Venture Concept No. 1 Week 12

With my business idea there is major opportunity involved when it comes to what is going to be available and who will be using my services. When it comes to the transportation for major universities and colleges bus services just do not cut it. The student body is who has the need and are the potential customers. The nature of the need is that bus services only have specific pick up and drop offs. With my service there will be an app and it will put your location on and we will pick you up from your car in the parking lot and take you to the door of your needed destination. The changes in the environment is that the streets keep getting more and more cluttered and with my services we will not have to wait for the lights on the crowded streets we can use the sidewalks or even designated drive through. My customers are satisfying this need because there will always be a huge student body for me to work with and they are extremely loyal to the bus system or walking because driving to school is just not an option. To me this opportunity is massive because it offers me the right age group of clients and a never ending supply of them and for me to give a good service at a fair price. The window of this opportunity will always be open as long as there is a student body at these universities. My product offers students that refuse to wait for buses or refuse to walk to their designated room for school an easier opportunity to get there faster. For just a dollar per student that can be paid with tuition and then the school will pay me there will be multiple 6 person golf carts that will pick up students from the parking lot and take them to the exact building within their designated time frame. Easily money will pile on and on from the more students decide to pick this service. My innovation will address the opportunity that I identified by making sure that students get the best price and the best time of arrival to their classes. I believe the customers would switch to my product because I offer such an easier alternative that the bus system and more pick up and drop off spots. I feel once I get around twenty students to switch and they like it, word of mouth would pick up and become a high demand for the student body. The only competitors are the school bus services or city bus system. Their weaknesses are that they are never on time and do not have enough pick up and drop off areas. And it can get crowded extremely easily. Customer experience is extremely important when it comes to my service because when they have a good time it will make it easier for me to connect to better business. At colleges word of mouth is the best way to market any product. Price points play a huge role because of the rate I charge it is impossible to beat my price and not stick with my product. The business location is seriously important because if it was not with schools it would not survive because then people can just drive themselves. I would hire employees as the time goes because the bigger the company grows the more people I will need. The roles that are played in this venture is getting students on time to their classes and satisfying everyone that has to do with this company. My most important resource would be the amount of transporters I can gather. The more transportation systems I have the more people I can carry around. The next opportunity I want to tackle will be moving to all major universities and become a transportation system they offer from the school and they just pay me per semester to keep their students happy. In the next five years I want to be somewhere living on the coast just being the owner of the company and let everyone else run it and keep my eye on the profits and the CEO's of the company. In a decade I could see myself investing or opening up different business and trying to do the exact same thing all over again. This venture would help me with my future ones because I started from scratch. I had nothing and worked this business idea from nothing and made it a successful business and I would have the money and courage to start another one from scratch.  

Week 11 Reading Reflection

1.What was the biggest surprise for you in the reading? In other words, what did you read that stood out the most as different from your expectations? The biggest surprise for me in the readings was that failure was at such a high percentage when running a company and that technological advances can play such a big help in success in the business.

2.Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you. Nothing really confused me in this weeks readings. Everything was well thought out by the author and explained in detail.

3.If you were able to ask two questions to the author, what would you ask? Why? My first question is failure that high when starting a company? Out of 10 start up companies how many fail? Another one is can tech advances also hurt a company?

4. Was there anything you think the author was wrong about? Where do you disagree with what she or he said? How?There was nothing the author was wrong about at all. I really enjoyed this week's reading and hope the next ones are like this one well planned and an easy read.

Amazon Whisperer Week 11

• Describe the revenue drivers you currently include in your business concept for this class.  The different ways I make money is through selling custom made gun holsters, kydex wallets, and custom mag holders. I also make revenue off personal buyers and companies that want to buy in bulk. 
• Describe what kind of product offering you believe should be next? The next big thing that I would like to start selling is gear for outdoor users such as hunting and fishing. Things as long sleeve sun protective shirts, backpacks, glasses, and hats. 
• Describe how the "next" thing will enhance your existing product/service offering. Does it improve the user experience, does it increase customer switching costs. The next thing will make my sales sky rocket and change the customers experience not only because they are getting custom holsters they now will be getting discounted prices after a sale on gear for whatever the occasion. It will also bring me new customers because it is marketing my own brand when someone uses it or wears it. 
• Go to Amazon and try to find a product that is similar to the one you want to offer next. Describe the product. Include a picture of the product. The products are simple but yet effective when it comes to people wanting to buy additional items on top of the holsters or wallets especially for a discounted price. The shirt was on Amazon for 12.00-15.00 dollars with prime. The pouch was $15.98 on Amazon.
  

