Week 15 Reading Reflection

Hey everyone,

This is my final post dedicated to our Weekly Reading Reflections. This week's post comes from the "Harvard Business Review" and is an article titled, "Business Basics at the Base of the Pyramid". I found this week to be extremely interested and perhaps the best of the semester.

One of things that surprised me in the reading was the fact that micro-financing is a multi-billion dollar industry. I honestly had no clue that it was that prevalent, especially in second and third world nations. I usually picture micro-financing as small loans to the poor in the U.S, not villages in India.

The one thing in this reading that I believed to be pretty confusing was that SKS started as a non-profit and then transformed itself into a for-profit company. I did not know this transformation was possible and am kind of confused as to how a company would go about that transformation.

Two questions that i would like to ask the author:

#1. How do you transform a business from a non-profit to a for-profit company and still retain the same target market.

#2. What happens to you company when more people than you expect cannot make payments?

Finally, there was nothing that I disagreed with in the reading. I thought the business concept was in fact very noble and is definitely doing a tremendous amount of good work in India.

Until next time,

-Bryce

Final Reflection

Looking back on the semester, there was definitely plenty of both highs and lows. The lows were being unable to complete some assignments such as Interviewing Customers No. 2 and the What's Next assignment. The highs, for me, were receiving positive feedback during the interviews I conducted with people around campus about my business concept, as well as hearing the great things that my close friends had to say about me when discussing my "Secret Sauce".

The experiences that I felt were really the most formative came from the interviews with entrepreneurs, the many elevator pitches we were required to give throughout the semester, and the the venture concept assignments. The most joyous experience to me had to be after I finished Interviewing Customers No. 3. This was mainly due to the fact that I failed the week earlier to complete the assignment, so I was happy that I was able to respond to adversity. I would have to say that I am most proud of continuously pushing myself to come up with innovative ideas for my business, as that is not something I would have done prior to this class. The thing that I will remember the most for years to come is that as a young 20 year-old business student, I was able to formulate an entire business concept from scratch with only minimal help from others.

I do not know if I see myself as an entrepreneur right now to be honest. Having said that, I definitely believe that I have developed the mindset of an entrepreneur throughout the entirety of the course. I now look at everyday life differently and try to find things that could be improved upon, no matter how small or big. In addition, I am much less scared of failure and more of a "go-getter" when it comes to the things that I would like to achieve. Hopefully in the future I will have to opportunity to put all of the skills that I have gained from this course and apply it to my own actual entrepreneurial venture.

The one thing that I would recommend to students taking this course in the future is to really stay on top of things and plan ahead. There have been a couple times where I have waited until the last minute on assignments and did not do as well as I thought I could have. If one plans accordingly and sticks to a strict, yet efficient schedule, success will be almost guaranteed in this class. Also, I would tell these students to truly believe in themselves as well as their ideas and to not be afraid of failure.

Signing off,

Bryce Harrold

Elevator Pitch No. 4

Hey everyone,

This post is dedicated to my final elevator pitch! I have pretty much kept it the same as the past couple because the feedback was very positive for both so I hope that you guys enjoy this one just as much! This one is more of a summary of our services than a witty post to conclude, just to keep in mind.

Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtEnzfW4t7g

Until next time,

-Bryce

Venture Concept No. 2

Opportunity:

When examining my venture concept, ChompNation Books, I see a great opportunity right before my own eyes. This opportunity revolves around the fact that thousands of college students are overpaying for and overbuying textbooks every single semester. The current need that I see is an alternative source for students to get quality textbooks, fair prices, and expert advice on which books are necessary to buy. The forces that currently shape the environment in which I plan to enter are mainly the prices set by the UF bookstore, as well as the alternatives to buying them elsewhere, which are few and far in between. My target market is located in Gainesville, FL and my target demographic is focused on UF students of all ages and majors. Currently, the students inside of my demographic are satisfying their needs by buying from either the UF bookstore, exchanging with other students on Facebook, or ordering books from other websites. However, the loyalty rate among this demographic is not high at all, and as a student myself, I know that I would be willingly to buy from somewhere else if I knew I could obtain these texts at a lower price. Knowing all of these things, I believe that my opportunity could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and impact thousands of students at the university. The best part about this venture opportunity is that this opportunity can last for years on end, depending on the consistency and quality of the services that I provide. Also, this will depend on whether or not a lot of competitors flood the market in the coming years.

