Final Reflection Week 15

There has been a lot of ups and downs for me when it came to how I felt about this class throughout the semester. There were the assignments that I loved to do and then there was the ones that I could not stand to do. But now that I look back I understand the importance of every single one that was asked of me in the class. The most formative assignment that sticks out to me would be the secret sauce assignment. it made me think and share with other people what makes me different then the rest of the population. The most joyous experience was when I did the Speech because I always have been very outgoing until someone puts a camera in my face and tells me to speak for the class or to an audience. I realized after these assignments that it is not that hard and people do not judge you while doing these assignments. The experience that I am most proud of myself for accomplishing is the interviews with another entrepreneur. At first it is intimidating asking someone their life story and how they made it successful. I often thought that people would get uptight and not answer questions fully but everyone proved my wrong and was relaxed and did it perfectly!

Honestly I never thought that there was that much work into becoming an entrepreneur, But after the time span of this class I realized that I am an entrepreneur and that I have succeeded. It is not about what I own or how much money I have that makes me an entrepreneur, It is what I have to offer and what I think of myself and what I do for myself and others that does. I think that I have came a far way closer to the mindset of one than what I was at before taking this class or even the beginning. One recommendation I would give future students that want to go down this path is that do not take this class or this lifestyle for granted. Do not think that this will be a walk in the ballpark because this class has taken a lot of time and hard work and dedication to finish with good grades. What I would recommend for future students or fellow people to do to get to this mindset is to open up. Put your guard down and let new things in, new ideas that you never thought would work. Having an open mind is very powerful and could work into everyone's favor. Until next time,

Your entrepreneur, Keith

Week 15 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? What was surprising to me was that micro financing is a thing. Every Time I have ever taken a finance class it was strictly the broad detail of it. Yes we got into detail But I did not know that there was actually a thing called Micro Financing. 

2) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you. There was not part of the reading that was confusing to me everything in the reading was very clear and straightforward. 

3) If you were able to ask two questions to the author, what would you ask? Why? What did you do to understand and realize the importance to these chapters. What did you do to understand the charts throughout the book?

4) Was there anything you think the author was wrong about? Where do you disagree with what she or he said? How? I believe there was nothing wrong with or anything that I disagree on with the author. everything was very well put out and explained in this weeks readings. 

Venture Concept No. 2 Week 15

My business idea is that there is major opportunity involved when it comes to what is going to be available and who will be using my services around major universities. When it comes to the transportation for major universities and colleges bus services just can not get the job done when it comes to time and the drop off locations. The student body is who has the need and are the potential customers with my product. The nature of the need is that bus services only have specific pickup and drop offs. Having such pick ups and drop offs can be extremely annoying and hard to work around with a busy schedule.  With my service there will be an app and or website that every student will have a find me button and we will be there in no time 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 clustered 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 throughs. My customers are satisfying this need because there will always be a huge student body for me to work with. 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. eventually we will have licences to have golf carts around the campus to make it easier on not just my drivers but the students. No one will have to wait in the line at traffic lights as long as we have sidewalks or even bike passing lanes.

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 and will switch to my product because I offer such an easier alternative than the bus system and way more pickup and drop off spots. I feel once I get around twenty students to switch and they like it, word of mouth, word of mouth is huge in any business and that is how mostly companies get spread and customers. 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.  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 in my business, 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 these people can just drive themselves.

I would start with a small staff and work my way up the ladder with staff too much staff in the beginning can potentially hurt me and my business financially. 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.  I would end up selling my business eventually and start a new franchise or buy into some franchises that I know would make me more profit than others.

I had some pretty positive feedback when making my venture concept one. One of the students asked if it was like an uber service and that she believed that my business idea would actually work because when she lived in Gainsville of campus and had to drive it was nearly impossible. I had feedback from others saying that the idea was interesting and that it was well thought out. One of the students that gave me feedback agreed and even had first hand experience on how unreliable the school buses or city buses really are. I had all positive feedback throughout the whole semester and on the venture concept number one it did not stop. I rarely had any negative feedback because other students understand how hard it is to start a business out of nowhere and there will be kinks in the idea. I only had one student tell me that the price is way off and that I am not charging enough per student to make enough money. I took that into consideration and tried to refine my business but my way at first is the only acceptable way to go with pricing. 

Elevator Pitch No. 4 Week 15

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuRjOdf4NoM&feature=youtu.be


The past few elevator pitches have gone pretty smooth for me and everyone had only positive things to say about it. I really enjoyed reading the comments from my last pitch because it goes to show how much growth I have made in this class since the first one. I really enjoyed doing these after the first one. I still have yet to have any negative comments. The only one that I got that still sticks with me is that someone thought my financial plan was not going to make me enough money. But a dollar a semester per 30,000 students is 30,000 a semester and there is three semesters including summer so that is 90,000 a year just starting out.

