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.