Innovation:

The innovation portion of my venture concept is nothing along the lines of inventing the new iPhone or a teleportation device, but rather a service that will make peoples' everyday lives easier while saving them time and money. The innovation that I am proposing is a website where students can come to buy, sell, or even trade their textbooks and school supplies. Through efficient supply chain management, I plan to offer these textbooks and supplies at lower prices than students would typically pay for them, while letting students buy and sell texts with one another over an e-marketplace setting.  An interesting feature of our website will allow students to communicate with one another by posting questions about classes or materials that are needed. In addition, you will be able to select, for one, the school you are attending, and you then be able to choose your college, specific class, and even section number within the class.
I know from personal experience that buying $400 worth of books that I maybe opened three times all semester is a real bummer and wished that I would have gotten the advice of an older, more experienced student. To go along with this, I am trying to provide either same or next day delivery to students so that they will receive their materials as soon as they need them. Finally, I hope to release a note-taking app that will be compatible with PC, tablets, and phones. Through this app, students will be able to access all of their texts in one place electronically and have the ability to edit and create custom note templates to help them study. This app will consist of "communities", and therefore allow all UF students the opportunity to communicate over the app in their respective communities or colleges. I have not decided to charge extra for app or tie it in with the purchase of texts. However, I do believe this app will entice to students to buy their books with us, and it will be exclusively available to ChompNation patrons.

Venture Concept:

I believe these innovations will be able to solve the problems students’ deal with when purchasing texts for a multitude of reasons. First of all, money is one of the most important priorities for a college student, and they will be able to save possibly hundreds of dollars every semester through our services. Second, it will save students loads to time. Since we are an online business, students will no longer have to experience a two-hour bookstore wait during the middle of their usually busy day. Third, I believe that the app, bundled with the texts, will allow to students to access their texts from anywhere and not have to lug multiple books across campus throughout the day. They will also be able to customize the way that they learn, which in turn could lead to improved customer satisfaction and high retention rates. 

Customers will want to switch to my company due to the fact that our prices will be lower and service quality will be higher. I believe that in the first year or so, it could be hard to garner the reputation against competitors. However, if I am smart about how I market the company and services that we provide, people will be looking to us as their place of choice for buying books in no time. The competitors in my market (Facebook, UF Bookstore, Chegg, etc.) are merely trying to turn a profit, while ChompNation is geared towards giving the most bang for the buck. We are genuinely interested in providing the best buying and learning experience for students and our prices will reflect this. It is here that I believe I will be able to gain an advantage over my competitors.  The main points that I want to focus on while creating the customer experience are: easy usability, high interaction between the buyer and seller, lower prices, and efficient delivery time. If I am able to manage these aspects well, I believe this venture could be a huge success. I would not have many employees, however the ones that I hire will have to be very tech savvy and have some experience with UF courses and require materials.

Three Minor Points:

I feel like my venture unfair advantage would be my experience with building a brand name and catering to the demographic which is the student body of UF. I really could use these experience to figure out the Do’s and Don’t’s when first starting out in here in Gainesville.

Eventually, I would like to launch my app to students and businesspeople nationwide. The students at UF will be the test market for this production, but I feel like I could give it to much more people on a national scale, years down the road.

Honestly, I believe that I will be selling this company within 5-10 years. During this period of time, competition will seriously increase as my services can be mimicked. This makes me focus on a strategy of rapid growth, as I would like to expand my company and utilize my services nationwide within the first few years. After that, I would sell ChompNation and mostly likely continue to innovate on the technical/ digital side of the business.