Week 14 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? This part of the reading was not surprising to me but I enjoyed it. That was about failure. I even said in a blog a week ago that failure always happens when trying to create something. If you do not fail a few times then I do not think you are trying hard enough. Failure is common when being an entrepreneur it's getting back up and coming back stronger that is important. 

2) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you. With me it seems chapter after chapter the charts get the most confusing for me. I believe it is because I am a hands on kind of person. And seeing a chart all the way completed does not work for me. 

3) If you were able to ask two questions to the author, what would you ask? Why? First question would be have you failed and came back stronger before? And do you believe all of these charts are extremely necessary. 

4) Was there anything you think the author was wrong about? Where do you disagree with what she or he said? How? I do not believe the author was wrong about anything in this week's reading. I just need a better overview of all charts it seems like. 

Google Gold Week 14

1) A discussion of your general approach and strategy to search engine optimization (SEO). What were some of the activities you did for each blog post to pursue SEO? What I learned was just going on Bing and google and figuring out what keywords brought up certain business and companies. Some of the activities I did for the blog posts was make sure I have the keywords so when someone types it in I can potentially be up there.

2) What were your keywords. How did you select those keywords? Did you change or refine your keywords through the semester? Some of my keywords I used were ; Entrepreneur, Business owner, University of Florida. I did not change any of my keywords because it seemed to work through out the semester. 

3) How did you use social media to enhance your SEO efforts? What your your surprises or general impression of using social media to improve your blog's profile? Was social media generally receptive of your blog, or did it get ignored? I used Facebook a lot because previously with my business I started up with my brother we used facebook ads and paid five dollars a week and got over 50 likes a week and it continuously grew and grew. I already had a great understanding of what social media does when trying to make something shine so I was not very surprised. Instagram was probably the worst. Most people do not respond from Instagram. but facebook and twitter worked relatively well.

4) What was your most "viral" post? In other words, which post obtained the most traffic? Why do you think? My viral post is the 20 percent one. I had over 20 comments and I actually had a lot of views from people that did not go to the school or from this class.

5) Finally, did you make it to the first page of Google results for your keywords? If not, what page of results did you make it to? I did not make it to the first page of google from keywords. Honestly it is extremely hard to make it to the top three on google usually the top three spots are people that paid to show up top three from key words. I did show up on top five from bing though. 

Very Short Interview Part 2 Week 14

1) From where I stand now I look back on the first interview I had with my entrepreneur and I believe it was still pretty good. I could have gotten into depth a little bit more but for the most part the questions that got answered did get me the information I needed to keep. Because most of my questions had to do with what I was suppose to expect in this class and I had no idea at the time so the interview gave me kind of a heads up.

2)  My interviewee is Whitney Spence, Owning her own dance studio.

• How long did it take you to really understand how to run your business as your own boss? To be honest keith I still am learning new things each and everyday. When you own your own company it is a never ending learning process. Being an entrepreneur is fun but also takes a lot of hard work and dedication. 
• Did you use certain charts or graphs to run your business? I never really got into the whole chart thing until about five years into my business. At first I believed I did not need it because I could do all of that on my own or in my head. Once business started to grow It got harder and harder to do so. So I had to grab excel and learn how to use graphs and charts to maintain a successful business. 
• Do you ever think you would sell your business down the road for a huge number or keep it for over 10 years and potentially pass it down? I have had this business for over 14 years and all three of my daughters dance at my studio. So I believe the answer to your question is that I am going to keep the studio until my kids are old enough to want to make that choice weather to keep it going and take after me or break off and do their own thing. So until then I will keep it. 

3) I realize from looking at my first interview and this one I can see how much more elaborate I am with my questions and how much more I understand about becoming an entrepreneur. I really had no idea what I was getting myself into when I signed up for this class. I did not know how hard or how easy or how much or little work I was going to have. But after all of this time and all of the hours I have put into this class I do believe that it will help me in the near future when it comes to me running yet another one of my businesses. Whitney did believe that I have come a long way because she realized that I had a lot more knowledge about owning my own business or company than I did months ago. 

Week 13 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? What stood out the most to be is the amount of analyzing a business has to do when they are trying to do a simple check list.

2) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you. Nothing was very confusing to me in this chapter the author did a great job describing in detail the readings and the explanations on why.

