30A

Final Reflection

Although this is the end of our journey together in ENT 3003, you now have a set of experiences that you can use to better navigate the future. My hope is that each of you have, to one extent or another, developed an entrepreneurial mindset. That you keep a sharp eye out for problems, and you're willing to offer a solution.

For this final reflection, I'd like you to do a few things:

1) Read through your posts from this semester. Recall all of the experiences you've had a long the way -- the highs, the lows -- the fun moments, and the moments of drudgery, and even the moments of dread.

2) What sticks out to you as the most formative experience? The experience that you'll remember years later? What was your most joyous experience? What experience are you most proud of yourself for accomplishing?

3) At the beginning of the semester, I mentioned that I wanted each of you to develop an entrepreneurial mindset. Now, at the end, do you see yourself as an entrepreneur? Do you think you have moved closer to developing an entrepreneurial mindset?

4) What is the one recommendation you would make to the students who are going to journey down this path in the future? What would you recommend they do to perform best in this course? What would you recommend they do to foster that mindset?

Once you have written your post, please include a picture (for illustration!).

The most formative experience to me was my elevator pitch. I could actually see how I sound talking to other people and what people think when I pitch my idea of owning my own facility to them. This has allowed me to extremely improve on that way that I relay the reason that I am doing this and being able to describe what actually drives me. I think my most joyous experience was creating my social avatar. This was fun doing it on the computer and really thinking about the type of people that I expect to target. I am proud of completing the venture concept assignment. I felt that this was the most beneficial thing for me because it allowed me to map out everything about my company. Although it said two pages, I just kept writing and kept writing because I was so passionate about my company.

I see myself as an entrepreneur because no matter who I talk to, I am still always trying to sell myself. I use my experiences and the people that I know to enhance and grow the opportunities that I have for myself. I have been developing an entrepreneurial mindset by becoming extremely invested with the people that I talk to. I have actively been searching and seeking out people to talk about my future goals and how certain people were able to achieve them.

I would advise students who are coming down this journey to put as much effort in as possible. This can seem like an easy class but it can be extremely challenging and beneficial for you if you put in the time. If you have a goal that you really want to accomplish such as a business or service that you want to offer then be extremely dedicated to all the opportunities that we have in this class. If you do not have any intentions to be an entrepreneur, I advise you to still soak in all the information because you never know what can change you. The skills of an entrepreneur can also follow you to multiple places of your life. You will always need to build your capital and show that you are an asset for the company that you work for. You will need social skills to be able to interact with different people. Come into this class extremely open and eager to learn. Come with no prior knowledge and just listen to everything that is given to you.

29A

Venture Concept No. 2

As part of ENT 3003, you are required to write a short (2-page, single spaced) description of a concept for a new venture. This write-up guide describes what you should cover in your write-up, and in so doing, it also presents a recommended outline for you to follow.

The three major elements of your write-up are the (1) opportunity, (2) innovation, and (3) venture concept. You should begin your write-up with detailed descriptions of each of these elements.

Opportunity. An opportunity may be defined as a group of customers with unmet or under-met needs. When you describe the opportunity you have identified, you need to be sure to describe both (1) who has the need (i.e., who are the potential customers?) and (2) the nature of the need. Other questions you should address in this section:



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

• • How is this market defined geographically and demographically?

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

• • How big is this opportunity?

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

When I first came up with an idea for a sports facility, I thought about a place to offer students, mainly high school students, a place to get off the streets and stay out of the negative influences and troubles from being on the street. My potential customers were less-fortunate minority individuals who are struggling to stay out of trouble or have a need to grow themselves personally and/or professionally.



This market will start out in the Tampa, FL area and target all students who qualify as minority students. This facility will have high school students that range from the age of 14-18 years old. Currently, these students do not have a positive way to stay out of trouble and are not surrounded by the correct influences. These students do not know the threats of the situations that they are dealing with and how it could end their future immediately.


Innovation. An innovation may be defined as a new or creative service, product, or process that may be applied in the marketplace to address customer needs. The service, product, or process you develop in this class may be radically innovative or it may be incrementally innovative. In this section, I would like to you discuss your innovation in moderate detail. Explain what it is, what it does, and how it works. You should also describe how you will make money – in other words, what, exactly, are you selling and for how much? For instance, if I was starting a business to teach people how to play the piano, I would be selling an hour of my time for $50.