For the most part, my feedback from the first venture concept was very positive. However, one thing that really stood out me was when one person said that the website should be easier for students at UF specifically, to navigate as well as communicate.
Therefore, I changed the website in my concept to include a series of drop-down bars where one is able to select their specific college within UF, followed by the class, and finally the section number. In this way, it will point you in the most narrow, specific direction as possible and make it easier for students to find exactly what they need and eliminate even more time. In addition, I added the concept of "communities" in the app that I would like to develop. These communities would allow students the opportunity to communicate with students in their respective classes and colleges. This could be in the form of note-sharing, forming study groups, asking questions and so forth. Finally, I changed my third minor element to include my business growth strategy as I have decided that I would like to sell my business within the next 5-10 years. Other than that, everything else remained in tact due to the positive feedback I received.

Until next time,

-Bryce

Google Gold

#1. In my approach to SEO, I have really tried my best to share my blog with a multitude of students per week. Also, I have tried to include high-quality, interesting material that people would actually want to read throughout the majority of my posts. On top of that, I have tried to place words, such as venture, or entrepreneurship (and other words relating to the majority of the coursework) into many of my blog posts. In addition, I created a google analytics account that allows me to track the number of visitations to my site and better promote myself.

#2. My keywords are "Bryce Harrold", "entrepreneurship", "blog", "ENT3003". These are pretty generic and standard keywords, but I felt that most of my posts would at least include one or two of these "keywords".

#3. To be honest, I never really used social media to promote my blog. Rather, I only shared it with other students in the class, and occasionally showed it to some of my close friends. However, knowing those that follow me on social media, I feel like it would be a blog that would be ignored for the most part.

#4. My post about "Celebrating Failure", had the most recent traffic with 8 page views. I feel as though this has gotten the most traffic recently due to the fact that it was a pretty big assignment for the class, and a lot of people had to comment on my blog for credit as well.

#5. At the end of the day, I did not make it to the first page of Google for my keywords. Ultimately, this was due to a lack of time and lack of knowledge of how to properly use SEO. However, I feel that I could get much better with more experience, or if I ever need to use it for business purposes, just hire an expert to manage my website. My page did not even turn up in the first 10 pages of google, but I am sure it is there somewhere. Overall, I think I failed when it comes to going to Google Gold.

Until next time,

-Bryce

Week 14 Reading Reflection

Hey everyone,

This is once again my weekly post dedicated to our assigned reading reflections. This week's reading comes from our Entrepreneurship book written by Donald F. Kuratko. The chapters covered in the book were 3&4 titled, "The Entrepreneurial Mind-Set in Organizations" and "Social Entrepreneurship and the Global Environment for Entrepreneurship".

This was not so much a surprise, but a different way of looking at things, was talking about entrepreneurship for a corporate perspective. For the majority of the readings and of the class itself, the entrepreneurial experience and been based on the view of a singular person. However, I enjoyed reading about the ways in which top management and corporations strive to promote entrepreneurship among its members. I was unaware of the concept of "I-Teams" that are created within corporations to complete entrepreneurial creations and tasks that align with the goals of the overall corporation. I was also unfamiliar with the term "intracapital", and I had no idea that companies set aside capital for the entrepreneurial ventures of its teams and employees. From the second chapter, I was surprised by the talk of "Ecopreneurship". I was surprised that the concepts of "green capitalism" and "sustainable development" were so heavily intertwined with the entrepreneurship community as well.

The part of this week's reading that was confusing to me had to be the section that was titled, "Corporate Entrepreneurship Strategy". This was due to the breadth of relationships between departments within the corporate structure. I tried to look at Figure 3.2 for reference, but it continued to muddle things for me. Overall, this concept would be much better explained to me by an entrepreneur, than explained by long paragraphs and an intricate chart.

Two questions that I would like to ask the author:

#1. If you are thinking about entering a foreign market that looks promising from an economic perspective, but the social situation is not very stable, how do you know whether or not to invest or proceed?

#2. What are some specific activities that top management would present to their employees in order to build a sense of entrepreneurship and innovativeness within the office?

Throughout both readings, I felt that Kuratko did a very good job of explaining himself, and I did not find anything that I disagreed with him on. Due to his objectivity throughout the text, I cannot really argue with his points, unless I would like to falsify him, but honestly, I cannot do that at this point.

