my product is solely available to universities and local businesses. I think making this product accessible to individuals is next for my venture. I think I could also expand by having a focus on people in the business industry.My product might be useful to business teams looking to for available conference space.

What’s next for me?

• In the next five years, I would want to be nearing the peak of the business. This is a concept I expect to blow up in within a few years, so within five years, I should definitely have a lucrative business. 
• In the next decade, I would like to be starting another venture and also helping other people to put the ideas into practice.
• This first venture helps me achieve my vision because it will be my guinea pig venture! Here is where I can make mistakes I can learn from, while still having a successful business.

30A – Final Reflection

The most formative experience that I recall in this class is actually getting feedback from my target market to gauge how strong the need is and how will the service would sell. This was extremely helpful for me to be able to reflect on the details of my service and how I can make improvements to make it even more marketable. This is something that I will remember years from now, because it is something that I can do when I am actually creating a business. My most joyous experience was actually coming up with the idea. When the idea came to me, I felt like I had come up with something that would truly sell and that was exciting. I am most proud of myself for coming up with my elevator pitch. I felt good about it and got great feedback on it that confirmed it was effective. 

I do see myself as an entrepreneur. I think an entrepreneur is a creative risk taker and I think this course has helped me to tap into the creative side of that. Because of this, I think my entrepreneurship mind has sharpened. 

One suggestion I would make to the students who are going to take this class is to be prepared to talk to people because you will have to do a lot of interviews to get feedback on your idea. I think to perform the best in this course, they can set reminders on their phones to do the assignments and go to in person lectures so they can really soak up the information and do well on quizzes. In order to foster the entrepreneur mindset, I recommend that I work on opening their minds to the ideas of failure and risk, because success cannot be achieved without it. 

28A – Your Exit Strategy

While I would love to pass this business down to my kids, and then my grandkids, I do not believe that is the most effective strategy. I imagine that this need will decrease in the years to come as new, innovative technology is created. Thus, I will hold the business for probably about a decade and then sell the business while it is still profitable. This will allow me to gain final profits from the business before handing it off. I believe this has influenced how I have designed this service and business. While I want the business to grow and be attractive to potential buyers, I do not want to put too much of my resources into knowing that it will be sold eventually. I believe this need is something that needs to be addressed as soon as possible, but this need will not be everlasting. 

26A – Celebrating Failure

One thing I failed to do this semester was to stick to my plan to work ahead in this class. When I signed up for this class, I told myself that I wanted to knock all of the assignments out before we reached the halfway point in this semester. However, the assignments took longer and were more detailed than I anticipated, so I did not finish when I wanted to. In fact, I am not even slightly ahead. I am working on this assignment the same week that it is due. There were points in the semester where I was able to get ahead, however eventually my speed would slow down and I would sync back up with the scheduled deadlines. From this, I learned that when you are ahead, it would be ideal to continue moving forward rather than using that time to rest because in the end, you will no longer be ahead and you may even find yourself struggling. I have found that consistency is key, and continuously working towards a goal is effective. I have a pretty positive mindset, so I do not take failure to harshly. I usually follow it with “on the bright side ____”. Usually, I view failure as a learning opportunity. In this particular instance, there was not much risk involved so I do not feel like I lost anything. However, in the future, I would be likely to take risks. I understand that the only way to make progress is to risk something. If I stay in the safe zone, then there is no opportunity for growth. Risk and failure have both been positive to me even before this class because they indicate that you are taking action steps towards something.  

25A – What’s Next?

I think making this product accessible to individuals is next for my venture (as opposed to solely universities and local businesses). I think my venture could also expand by having a focus on people in the business industry. Perhaps my product could be useful to business teams looking to book conference spaces.

Interviewee 1 (Sarah): I think your ideas are good. I think you could eventually expand to include services such as checking the wait time at restaurants before driving there.

Interviewee 2 (Ella): The ideas you have so far are great, and I think your expansion ideas would be successful as well. Something I usually struggle with is the gym being overcrowded. 

Maybe you could expand to include wait time at gyms, so we do not have this issue anymore.

Interviewee 3 (Mark): I absolutely could benefit from the ideas you have put together for students. I think it would be fantastic if there was a way to know the wait time at mechanic shops before going. My car has a lot of problems, so I find myself in the shop a lot and I wish I did not have to wait so long. 

Based on my own ideas as well as the interviews, I think it would be best for my product to move in the direction of businesses and restaurants. To begin, businesses take part in a lot of meetings that require a space for them to use. Perhaps there are businesses that do not have adequate space for large team meetings. Additionally, the restaurant industry is a huge one, and there is a high demand for having awareness of their wait times as well as lowering their wait times. Thus, there is a lot of success to be had in this sector.