The service that I plan on offering are academic tutoring, study sessions, career development, and personal development. I am offering the ability for minority students who are in need of staying out of trouble or need a room for growth. With this business, I will be giving the services to high school students.



I will be trying to receive some funding from the government through grants and scholarships for my students. The need for funding will be determined through the government in the same way that they have college students complete a FASFA every year.



Publix is a company that is for profit but they also receive private funding through fundraisers and the community. I think that this would be the best route to take for my company. I say this because although I am offering this facility to minority students who cannot afford to be able to come, I think that is also important to realize that I can use some of the funding that I make from profit and pour it back into this problem. If I can pour back this into the company without hitting such a huge loss and still being able to survive then private funding might be my only need for an opportunity.



Publix has been extremely successful when it has come to initiating private funding and receiving huge sponsors for the initiatives that they are putting forward. I think it is just important that you be extremely honest and transparent with people so that they know the reason/cause that they are donating for.


Venture Concept. A venture concept may be defined as the application of a specific innovation to address a specific opportunity. In this section, describe how your innovation will solve or address the opportunity you identified. You also want to explain why customers will buy your innovation. In describing the concept, you also want to be sure to cover issues such as:

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

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

• • 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?

• • 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 have not seen many products that have focused specifically on emerging yourself in the teenagers’ culture and matching them up with people have gone through the same struggles. I will use my relationships and connections with ex-professionals and college athletes to allow them to see someone who has been in the same situation.



The Boys and Girls Club and other privately-owned recreational programs are my main competitors. Their weaknesses are the fact that they rely only on the funding that they fundraise instead of outsourcing a lot of the funding. They have a good strength with their brand recognition to lure in parents to bring their kids to the program.



I would have somewhere around 20-30 employees that specialize in many different roles. I want to bring people in that have a passion for each service that I have to offer. Since this a sports facility I want to bring in possibly P.E. coaches or old high school coaches who were around this area that are able to understand the stresses that the students go through.



2) Provide a summary of the feedback you received from your previous venture concept description. You certainly want to include the student feedback, but you may also include the feedback you received from others during the "What's Next" exercise. You want to summarize all of the feedback, but be sure to place an emphasis on what people recommended you change about your idea. (In other words, don't just describe the positive feedback.)

When it came to feedback, I had to look hard into whether I wanted this company to be for profit or nonprofit. I also was given the idea that I should look into Publix and see how they use private funding to still reach some of the optimum levels of growth that they want to receive.

3) Describe how you changed your venture concept, based on what you learned from the feedback.

My venture concept was changed because I decided that I was going to target a profit company but bring in private funding to help to subsidize the loss of funds due to the minority teenagers that I am helping. I have come to realize that not all people can afford this facility but that does not mean that all people cannot benefit from it.

27 A

Reading Reflection No.3

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

The general theme of this book is how two completely different mindsets can travel you down two different paths. You have a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. The fixed mindset can limit you at certain things to only see the goals that are achievable and obtainable right in front of you. Whereas, the growth mindset challenges you to expand out of your comfort zone and obtain things that you don’t usually think of and step out of your comfort zone in order to be successful. Growth mindsets have the ability for you to have endless potential and to never sell yourself short.

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

I think that this goes along with being an entrepreneur because you do not have a set path of how you will be successful in something you create. Different paths and different opportunities may open up for you. You will experience failure, but this should not leave only the fixed mindset upon yourself. You should have a growth mindset to think about how your failures can turn into your successes and how you can deter from the path that you thought you had, and still be successful.

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

I would have students write down and think about times where they felt that they only had one goal and once it was stopped, they gave up. I would have them identify how this fixed mindset hindered their growth and allow them to talk about the difference with this same experience in a growth mindset.

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?

I didn’t expect for this book to talk about different genres of ways that you can use this growth and fixed mindset whether in sports, the workplace, and etc.

28A

My Exit Strategy

That's a fast exit!

All good things come to an end. Eventually, the entrepreneur exists the venture she or he created. Although exit comes at the end of the entrepreneurship process, its implications can be seen throughout. Exit can influence how you identify opportunities, develop products or services, and manage and grow the firm. In this exercise, I would like you to reflect on your own exit strategy.