Until next time,

-Bryce

Very Short Interview, Pt. 2

In this interview, just as before, I had the pleasure of interviewing Van Saliba. Just as a refresher, Mr. Saliba is the President of Lumbermen's LLC, a very successful private equity investment firm in Fort Lauderdale, Florida who has also had consulting experience with Deloitte. On top of that, he has experience with multiple investments of his own and is the definition of an entrepreneur through and through. Ok, now on to the interview.

#1. Q: One thing of the main things that this class taught me is to not be afraid of failure. Do you believe that this an important aspect of becoming a successful entrepreneur?

A: "Well Bryce, the mistake a lot of people make is thinking that success happens overnight. There are going to be times that you fail on your way to success, or in starting a new venture, however you cannot let failure really deter you want to accomplish. I know if I did that, I would be in a much different place right now. At the end of the day, I am glad you learned this concept at a young age, because many young business people simply do not have what it takes to cope with failure in today's world."

#2. Q; As a young entrepreneur, what you recommend for me as far as starting my own business right out of school?

A: "I don't really want to tell you what career path you should take, but the one thing I would recommend is getting industry experience and learn the industry trends before diving into your own business. Experience, along with capital, are key for the growth of new businesses, especially when considering younger entrepreneurs."

#3. Q: If you could write the course curriculum for an entrepreneurship class, what would be some of the things you would include?

A: "I would certainly want them to network, attempt to raise a small amount of capital as a class, and have them talk to a lot of local businesses. Entrepreneurship is not really something that you can classify as this or that, but those, I feel, would be a few of the main components of the class. I would also like them to prepare a report about what would make them, or their company, successful in the industry that they have chosen."

In comparison to the first interview, I was much more confident going into this interview having a semester of entrepreneurship experience under me. Mr. Saliba was glad he had the opportunity to be interviewed once again, and hear about the progress that I had made throughout the class. He thought that I presented some good questions, and that I knew a bit more about what I was talking about this time around so that was positive to hear. Overall, the interview and experience went very well, and I am very excited that I had the opportunity to interview Mr. Saliba not once but twice.

Celebrating Failure

A couple times that I have failed this semester occurred when applying to internships. Most recently, I was interviewed in the final round for a company's internship (that I will leave unnamed) and found out this past week that I was not going to receive their internship. While many would not really consider that a failure, to me, it was because it was an internship that I really felt that I was qualified for. In addition, earlier in the semester I submitted my resume and credentials to a couple of the leading consulting firms around the country, only to never hear back from them.

Through these failures, I learned not to be afraid to really put my name out there and not be afraid to fall a few times. I learned from one of the recruiters that I had a really impressive resume and interviewed well, but unfortunately just was not as qualified as a couple other students (and this is only as a sophomore). It also taught me to continue to get involved at UF and around the community, and to try to impact as many people I can with my skills and talents. In addition, these failures have taught me that no matter how hard I fail or how bad I feel about something, the sun will continue to rise the next morning and that day is a new day. Life is too short to sulk on failures when there are countless opportunities (especially as Gators) to be a success story and positive influence on the lives we touch. 

Although I think that failure sucks and that nobody wants to deal with or experience failure, it is a necessary evil. I am usually one to take failure on the chin and begin to analyze what I did that led to my failure and what I can do to make sure that I do not experience this same type of failure. I usually give myself a 24-hour time period to feel bad about myself, but after that is up, I am immediately finding new ways to improve myself and/or the situation that I am in. ENT3003 has really taught me to step out of my shell and not be afraid to fail. I know that in order to be a successful entrepreneur, or just successful in general, one cannot be afraid of failure. Most people think that failure is a permanent fixture, but think of all the times Michael Jordan missed a shot. He was great because he never stopped shooting and had the ultimate confidence in himself. Looking back at this class, there have been a few assignments that I have missed, but it has not kept me from continuing to be successful and furthering my entrepreneurial venture. After all this, I would definitely say that I am more likely to take a risk than I was before entering this class.

Until next time,

-Bryce

Week 13 Reading Reflection

Hey everyone,

This post is once again dedicated to our weekly reading reflection. This week's reflection comes from our Chapter 14 of our Entrepreneurship book titled, "Valuation of Entrepreneurial Ventures".