3) If you were able to ask two questions to the author, what would you ask? Why? First question would be is having a checklist that in depth very valuable? Secondly, are charts that important as whole to running a successful business?

4) Was there anything you think the author was wrong about? Where do you disagree with what she or he said? How? I do not believe the author was wrong about anything in this week's reading.

Celebrating Failure Week 13

1) Tell us about a time this past semester that you failed -- whether in this class, or outside of this class. Don't spare any details! It'd be even better if there was something you tried several times this semester, and failed each time. Something I failed every time this semester would have to be studying for test before the day of them. No matter the class or the occasion I never feel the drive to sit down buckle down and do my studying for the test. I always feel that it will be fine to take the test without studying. I failed every single time to sit there and study without becoming sidetracked. Before my Buisiness law exams I continued to wait till the day before and the day off to start going over 200 question problems. 

2) Tell us what you learned from it. What I learned from it is that studying for these big exams are important because this is not high school and I can potentially hurt my GPA or fail the class just because I am being lazy and do not want to study. I learned If I did it earlier I would not have to stress the test as much.

3) Reflect, in general, on what you think about failure. Failure is hard, isn't it? It's embarrassing, sure, but it also means that we have to change something about ourselves. Talk about how you handle failure (emotionally, behaviorally). Finally, talk about how this class has changed your perspective on failure -- are you more likely to take a risk now than you were four months ago? I handle failure pretty easily. My whole life never has been easy for me. I went to therapy for my writing and reading and every person I ever worked with said I would never be over a 7th grade reading lexile, Now I am here at UF trying to get into law school! I have always taken failure as a challenge. If I can not do it not now does not mean I can not do it in the future. This class has changed my perspective on failure because this class taught me that when starting something it is ok to fail at first. Some of the most successful
 businesses fail the first few times and get right back up and finish strong.

My Exit Strategy Week 13

1) I believe within the next five years depending on how the market was for my business I would end up selling my business for a large return if the price was right. I would end up investing a large amount of it into certain chains and open up other business from scratch and try to become successful through those as well.

2) Another reason why is because my company can turn really fast as well. There are people out there that can also be thinking of the next big thing for transportation. Years to come there can be bigger and better things so I feel it would be safest to say to get out and make a profit while I can't.

3) I wouldn't say it influenced my decision making or other decisions I have made because I would only sell my company if the price was right. Everything that I did or made a decision about I did for the long run. I would sell my business for the right price and at the right time. Sometimes you can sell your company and still keep a certain percentage. It has influenced my growth intentions because the bigger my company is the more money I could get or even keep.

Whats Next Week 12

After finding the radically different market from what I currently I went out and found three people to interview on the questions below.

1. What should we be doing that we are not planning to do?
2. What about my ideas of what customers might want next that I do not already have?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIm546dlXTk&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8Xm_PggFQs&feature=youtu.be

*sorry the other video will not load so I will right the Q&A of the last interview.

1. I believe you should get into even more ways to get people around not just in a bus or a trolley. But a variety of things so people can pick and choose.

2. I think what your customers might want next would be security from you and your company that will benefit them in every way to their next destination.

What I learned about this new market is that the majority of people would like to have a set and stone date and time to get to places and not just a general number. And most of the interviewees said it was a great idea and they can see it working but they said to invest into more ways to get around such as trolleys, buses, golf carts to get around faster. What surprised me most was that they said most people want exact times and dates for all of their transportation. What surprised me the most was that all three of the interviews were fairly similar when I asked the questions. Most of them described the services being on time and having more service for the customers. I would have to say that none of my assumptions or predictions were correct. I thought that no matter the market I was in that everyone would like the new service just the way it was. I did not expect for these people to want just precise times for every destination. I guess when it comes to me not just doing major universities that the majority of people want time and dates for everything. I would say that this new market is not as attractive as my existing market. The reason being is because it would be more complicated for me to charge and people become very precise with everything. I am not saying I do not want my business to be precise but no transportation system can be on time all of the time.

Week 12 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? What stood out the most to me would have to be the whole big deal about strategic planning and business growth. I know they were important but not as important as the author makes them in the readings.

2) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you. The one part of the reading that was most difficult for me was the charts. Especially the matrix model chart.

3) If you were able to ask two questions to the author, what would you ask? Why? The first question would be is having a set and stone strategic plan always the best bet for a starting business? And secondly have you ever met someone that became successful from just hard work and time that did not plan everything out?

4) Was there anything you think the author was wrong about? Where do you disagree with what she or he said? How? I do not believe anything the author said in the readings that was wrong. Just more explanation on the matrix chart.