Here's what you should do and write up for your post:

1) Identify the exit strategy you plan to make. Do you intend to sell your business in the next 5 years for a large return? Do you intend to stay with the business for several decades and retire? Do you intend to protect the venture as a family business, and pass it down to your children?


I intend to start my business up long down the road. I need to find the right financial resources to be able to help with the funding and the aid of this program before I can start this facility. I plan to keep the business in the family and pass it down to my children. The reason for this is because people who are close to your dream and goals, are the people who are going to cherish the same mindset that you have. Nobody else will treat my business with as much care as my own family because they will never want to let me down and they will have been around it their whole life.


2) Why have you selected this particular exit strategy?

I think that it's important to realize how much your family and close friends around you value the things that you do. My children will have grown up around this business so they will already know the daily operations, problems, and plans that we will have for this business. They will be able to jump right in with the same passion that I have because they will understand that this is a family company.


3) How do you think your exit strategy has influenced the other decisions you've made in your concept? For instance, has it influenced how you have identified an opportunity? Has it influenced your growth intentions or how you plan to acquire and use resources?

I think that my ability to pass it down to my children has allowed many opportunities for growth. With this exit strategy, I can focus on receiving the aid and not being the focal point of all operations but we will also be able to expand the longer the company is around.

26A

Celebrating Failure

In this exercise, bare your soul.



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.

2) Tell us what you learned from it.

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 just a few months ago?


I think I speak for many people but the failure that I had was taking Business Finance. I came into the summer semester extremely confident that I would do great in this class despise what everyone else said about it. I came in with an open mind and just tackled this class head-on. Unfortunately this class kicked me back harder than I kicked it and I ended up having to withdrawal from the class. I was stressed, I was frustrated about every aspect of this class. I never had felt like a class was hard to me and I always had majority A’s and some B’s sprinkled in here and there.

Taking this class allowed me to learn that everything in life isn’t easy. I realized that I can’t get frustrated just because some people are better than me at certain things. I saw some people at UF pass this class with easy A’s and B’s and ended up becoming very down on myself. I did not want to go to class anymore and I felt that this school thing wasn’t for me. I ended up enrolling in the class again this semester and I am still at the cusp of failing this class. The class has gone much better than the first time but it has still been a challenge for me.

When it comes to failure, this class has allowed me to look at things through a different lens. I have seen many people who have been hit with many challenges far more important than my finance class. I have come to understand that failure is just a part of a process and it is a way of life. Without failure, you will never grow and you will never have the fire lit under you to actually succeed. This semester has still been hard with finance but the thought of failure is no longer in sight for me. I have changed my mindset to change my normal routines of doing things in order to succeed in this class.

24A

24A – Venture Concept No. 1

  

As part of ENT 3003, you are required to write a short (2-page, single spaced) description of a concept for a new venture. This write-up guide describes what you should cover in your write-up, and in so doing, it also presents a recommended outline for you to follow.

The three major elements of your write-up are the (1) opportunity, (2) innovation, and (3) venture concept. You should begin your write-up with detailed descriptions of each of these elements.

Opportunity. An opportunity may be defined as a group of customers with unmet or under-met needs. When you describe the opportunity you have identified, you need to be sure to describe both (1) who has the need (i.e., who are the potential customers?) and (2) the nature of the need. Other questions you should address in this section:



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

• • How is this market defined geographically and demographically?

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

• • How big is this opportunity?

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

When I first came up with an idea for a sports facility, I thought about a place to offer students, mainly high school students, a place to get off the streets and stay out of the negative influences and troubles from being on the street. My potential customers were less-fortunate minority individuals who are struggling to stay out of trouble or have a need to grow themselves personally and/or professionally.



This market will start out in the Tampa, FL area and target all students who qualify as minority students. This facility will have high school students that range from the age of 14-18 years old. Currently, these students do not have a positive way to stay out of trouble and are not surrounded by the correct influences. These students do not know the threats of the situations that they are dealing with and how it could end their future immediately.


Innovation. An innovation may be defined as a new or creative service, product, or process that may be applied in the marketplace to address customer needs. The service, product, or process you develop in this class may be radically innovative or it may be incrementally innovative. In this section, I would like to you discuss your innovation in moderate detail. Explain what it is, what it does, and how it works. You should also describe how you will make money – in other words, what, exactly, are you selling and for how much? For instance, if I was starting a business to teach people how to play the piano, I would be selling an hour of my time for $50.



