Week 15 Reading Reflection

1. The biggest surprise for me in the reading was simply learning that firms like this exist, especially in other nations. I would have never thought that a firm whose margins are so small could be so successful. However, this success is due to their increasing number of customers. Approximately 160,000 new customers join the firm every month.
2. One part of the reading that was confusing to me was the story of Saryamma, because the author never states if her story or situation is what happens to all their customers, or if she is a rare case. It is difficult to tell what the case is in the context of the article whether of not this is the norm in microfinance.
3. If I could ask the author two questions I would ask "If Saryamma's story typical of most SKS clients, or is her story more of an inspirational tale for the business and microfinance industry?" and "Would SKS be completely closed off to expanding their target market and loaning money to men? Or is that something the firm would never even consider?"
4. There was not anything in particular that I disagree with the author on. This was the first time I had ever heard or read about microfinance, therefore I do not have enough knowledge on the subject to make a clear judgement.

Experience Portfolio

Final Reflection

Throughout the journey of this course, I have had many successes and many failures. However, none of them came without struggle and determination. Learning entrepreneurial skills was definitely one of the highs of this class, while putting yourself in uncomfortable situations with strangers was one of the lows.

The most formative experience thus far was probably the Venture Concept exercise(s). This taught me to think outside the box with my own idea, and learn how to expand something simple into something extravagant and great. The experience I will remember years down the road will be the Celebrating Failure exercise. This exercise just so happen to come during a point where I was experiencing a small failure in another course. I learned that you just cannot be good at everything, and that is ok and normal. Everyone is going to eventually find something they are bad at in life. Celebrating Failure was also my most joyous assignment I completed. I am most proud of myself for completing the Elevator Pitch assignments. This is because putting your full idea into words in under one minute is very challenging, and I often find it difficult to describe something complex in a simple way. This assignment taught me to express my thoughts in a more concise way and it learn to speak in a way that is best in entrepreneurship.

I see myself as an entrepreneur now after taking this course. My mindset is definitely more entrepreneurial now than it was at the beginning of the semester. My idea are now thought of more for their long-term effects and benefits. I also try to make my ideas as unique yet practical as possible.

For any student who is going to be taking ENT3003, the single, most important piece of advice I can give is to start early! I often found that when I started assignments ahead of time, my quality of work was higher and I felt more at ease. If I messed up, I had time to go and correct my mistakes. If I waited to complete the assignment on its due date, I always felt my work could be better and I focused more on just turning it in on time than I did on if I did the best I could. For the past month and a half, I have completed all assignments about 4 or 5 days before its due date in order to provide my best content. I also noticed that many other students had this same problem and stated it on their blogs. Many of my peers considered not completing assignments due to time constraints their biggest weakness in the class. In order to foster an entrepreneurial mindset, I suggest that future students make decisions regarding their venture as if it were real. They should ask themselves "will this make my venture better in the future?" or "is this the path I want my business to go down?". This will get anyone into the right mindset to be successful not only in the class, but as an entrepreneur.

Elevator Pitch No. 4

The Pitch 

Reflection on Feedback 
On my last elevator pitch, many people commented that they personally could relate to my product/service and that parking on campus has always been a problem for them as well. It is reassuring to know that my target customers feel that it is also a huge issue for the University of Florida that can easily be resolved. Everyone who commented agreed and stated they loved my idea, and hope it will actually be implemented one day.

What Did I Change?
Based on the feedback I received on my last elevator pitch I did not change much. Many people liked it and agreed with my idea and reasoning for it. On this pitch, however, I included more details on the project and stated reasons why people already would prefer driving than walking to campus (primarily safety).

Week 14 Reading Reflection

1. The biggest surprise for me in the reading was the high need for corporate entrepreneurship in today's market. Having creative and well educated entreprenuers in your business can give you a great edge/advantage over a competitor. This is also a reason why employees are a business' best asset.
2. One part of the reading which was confusing in my opinion was the part where the author describes what an "I-Team" or "innovation team" is. It is a tad unclear what their definite purpose is and how they are able to interact or work with those not on the team, but necessary to projects or work.
3. If I could ask the author two questions I would ask him "Can all businesses balance social value and wealth creation in the same way, or is that something that varies from business to business?" and "Should ecopreneurship be a priority for startup businesses if they are tight on funds, or is that something that comes once a business has the flexible funds for such actions?"
4. There was nothing in particular in Chapters 3 and 4 that I thought the author was wrong about.

Venture Concept No. 2

Opportunity 
The opportunity for my venture would be the customers who I am targeting and have an unmet need I can satisfy. This unmet need is the lack of parking on the University of Florida Campus. There is not nearly enough parking for all the students who would like to drive to school. Reasons for wanting to drive (based on customer interviews) include:

• Campus is too far of a walk from where students are living
• Walking is inconvenient for some
• Walking is takes longer than driving and many student are busy 
• Students find the bus system inaccurate as far as timing is concerned 
• Some students feel uncomfortable taking the bus 
• Many female students feel unsafe walking to campus (especially at night) 

When conducting interviews with UF students, many female students expressed their concern for their safety when walking on campus at night. "I don't feel safe walking 20 minutes across campus to get to my club meeting, it is not worth my safety to me so I just tend to not join clubs" said Alyssa, student here on campus. It is unfortunate that students feel discouraged to participate in campus life due to this problem. My expansion of parking garages will help students to feel safe and become more involved to due their centrality.

