30A- Final Reflection

The End of Our Journey & The Beginning of Your Journey

1) Going through all the assignments for this semester made me realize how much we all accomplished by the end of it. I started out with an opportunity that is completely different from the one I am ending with and I think that goes to show how this class has changed my mindset and perspective of how an entrepreneur works.

2) I think what stands out to me as the most formative assignment was my first venture concept when I developed a whole new opportunity. This idea came to me in the middle of this class and I don't think I would have come up with it if I didn't have these assignments to make me think outside of the box. I am actually very excited about this venture and want to make it happen one day because I think it is a great concept. 

3) After this semester, I have definitely gained an entrepreneurial mindset and I have gained so much knowledge from these assignments and the feedback I got from my peers. I never realized how much potential I had by myself to start a business and how you can do anything you set your mind to. I am excited about the venture I ended with this semester and I am passionate about taking it to the next level after this class is over. Without this class, I would have never come up with this opportunity or know the first steps and knowledge it takes to be an entrepreneur.

4) One recommendation I would make to other students taking this class in the future would be to learn how to be adaptable and take on feedback and be able to read the environment you are around. It is extremely difficult to be successful in a venture if you are not willing to adapt or make modifications that would help your idea become more successful and fit into the market you are targeting. I would recommend to come in with an open mindset to this class and be ready to change or modify your original opportunity. To do your best in this course, it is important to manage your time wisely and be open to the feedback that your peers give you. You get what you put into this course, so I recommend taking it to your advantage.

29A- Venture Concept No.2

Old School Eats

1)

Opportunity

My opportunity involves creating a restaurant venue outside by renovating old school busses that are no longer in use and turn them into food trucks. I would make sure to have everything used to be recyclable or built from scratch with environmentally friendly material. I want this place to be as green as possible and help raise awareness of global warming. I think that there is a wide range of customers that would be interested in this new venture. I think it would attract the younger crowd as well as parents with kids who could play on the playground while they relax and eat. I think the nature of the need is that people are always interested in new hip places in town and that it would also provide awareness of global warming and the small things we can do to help prevent it.

·      What are the forces or changes in the environment creating this opportunity?

I think that if we're not careful, global warming is going to interrupt many businesses and everyone’s everyday lives.

·      How is this market defined geographically and demographically?

The market would be close to a city that will attract people all around its perimeter. Demographically I think it will bring in many ages because it will be kid-friendly as well.

·      How are customers currently satisfying this need?  And how loyal are they to whatever they use now? 

I think people are always trying out new restaurants and are satisfying their needs by venturing out of their comfort zone. I think many restaurants are going as green as possible. For example, most places have replaced plastic straws with paper ones.

·      How big is this opportunity?

I think this opportunity is very important and a cool way for people to be outside and enjoy one another. Everyone is always in need of food and a cool place to hang out.

·      How long will the “window of opportunity” be open?

I think that this opportunity will always be open for people to open up a business. Global warming will only get more prevalent with time and I think it will always be around while we are alive.

Innovation

My innovation would be creating different restaurants by renovating old school busses for people to come and eat at. I want to create an eco-friendly environment where people can also relax and enjoy themselves. This would work by buying about an acre of land where there will be a cool patio to eat, restaurants, and a kid-friendly park. I would make money by selling drinks and food to the people who are using the facility. The drinks and food would be priced at normal restaurant prices. For example, a pizza would be $15 and chicken tenders and fries would be $8.

Venture Concept

I think that renovating old school busses and turning them into restaurants would create a very unique ambiance that people would be interested in checking out. Having this restaurant stand out and have something different than all others will attract the attention it needs to be noticed. I also think that making it a green and earth-friendly place will bring the attention we have to live sustainably. I think people would be willing to hang out and buy food at a local food truck area where you can relax and bring your kids.

·      What are the reasons to think customers would switch to this new product?  How hard will it be to get them to switch? 

I think it may be a bit harder to have customers switch from their usual restaurant spots, but I think people are always looking for new cute, and fun things to do around them. I think if we have a great environment and treat the customers like family, we could convince them to switch over.

·      Who are the competitors?  What are their possible weaknesses or vulnerabilities? 

My competitors would be restaurants that are already established in my area. They will be hard to beat because they have already established their customers. I think their weakness would be that they don’t have as a unique environment as what we would be offering to them.