The service that I plan on offering are academic tutoring, study sessions, career development, and personal development. I am offering the ability for minority students who are in need of staying out of trouble or need a room for growth. With this business, I will be giving the services to high school students.



I will be trying to receive some funding from the government through grants and scholarships for my students. The need for funding will be determined through the government in the same way that they have college students complete a FASFA every year.
Venture Concept. A venture concept may be defined as the application of a specific innovation to address a specific opportunity. In this section, describe how your innovation will solve or address the opportunity you identified. You also want to explain why customers will buy your innovation. In describing the concept, you also want to be sure to cover issues such as:

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

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

• • 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?

• • 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 have not seen many products that have focused specifically on emerging yourself in the teenagers’ culture and matching them up with people have gone through the same struggles. I will use my relationships and connections with ex-professionals and college athletes to allow them to see someone who has been in the same situation.



The Boys and Girls Club and other privately-owned recreational programs are my main competitors. Their weaknesses are the fact that they rely only on the funding that they fundraise instead of outsourcing a lot of the funding. They have a good strength with their brand recognition to lure in parents to bring their kids to the program.



I would have somewhere around 20-30 employees that specialize in many different roles. I want to bring people in that have a passion for each service that I have to offer. Since this a sports facility I want to bring in possibly P.E. coaches or old high school coaches who were around this area that are able to understand the stresses that the students go through.

25A

25A – What’s Next?

We've been talking about growth. Growth in new markets, growth in existing markets. For this experience exercise, you'll need to set a course for growth for your business and develop plans for how you will grow in both a new market as well as in the market you have already identified.

What you need to do. Again, you'll need to hit the pavement and talk to potential customers. This time, you'll be armed with your "venture concept" description. Break your post into two pieces:
• Existing Market
• New Market

Existing Market.

Step 1: Talk about what you think is what's next in terms of products and services for your venture.
I think that I can offer more services for people that do not have a membership such as renting out the facility for basketball, softball, baseball, and football tournaments.

Step 2: Interview three customers who are already part of the market you have identified, and ask them what they believe is next for a venture like yours. Describe to them your business, and simply ask "What should we be doing that we aren't planning to do?" Next, ask them about your ideas of what customers might want next.
1st – You should be bringing in people with certified experience that can teach these students the skills that they need to be successful. A good way is to have times where students are required to choose a couple of professional topics to be engaged in such as table setting in a professional setting.

2nd – You need to branch and expand out to other locations instead of just one. We need to find a target market to address the situation of everybody.

3rd - When this becomes successful ,brand yourself into an academy so that you are responsible for curriculum as well.


Step 3: Based on your own expectations and the feedback you received from customers, set a path for the future. In two to three paragraphs, describe what makes the most sense for your venture in terms of growing in your existing market.
New Market.

Step 1: Identify a radically different market from what you're currently planning to target. If you're currently targeting B2B, think about going after a B2C market. If you're currently targeting an affluent part of society, think about targeting a very poor part of society.

Step 2: Once you have identified a radically different market, describe how you think your venture concept might be able to create value for people in that market. You may have to get creative with this -- that's OK -- and perfectly welcome!

Step 3: Interview two people from this new market. Again, describe to each interviewee what your concept is. Then, ask them how they think your business might be help to meet customers like them. What kinds of adaptations to the product/service mix do they think you should make to be successful in this new market?

Step 4: Reflect, in two to three paragraphs, on what you learned about this new market. What surprised you the most? Were any of your expectations/assumptions correct? Does this new market, on second thought, appear to be as attractive as your existing market? And so on.




I think instead of just targeting individual consumers, I should start targeting other businesses as well. Not only can I use this to target people for different travel basketball tournaments, but I also could use this to enhance the other side of the facility. This facility is not only a sports facility but also a place to grow yourself personally. I think that we have many professionals that are also struggling in these key areas of how to lead, how to be professional, and how to problem solve.

I can create value for people in this market by offering less fortunate students the tools to be successful. I also found out when interviewing people that I need to focus on an ability to reach people who are fortunate but just are not given these type of skills either. Just because you have money, doesn't mean that you are receiving the correct resources to be successful.


This new market definitely feels like an area that I can attack but it is long-term after actually opening and starting the facility. The idea of an academy always came to mind but that is not the first step of the process that I want to take. I think that I have a lot more foundation building to actually reach this point.