This need can apply to any and everyone who can relate to one of the reasons to add parking listed above, or their own personal reason. The forces or changes in the environment creating this opportunity is the growing UF student population. The market is defined geographically by those strictly in the city of Gainesville; the market is defined demographically by college students, usually between the ages of 18-25.Customers are currently satisfying this need by either attempting to find scarce parking, walking, or taking the bus. This opportunity is very big due to the high demand for additional parking that there. Most students which I have spoken to about the concept have a hard time justifying paying $160 for a parking decal that barely ensures they can actually park on campus. The "window of opportunity" will be open for a long time in my opinion. Unless the bus system improves or students suddenly become overwhelmingly ok with walking, regardless of the distance, this will continue to be a problem for all Gators.

Innovation 
My innovation includes building upon already existing parking garages on campus (i.e. the garages in front of the Reitz Union and Sorority Row). The price of a parking decal currently is $160 for one entire academic year. I would like to raise the price only by $10 to cover some of the cost of construction, however most of it would be covered by the increase in students purchasing the decals.

Students will buy my innovation because:

• It will make commuting faster and easier 
• It is a safer alternative to walking 
• During the hot Florida seasons, driving is more practical than walking long distances 

Venture Concept 
My innovation will address the opportunity of creating more parking on the University of Florida's campus for students who would like to drive. Customers will buy my innovation because it is both safer and faster than walking. I do not think that getting customers to switch will be difficult considering the convenience of the service I am offering. My competitor's would be other businesses who would like to construct this infrastructure for the university, however I am a student here and have worked for UF's Student Government which I think gives me an edge over my competition.
As far as the product/service itself, packaging is not a concern due to the fact that a garage cannot be packaged. My price point would be fair considering the amount of revenue it would bring the school. Customer support would be available at all stages of the construction process, allowing the customers to be involved. My business would include about 100 employees, 70 of which would be involved in the actual construction part, and 30 in administrative business.

Three Major Elements 

• My most important resource will be my background in Business Administration. 
• This helps the overall business to succeed and be run as effectively and efficiently as possible. 
• What is next for my venture would be the "light system" described in my assignment of "Amazon Whisperer." 
• This technology is a great expansion upon parking garages to make the process as easy as possible for the end user. 
• What is next for me and my venture?
• In the next five years, I would like for my venture to be incorporated with today's technology. I would love for the University to implement the "light system" used in the above bullet point. As an entrepreneur, in the next decade I would like to expand to building other types of infrastructures for the school aside from parking garages. This first venture helps me to achieve this vision because the firm would have already worked with the university and they would have seen our great work. 

Feedback 

Most of the feedback I received on Venture Concept No.1 was very positive and many people liked my venture and agreed that it is something that is needed on UF campus. Some of the other feedback I received revolved around city permits on building, a topic on which I am not informed enough to make a judgement or offer a solution for. 

Change

Based on the feedback I received, I mostly just elaborated on my venture concept and made it easier to read and understand. Based on the feedback I received, I did not include information about city building permits because, like I said previously, I do not have access to enough information on that topic to offer a proper solution to that concern. 

Google Gold

My general approach to and strategy to search engine optimization (SEO) was to link my blog posts to every single comment I posted on the blogs of my peers. This would generate more traffic towards my post or blog in general. I noticed that when I did this consistently, my blog was receiving more comments and view as opposed to when I did not do this. This also made my blog more popular and helped it become easier to find via Google search engine.

My keywords were: 

• Entrepreneur 
• Entrepreneurship 
• Business 
• Innovation 
• Venture 

I selected these key words based off of the overall theme of my blog and its content. Most of my posts' topics had to do with one of these keywords. 

I used my social media to enhance my search engine optimization efforts by linking my blog's web address on Twitter. I selected Twitter because it is a social media based off of reading content primarily, not really graphic/picture based. The same goes for blogs; most of the content is words as opposed to pictures of video. Therefore, I thought that the same type of people that would be interested in Twitter would also be interested in a blog. Twitter was not as responsive as I would have liked to my blog. However, I contribute that to the fact that my Twitter audience is not the type of audience I target with my blog.

My most viral post was Venture Concept No. 1. It received 5 comments and 40 views in a week. I think that this blog post in particular received the most traffic because I linked it in many of my comments and on Twitter as well. This post illustrated my full venture, how I saw an opportunity for it, and how I plan on proceeding. I am happy that this post specifically generated the most traffic because I received great feedback and constructive criticism on my ideas. 

I did not make it to the first page of Google. I also did not expect to, being that entrepreneurship is a broad topic and there are many blogs, articles, and online journals that are world-renown on the web. I am still proud of my blog nonetheless, I worked very hard on not only my content but its layout.