·      What role does packaging, your price points, distribution, customer support, the customer experience, or the business location play (if any) in defining your business concept? This role is a huge part of my business concept and I definitely need to spend more time creating plans for each of those details. I need to find an ideal location that will be close enough in range for my customers to drive to. I also want to make sure that each customer has a great experience while eating. 

·      How would you organize a “business” to support the ongoing production of your new product, service, or process? How many employees? What roles are in the venture?  I would need a business partner to help with the marketing and organizing while I would focus on the finances going into the business. I would need at least three employees for each food truck but other than that it will mostly be serving yourself. I also want to utilize the new social media platforms like Tik ToK by documenting the process from start to finish. I think this would raise awareness and be a cool way for customers and potential customers to feel like a part of the venture.

The Three Minor Elements

I think my most important resource would be that the restaurants will be inside renovated school busses which is something that is not typically done and unique. I think this will create an unfair advantage because this restaurant will easily stick into our customer's heads and they would be more likely to talk about it. Customers will take picture or tag the location on media platforms that will give us free advertising to the unique experience.

I think my next venture would be to add on to the compound the restaurant is on. For example, have a free library and have a community garden that people can use freely. This will give our customers more to do and add more to the ambiance. The more to do, the longer the people will stay and it will attract new crowds as well.

I see in my next five years finally saving up for the land to establish this business. It will take a lot of work, but I think with my work ethic and passion for this will finally allow me to start putting it all together. My vision is to create a fun and cool environment where everyone is welcome. If it goes well I would love to open up a sister restaurant or chain in a different location to maximize the business.

2)

I had a lot of great feedback from my first venture concept and what's next assignment. My peers really liked how I went with my gut and started a whole new opportunity that is brand new to the class. One peer mentioned how I should document the building process and the renovation so I could use that video and upload it to social media platforms like Tik Tok. I thought this was a genius idea to maximize this type of platform for advertising and decided to include that. Another peer mentioned how I should include a park that adults can play on too because it would bring a nostalgic feel to the environment. Also, someone recommended that other new cuisine or products could use my property and expand my products to attract new customers.

3)

I really enjoyed reading about the feedback on my new venture. I got a lot of positive feedback and amazing recommendations that could make this venture even better. I really liked the feedback from my peer who recommended using Tik Tok to document the process of the venture. I thought this was an amazing idea and I am so happy someone mentioned it. I made sure to include that in this assignment as a great marketing tactic. I didn't include an adult park to this venture but I really liked that idea and if the venture goes well I may include that in the plan or adopt that idea for a sister restaurant that would attract the older crowd. I am excited that I got really great feedback and compliments on my new venture and this assignment helped me to organize my thoughts and put the idea on paper.

27A- Reading Reflection No.3

1) What was the general theme or argument of the book?

I picked the book 'The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users' because the title was very intriguing. I am not a huge influence on social media but I know the impact it can have when it comes to marketing or stating your platform for business. The general theme of this book is guiding you with tips and advice to maximize your business from social media and how you maximize your followers. The book really digs deep into understanding your consumer and the feed that they would want to see on their mobile devices. I learned a lot reading this and enjoyed hearing a new perspective about social media.

2) How did the book, in your opinion, connect with and enhance what you are learning in ENT 3003?

Social media is only going to keep growing with our generation. I think it is essential to keep up to date with what your consumers are interested in and how you can keep up with their wants and needs. As an entrepreneur, you need to be able to attract your consumers and understand their daily lives and what makes them happy. In order to be successful, you need a good social media presence that allows you to keep in touch with people who could possibly be customers.

3) If you had to design an exercise for this class, based on the book you read, what would that exercise involve?

I would choose an exercise where students choose a social media platform that they think would work best for their company. They would create an ad from whatever platform they choose to convey to their viewers why they should choose their business. I think this would be a very creative and fun assignment that will have students thinking outside of the box. I also think this assignment should include a reflection of why they chose that platform and the impact it could have on their company.

4) What was your biggest surprise or 'aha' moment when reading the book? In other words, what did you learn that differed most from your expectations?

The most surprising thing to me from reading this book is how observant and creative you need to be to have a powerful standing in social media. It takes a lot of analysis and psychology to really start understanding your market and how you can advertise it to the world. Social media has a huge advantage when it comes to marketing your business and I think every company should use this to their advantage. It is important to be interactive with your customers and to show them that you truly do care.