One of the biggest things that surprised me in the reading is the depth and breadth of actually valuing an entrepreneurial venture. The section that talked about what a "due diligence" was, really showed me exactly what lengths buyers and sellers go to, to make sure that they are making the correct decision. Tables 14.1 and 14.2 provided immense analyses of basically every aspect of a company as well as countless questions to make sure that not a single faucet of the company was left out of the decision. In addition, I was also not familiar with the fact that it is the responsibility of the buyer of the business to pay for additional repairs and such that are included in additional costs.

One thing that seemed very confusing to me in the reading revolved around the topic of "adjusted tangible book value". The way that it was explained in the book did not really specify if this way was extremely reliable or if it was supposed to be beneficial to both the buyer and the seller. From what I understand based on the accounting courses I have taken thus far, one should always mark their assets down to the lowest possible of market or book value. Overall, if I was a business owner, I would not want my business valued in that manner.

Two questions that I would like to ask the author:

#1. Why is there such a focus on the Price/Earnings Ratio Method when there seems to be so many downsides and situations in where the method would be considered flawed?

#2. Would it ever be more profitable to buy a company at a lower rather than higher growth factor?

Once again, I have not found a point to disagree with. This is mainly due to the fact that I am still learning all of this so there are not a lot of points that I can really disagree with. However, I would have liked a better explanation as to why Kuratko used those particular three valuation methods amongst others and if those truly work better than the others.

Until next time,

-Bryce

My Exit Strategy

#1. The exit strategy I plan to take is to grow my business for the next 5-10 years and then sell it for a large return.

#2. I have selected this particular strategy because I believe that my opportunity and innovation window will close in a relatively short amount of time. The services that I am offering now are unlike most services offered in my market. However, I believe that other companies will be able to copy some of the concepts that I plan on implementing, and there will be increased competition 5-10 years down the road. I believe that it would be in my best interest to eventually sell this company and use my experiences to expand into different areas and markets across the nation.

#3. I think my exit strategy has influenced my concept and opportunity identification largely because the problems that I saw needed to be fixed immediately. I knew when I was starting this venture that it was not something that would be permanent, but rather a company to fix an issue permanently, and quickly as possible. I knew that if I could expand the company greatly within the first 5-10 year period, it would be worth a whole lot of money, and then I would be able to sell it and use my skills to help solve problems elsewhere. As far as growth, I wanted it to be as quick as possible, increasing the value of my company. In regards to acquiring resources, I wanted to plant those relationships firmly so that whoever takes over my company will be able to continue on a successful tradition.

Until next time,

-Bryce

Week 12 Reading Reflection

Hey everyone,

This post is dedicated to this week's reading reflection, which comes from our Entrepreneurship book written by Donald F. Kuratko.

One of the things that surprised me in this week's reading was the discussion of the SWOT analysis. I have never heard of this concept before, but I really appreciated the fact that it weighed the prospects of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. I feel that if one has a firm grasp on all of these concepts, their venture will be more successful and they will have better awareness of the internal and external factors confronting them. Also, I did not fully realize the extent of the overlap between entrepreneurial actions and strategic actions. The figure 13.2 on page 477 presents a venn diagram that shows how both of these actions produce Innovation, Networking, Growth, and so forth. Many people, including myself, undervalue the strength and importance of strategy and planning when discussing entrepreneurship.

The part of the reading that was most confusing to me was the section title: Managing Paradox and Contradiction. I felt like this section was trying to compare these different forms of running a company, when really they should have been talking about within the context of a business and not just against one another. I feel like there is no way to truly compare these without any context of the company or entrepreneurial situation.

Two questions I would like to ask the author:

#1. If your company was low innovation low risk, would it really be worth it to perhaps invest greater resources to increase innovation?

#2. What is the single most important factor that prevents a company from hitting a growth wall?

Once again, I did not really find anything that I did not agree with. Kuratko writes so objectively that it is hard to find points to really disagree with, especially since so many of these concepts are relatively new to me.