A radically different market would be a rural town since all of my concepts, thus far, have been beneficial in cities.

I think my service can expand and add value to rural towns by providing services in transportation. I am not sure exactly what the details of the service would be, however, I am aware that rural towns can struggle with poor roads.

Interviewee 1 (Rachel): I think we could really use some help with our highways in rural towns. Often times, they are under construction, so if your service could tell us when they are estimated to be finished and open to the public that would be great!

Interviewee 2 (Sam): Often times our roads are backed up and it would be really helpful if we did not have to sit in traffic. However, I know Google Maps estimates travel times and delays so I am not sure what your service could add to that.

After brainstorming and talking with my interviewees the rural market does not seem appealing for expanding my service. We discussed improving transportation with the app, however we did not come up with any tangible ideas that could be executed.

23A – Your Venture’s Unfair Advantage

1. Fundraiser planning experience
1. Valuable: this is valuable as funds will be needed to launch and sustain the product/service
2. Rare: This is not rare for large companies, however this can be a rare skill for start-up businesses
3. Inimitable: This skill can be learned, so it can be replicated to a certain degree.
4. Non-substitutable: cannot be substituted as this skill is essential. 
2. Absence of competitors
1. Valuable: this is valuable because the need for the product has yet to be satisfied
2. Rare: This is rare as they say “nothing is new under the sun.”
3. Inimitable: The product is new, so I do not doubt that it will probably take time for others to imitate it
4. Non-substitutable: other unique products would have the same benefits 
3. Social capital: contact with UF 
1. Valuable: this is valuable because UF is a primary customer of the product
2. Rare: This is not rare as many people are affiliates of UF or universities in general
3. Inimitable: This can be imitated as forming a relationship is not difficult as a student
4. Non-substitutable: this is substitutable because UF can still become a customer even without a prior relationship
4. Public speaking skills
1. Valuable: this is valuable because I will need to speak about the product to effectively market it
2. Rare: This can be rare as public speaking is dreaded by many people
3. Inimitable: This can be imitated as other companies can hire someone else to do the public speaking/marketing
4. Non-substitutable: this is non-substitutable because it is necessary to market the product
5. Social capital: publicity
1. Valuable: this is valuable because publicity will be an important marketing tool
2. Rare: This is rare as not many people have connections with news stations
3. Inimitable: This would be difficult to imitate because it requires rapport
4. Non-substitutable: this is substitutable because marketing will still be possible without news stations.
6. Social capital: student organizations
1. Valuable: this is valuable because UF students are a large stakeholder of our primary customer (UF)
2. Rare: This is not rare as many people are apart of student organizations on campus
3. Inimitable: This can be imitated as joining student organizations is easy
4. Non-substitutable: this is substitutable because UF can still become a customer even without connections with student organizations
7. Social capital: dual degree (students in two colleges)
1. Valuable: this is valuable because I have access to more students at UF
2. Rare: This is rare as most students are not apart of two colleges
3. Inimitable: This cannot be easily imitated
4. Non-substitutable: this is substitutable because UF can still become a customer even without being connected to two colleges
8. Social capital: contact with local businesses
1. Valuable: this is valuable because local businesses are primary customers
2. Rare: This is rare as many people do not have rapport with local business owners
3. Inimitable: This can be imitated as rapport can be built with an effort to do it
4. Non-substitutable: this is substitutable because local business can still become a customer even without established relationships when they hear how the service benefits them
9. Customer service
1. Valuable: this is valuable because UF students are a large stakeholder of our primary customer (UF)
2. Rare: This is not rare as many people are apart of student organizations on campus
3. Inimitable: This can be imitated as other companies can practice good customer service
4. Non-substitutable: this is substitutable because UF can still become a customer even without connections with student organizations
10. Service promotions (i.e. first month of service free)
1. Valuable: this is valuable because it will encourage customers to choose my service over potential competitors
2. Rare: This is rare as many people are not willing to provide free services for long term partnership/strategy
3. Inimitable: This can be imitated if other companies try to compete
4. Non-substitutable: this is substitutable because we can still get customers without these promotions. 

Absence of competitors is more important than my other resources because it is extremely valuable, rare, non-imitable. This resource scored the highest with the VRIN assessment. The lack of competition exaggerates the need, is rare because it is difficult to create a totally unique product, and it also makes it less likely to be imitated any time soon.