28A- Your Exit Strategy

1) I want to stay with my business for as long as possible. I feel like I will fall in love with it and be very passionate to make sure it keeps running. Ideally, I will have kids one day and they will want to take over the business to make sure it keeps running. I think it would be so cool to keep a business in the family that stays for generations. I would hope that my kids would want to take over it and would have the same passion for the business as me.

2) I picked this strategy because I would love to take over my family's business if we had one. I also think it would be nice to have a steady secure job set up for my kids if they ended up wanting to take over the family business. They would grow up around it and learn all the little details that keep the business running and successful.

3) I think I have always known this decision in my head and seeing how memorable a company stays when it is passed down through the family. I want to keep the place homey and comfortable where you would want to bring your family to hang out. I don't think this decision has influenced any of my ideas while forming this opportunity. It may later in the following years affect some of the decisions I make regarding keeping the business running. 

26A- Celebrating Failure

1) This past semester was probably very weird for everyone and I had a hard time adjusting to doing classes at home in my family's house. I was taking many business classes including Business Law. I have always been bad at memorizing facts and law has never come easy to me. I studied very hard at the beginning of the semester and did pretty well on the first two exams. The whole class is divided up by just three exams so that those were the only thing determining our grades. I decided to opt in to pass or fail for this class because at the time I thought I would be able to pass and not have that class affect my GPA. I ended up getting one percent below the passing guidelines so I ended up failing the class.

2) I have never failed a class before so this was a brand new experience for me. I was very disappointed and took it to heart that I was a failure when I saw that I didn't pass the very first time. After talking with my mom I learned that everyone has failures and that it is okay to fail if you tried your best at it. I took this as a learning opportunity to not beat myself up as much and that a lot of people have to retake classes. I have the knowledge of taking the class last semester to help aid me in passing it this Fall. 

3) I think failure should be seen as a learning opportunity. People don't purposely try to fail but failure allows us to learn from our mistakes and allows us to try again differently until we succeed. I need to learn to handle failure better because I take it way too personally. I think if you have a positive outlook on failure you will enjoy your life a whole lot more. This class has changed my perspective on behavior especially after I read the book "How to fail at almost everything and still win big" by Scott Adams. He emphasized how failure is part of the journey of life and that you should embrace it. I enjoyed reading that book a lot and these assignments have made me realize to be more open with changing my ideas and taking feedback from other people's perspectives. I am definitely more willing to take a risk now because I have a better attitude about failure.

25A- What's Next?

Existing Market

Step 1: I talked to many of my peers about my new concept. They all had similar views that this would attract many students and young people in their 20's and 30's. They think what is next for my venture is marketing the new restaurant spot and making it attractive to these customers. I also need to start looking for good prices on land and school busses.

Step 2: I think the next step for my venture would be creating a social network that would allow me to have the right people in my circle to help me get the best deals I can. My peers that I interviewed agreed that reaching out to create a social network would be the best step to follow first. They also mentioned that I should start looking for land now that would allow me to run this type of business.

Step 3: I think what makes the most sense to help me achieve this new venture is to start planning it way ahead of time to get all the logistics in order. I need to find and research people that could give me the right connections that would help this actually happen. I have a lot of ideas that I need to pick and choose from and I think talking and writing it all out will help me visualize what I need in order to be successful. I want to make it as eco-friendly as possible so I will need more research on the best material and places that have it. I need to hire a business partner that brings to the table skills and traits that would complement mine. Having two brains instead of one really helps with getting new perspectives on ideas.

New Market

Step 1: Right now my market is focused on young teenagers and adults that are looking for a fun place to hang out and get food. I also think this place could have potential to market to parents with kids. It would be expensive but very cool to add a playground on the land so that the kids can play while the parents relax and eat. This would be a whole new market of people that could utilize this new cool hang out spot.

Step 2: I think I could make this place very attractive to parents and their kids. I would add a playground like I said earlier so that the parents can sit with a drink and order food while the kids play. I would also have a rock wall or some other entertainment that kids would enjoy so they ask their parents to go there again.

Step 3: I talked with two new parents that have two young kids. I explained the concept and they thought it was a great idea! They liked how they didn't have to pay for a babysitter but still could enjoy their time going out to eat. They think that having a place that their kids and themselves could enjoy would be a great hit and that they would definitely dine there.