• What are the customer's reviews for the product? what exactly do customers not like about the product? What do they like about it? The tactical pouch has an average 4.5 out 5 star rating on Amazon. The pouch contains little things such as the flashlight and a tool. Almost every customer enjoyed the pouch once arrived and loved that it came with a flashlight they all thought it was handy. The few dislikes I got from this product was that it was smaller than they thought it was going to be and disliked it for the size.
• Describe what design/usability changes you'd make to the product. I would change the shirt to have my company logo or name on the back and the front would have a different desings per shirt. As for the tactical pouch I would make some with digital camo or some with just plain colors because not everyone likes camo. And I would make it cheaper once someone bought a product from me. Also if the amount total is over $60 a customer can pick from a free shirt or a free tactical pouch.
• Describe why you think this product would make a good addition to your current product.service offering. I think this product would be a good addition to my product business line because it gives people the incentive to spend over 60 dollars for free sports wear or gear. I know personally I would try to get my bill that high for something free just for getting something I needed for my gun. 

My Unfair Advantage Week 11

1. My team 

• Valuable- yes
• Rare- yes
• inimitable- no, very hard to copy what my team is like
• Non-Substitutable- no

2. Location

• Valuable- yes
• Rare- no
• Inimitable- yes
• Non-Substitutable- yes

3. Marketing

• Valuable- yes
• Rare- yes
• Inimitable- no 
• Non-Substitutable- no

4. Experience

• Valuable- yes
• Rare- yes
• Inimitable- no 
• Non-Substitutable- no

5. Creativity

• Valuable- yes
• Rare- yes
• Inimitable- no
• Non-Substitutable- no 

6. Time management 

• Valuable- yes
• Rare- no
• Inimitable- yes
• Non-Substitutable- No

7. Care for customers

• Valuable- yes
• Rare- yes
• Inimitable- no 
• Non-Substitutable- no

8. Leadership

• Valuable- yes
• Rare- yes
• Inimitable- no
• Non-Substitutable- no

9. Social awareness

• Valuable- yes
• Rare- yes
• Inimitable- no 
• Non-Substitutable- yes

 10. Competitive attitude 

• Valuable- yes
• Rare- no
• Inimitable- no
• Non-Substitutable- yes

My top resource is leadership. It is more important to my venture than all of the other resources because every part of my team has to have some leadership to make the company stay at large. When everyone takes leadership it makes everyone kind of like a boss and respect one another. Taking initiative when it comes to my product brings leadership to the table. That is why leadership is the most important. 

Growing My social Capital Week 10

1) One person must be a domain expert in your industry. Justin Murray is someone that owns an exact same kind of business that I do custom gun holsters. His brand is called JM Custom Kydex. What this man has done for us is show us what it is like to own a company in this kind of business world. My brother and I first contacted him to see if he would could help us out with any questions regarding how to make and start up a business in this kind of work. Including this person in my network will help me because he has been doing this for over 10 years and has experience.

2) One person must be an expert on your market. Kyle Strack, is the person that I am picking for an expert in my social capital. Kyle has a background in firearms and does conceal carry classes around the Pinellas County area. He targets the market that my services need because he takes people to gun stores and shows them the right type of holster to better fit their needs. I found this person when I took my own concealed carry class and then from there starting to contact him about my own company and what my needs were. What favor he has done for me and the company is give me the right information on how to hit the market full force around our area and get things moving with the company.

3) One person must be an important supplier to your industry. Noah Brunk. Noah is our important supplier when it comes to moving the product to different stores and gun shows. His background is an online salesman for all sorts of products. I got ahold of him through email and asked him what it would cost or how could we do some trades to get him to get us on the market or for him to sell our product to other organizations. The favor he did for us is give us more clientele, and all I had to do was make him a few free gun holsters. Including this person will help my network because of the connections this person has over the internet.

Finally: Reflect. This experience will help me shape any future networking events because it shows me what kind of market there is for something like this. I should have asked some specific questions and asked how successful their companies are and how long it took for them to start up and get along. But this experience was helpful and was exactly what I thought it was going to be.

Week 10 Reading Reflection

1. What was the biggest surprise for you in the reading? I would say nothing really took me by surprise when it came to this chapter because it had to do with finances and I was always good when it came to financing because of the two college classes I had to take and really really enjoyed them. What I think was cool was that it got into what liabilities entrepreneurs have when it comes to finances.  

2. Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you? Like I said in question one nothing was confusing me or difficult for me to understand. I actually enjoyed reviewing and re addressing key aspects when it comes to finances. 

3. If you were able to ask two questions to the author, what would you ask? What I would ask is, as a business owner knowing all of this about finances is it that important? when knowing you can hire someone for? and for the second question do spread sheets come in handy more often than not? 