Reflection:
I was very happy with my interviews and their thoughts on my new market. I think this new market maybe even more of a hit than my first idea. I never realized how many different markets I could try and optimize with this idea. I am extremely happy to have done this exercise because it definitely made me open my mind to a lot of new ideas for this venture. Parents are a great market to choose because they want a place they can take their kids to and still have time to relax. I think this idea has a lot of potentials and I am excited to start brainstorming even more.

24A- Venture Concept No.1

Old School Eats

Opportunity

I decided to be bold and develop a whole new opportunity than my previous one in this class. My new opportunity involves creating a restaurant venue outside by renovating old school busses that are no longer in use and turn them into food trucks. I would make sure to have everything used be recyclable or built from scratch with environmentally friendly material. I want this place to be as green as possible and help raise awareness of global warming. I think that there is a wide range of customers that would be interested in this new venture. I think it would attract the younger crowd as well as parents with kids who could play on the playground while they relax and eat. I think the nature of the need is that people are always interested in new hip places in town and that it would also provide awareness to global warming and the small things we can do to help prevent it.

·      What are the forces or changes in the environment creating this opportunity?

I think that if we're not careful, global warming is going to interrupt many businesses and everyone’s everyday lives.

·      How is this market defined geographically and demographically?

The market would be close to a city that will attract people all around its perimeter. Demographically I think it will bring in many ages because it will be kid-friendly as well.

·      How are customers currently satisfying this need?  And how loyal are they to whatever they use now? 

I think people are always trying out new restaurants and are satisfying their needs by venturing out of their comfort zone. I think many restaurants are going as green as possible. For example, most places have replaced plastic straws with paper ones.

·      How big is this opportunity?

I think this opportunity is very important and a cool way for people to be outside and enjoy one another. Everyone is always in need of food and a cool place to hang out.

·      How long will the “window of opportunity” be open?

I think that this opportunity will always be open for people to open up a business. Global warming will only get more prevalent with time and I think it will always be around while we are alive.

Innovation

My innovation would be creating different restaurants by renovating old school busses for people to come and eat at. I want to create an eco-friendly environment where people can also relax and enjoy themselves. This would work by buying about an acre of land where there will be a cool patio to eat, restaurants, and a kid-friendly park. I would make money by selling drinks and food to the people who are using the facility. The drinks and food would be priced at normal restaurant prices. For example, a pizza would be $15 and chicken tenders and fries would be $8.

Venture Concept

I think that renovating old school busses and turning them into restaurants would create a very unique ambiance that people would be interested in checking out. Having this restaurant stand out and have something different than all others will attract the attention it needs to be noticed. I also think that making it a green and earth-friendly place will bring the attention we have to live sustainably. I think people would be willing to hang out and buy food at a local food truck area where you can relax and bring your kids.

·      What are the reasons to think customers would switch to this new product?  How hard will it be to get them to switch? 

I think it may be a bit harder to have customers switch from their usual restaurant spots, but I think people are always looking for new cute, and fun things to do around them. I think if we have a great environment and treat the customers like family, we could convince them to switch over.

·      Who are the competitors?  What are their possible weaknesses or vulnerabilities? 

My competitors would be restaurants that are already established in my area. They will be hard to beat because they have already established their customers. I think their weakness would be that they don’t have as a unique environment as what we would be offering to them.

·      What role does packaging, your price points, distribution, customer support, the customer experience, or the business location play (if any) in defining your business concept? This role is a huge part of my business concept and I definitely need to spend more time creating plans for each of those details. I need to find an ideal location that will be close enough in range for my customers to drive to. I also want to make sure that each customer has a great experience while eating.

·      How would you organize a “business” to support the ongoing production of your new product, service, or process? How many employees? What roles are in the venture?  I would need a business partner to help with the marketing and organizing while I would focus on the finances going into the business. I would need at least three employees for each food truck but other than that it will mostly be serving yourself.

The Three Minor Elements

I think my most important resource would be that the restaurants will be inside renovated school busses which is something that is not typically done and unique. I think this will create an unfair advantage because this restaurant will easily stick into our customer's heads and they would be more likely to talk about it.

I think my next venture would be to add on to the compound the restaurant is on. For example, have a free library and have a community garden that people can use freely. This will give our customers more to do and add more to the ambiance.

I see in my next five years finally saving up for the land to establish this business. It will take a lot of work, but I think with my work ethic and passion for this will finally allow me to start putting it all together. My vision is to create a fun and cool environment where everyone is welcome.