4. Was there anything you think the author was wrong about? No the author was spot on with this chapter. Great information and insight on financing and liabilities. 

Elevator Pitch No. 3 Week 10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKWBTaShStQ&feature=youtu.be


After reflecting on the feedback I got from the last two elevator pitches I realized to just go with the flow and not try and right everything down and go from the heart and nail it. What I have changed in this pitch is that I did not really know exactly what I was going to say but one thing came after the next and it all segwayed pretty nicely. I did not have any silly comments on my last two posts just informative answers from my peers helping me or saying I did a good job.

My Secret Sauce Week #9

1) Describe five ways in which you can think you have human capital that is truly unique. 

• When it comes to emotions I usually stay extremely calm during hectic situations and can stay relaxed during stressful situations.
• I have a better understanding for situations than most because a lot of times people tend to break down and shut off instead of fix the issue. 
• I have a skill set that I think differs from others such as my listening skills and remembering all the important details.
• My abilities to understand others and what they need or want or to keep them happy is what I live for. All of my friends and family know that I always try to make everyone happy without hurting myself.
• I have a wide range of knowledge because I did not grow up a single child I am actually the youngest and always had my brother and three sisters teaching me things about life or the real world from such a young age. I believe I grasp it better than most. 

2) Interview the five people who know you the best.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn6469_sz_E&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gx63DZnEVf0&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqGkKc47lw&feature=youtu.be

3) Reflect on the differences.

How I see myself are pretty similar as to what my friends and family see me as. Of course there is a slight difference compared to what I think of myself to what other think of me because no one judges YOU harder than YOU. Some people might not always see the traits that you really have. Everyone has different perspectives. But the people that know me best know my true self and we have similar aspects on how they see me. I think my interviewees are correct about me, I would never argue with their answers because they know me the best from anyone. I do not think I would make any corrections. I still believe that is how I differ from others human capital. 

Week 9 Reading Reflection

1) What was the biggest surprise for you in the reading? I would say that how much social media is used for marketing within a business. When I ran my own business I used Facebook almost everyday and continued to get business. I liked how the author went into depth about how important it is to use social media for business because it is true.

2)  Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you? I would not say that it was confusing to me but I was alittle bit skeptical about the secondary data being as important as it is. I never used old data over and over again when running my business's. I now see how important it is.

3) If you were able to ask two questions to the author, what would you ask? I would have to ask the author about how much money do you think social media brings in for businesses because of social media marketing? And also is secondary data that important to use that it will change the marketing aspect of the business that much?

4) Was there anything you think the author was wrong about? No there was nothing that I thought the author was wrong about. The author explained everything extensively through the readings.

Idea Napkin NO. 2 Week #9

1) You- I am Keith Adam, I have a few talents that are key to my success so far. Some of them are keeping people happy, staying organized at all times, and becoming a kickboxing world champion. My aspirations are to become a sports agent and get through law school. I see this business concept playing a role in my life because parking is always a big role in everyone everyday life.

2) What are you offering to customers? What I am offering to customers is a new way to get around campus easier and more convenient than the bus services. Bus services only goes to select locations which can be inconvenient to most. My business will have way more pick up and drop offs from where you park. No more walking to the bus stops we will pick you up and deliver you right to the class doors with virtually no wait.

3) Who are you offering it to? I am offering this service to college students around the country and will make it easier for them to park from a distance and still get to class on a faster scale than the bus system. What all my customers have in common is parking. When your on campus and you either can not walk or do not feel like it you can get this service for such a cheap rate you can practically not say no.

4) Why do they care? Customers will pay me money because most customers at major universities are sick of either being late or being cramped in a bus to just get dropped off somewhere close to their destination. With my services you will always be on time and never have to wait longer than 5 minutes for the transportation to show up. The service will bring you right to the front of the class which means minimal walking and waiting.

5) What are your core Competencies? What sets me apart from everyone else is the rate that is being offered. Just a dollar from the students on their tuition will give them a semester pass to ride in my transportation services. What I have that nobody else has is the time and direction and drop off zones that no bus service will be able to have.

These five elements fit together for my business concept because they are key to the success of the business. Some points that I have taken away from the feed back is that I have to be more specific when it comes to the services that I will be offering. Some of the feedback said that I would not be able to stay in business because a dollar is not enough to survive. But what people do not realize is that a dollar per student that may need it not necessarily going to use it everyday I still get paid. Think about the amount of people that go to major universities and tell me a dollar per person per semester would not be enough. I incorporated the feedback by being more specific about what I will offer and what will be given.