30A-Final Reflection

I can honestly say this class was unlike any class I have taken in the past and was a really cool experience. Looking back at the past assignments, the only one that really stood out to me that I can say I dreaded was the elevator pitch and then when we had to interview people for the social capital assignment. The elevator pitch was just intimidating because it's always weird to hear yourself talk on a recording and then to have other people see it, I thought it would be weird. But after doing it three times and getting used to it, I felt way more comfortable and confident in front of the camera and kind of liked it towards the end. The other part that I somewhat thought I wasn't too sure of was when we had to go out and interview people for our social capital. It was just a unique experience to go out and talk to entrepreneurs in the community and get a different take on what it means to be in a start up and what it takes to run a start up. I am generally a very out going person but I just thought that assignment would be intimidating but overall in the end it was a cool experience. This was also what I'll remember for a while because I am originally from Gainesville and I didn't know that there were so many unique businesses here and I just really enjoyed talking to and getting to know these people and it will just stick out to me for a while. I think towards the end I started to develop and entrepreneurial mindset for the simple fact that now when I am out and about, I am constantly looking for new ideas or opportunities that I could turn into potential business ideas and that was different from when I first started this class. Plus I have a better understanding of starting a business and how to exploit opportunities and I think this has shaped my entrepreneurial mindset. For students that take this course in the future, I would say to just go into this class with an open mind and don't be afraid to go out of your comfort zone. You get what you put in with this class and you can get a lot out of it if you're willing to do something different and have an open mind with this class.

29A- Venture Concept No.2

For this opportunity, there is a market in Gainesville of customers that have an unmet need of trying to do better in their classes and have tried various ways around UF and just need another way to try and do better. This opportunity presents a nature of need that many students have tried getting help in their classes and are just at a dead end and don't have the social ways to try and get help but with Study Buddy, this would help with that by giving students access to other students in the classes that they are in and being able to post or reach out to other students to see if they could help in the class. This would also provide a way for people to find tutors and reach out to individuals to try and get help in their classes. My market right now is defined to university population of Gainesville and consists of students ranging from ages 18-25 both male and female. Customers are currently satisfying this need by reaching out to their professors but my thought is that if you aren't getting the material in lecture then going to your professor wont't help much more. Then students are also using local tutoring places but they are kinda pricy and only do some of the entry level classes and not much of the higher level classes where some students can struggle. I feel like this idea can grow into something big and the window of time I feel like is somewhat open for a while as most of the tutoring places in Gainesville have been open for a while and you can enter that market if you have the means. As far as innovation, this is not "ground breaking" by any means and more or less just adds on to current methods of getting help in the class room but in a way that most people my age would feel comfortable with. And this being a social media app that I would develop and put out. Here students can post of class walls looking for help in certain subject areas, they can look for tutors in other areas and also try and reach out to other students in their classes for help and see if they can learn the material in a new helpful way. I would not charge people to pay for the app because I don't think many people would pay for it up front but I would have ads on the app and make money from that and then later down the road see if I could charge a monthly fee or some sort of access fee if demand is high enough. Then onto the venture part of this assignment. I think it would be kind of hard to get people to switch just because they are so used to the learning methods they have now, but I think once they try it out and see that it could help them, then I think it would make for an easy switch. My competitors are the local tutoring businesses around Gainesville and I think the major weakness of them is how expensive it is. For some students this isn't a problem but over times these costs can add up and students don't like this. Plus they only offer entry level classes and once you get to your major level classes you must do everything on your own and I think my app would be a way for these students to connect and have a way to try and do better in their classes. As far as developing the business, I think I could run the business side of things and marketing and things like that, my biggest hurtle would be to just develop the app and for this I would try and assemble a team that would make this very easy to do. We work on the app and develop it to meet all the business needs and then put it out for customer use. My most important resource would be the social capital that I have around me as there are many start ups in Gainesville and I can learn a lot from these people on how to run a start up and run it successfully. After we are successful in Gainesville, I would want to try and branch out to other campuses around the U.S. because I think if we can work at UF, we can work anywhere. In five years, I want to have moved to a couple different campuses and ready to sell because I feel like another company or someone can scale this business better and hopefully make some money off of it. As far as what I changed, I just put more focus on how I wanted to end and also put more emphasis on the venture part of this concept. I needed to focus more on my competitors and how I was gonna make money and all those things and I think I did a better job in this one with these.

(So easy, a dog could use it)

28A-Your Exit Strategy

As sad as it is to think about what I would do with this company that I have created over the last semester, it is good to think about what the long term goals would be and how it would come to an end. Hopefully it would be successful enough here at UF that we would be able to expand Study Buddy's to other campuses across the nation. With this increase and growth and potential to be a successful app used around the country, it is a great opportunity however, I would see myself selling the business if it got to this level and hopefully it would be for a large return. I would do this because I don't think I would be able to manage a large company that expands that fast and I don't know how to scale a product like that if it took off and was used around the nation. I feel as though other companies would be able to manage this more and make it more user friendly to a larger base of people. I think this strategy has made me think about how far I'm going to grow up until a certain point. I would use the resources that I have available, whether it be social or physical or monetary in Gainesville to scale my project and make sure it will be as successful in the Gainesville market. Then once I am able to master this market, then I believe we would be able to move onto different markets then once it reaches a certain point to where I don' t think I could manage it any better with the resources I have, then I would sell it at that point, but I don't think it would influence any of my factors in the early parts of the venture. 

27A-Reading reflection 3

For this reflection I decided to do "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson. I have always been interested in Steve Jobs as he has been a true innovator of technology and has changed technology forever. I was most surprised that Jobs was considered a Hippie. Also even though he was one of the original founders of Apple, he was forced out of Apple in 1985. I thought I had known this before but reading about the details of it was interesting. I admired Job's work ethic and his "genius" brain.  I am firm believer that this is what made Apple what it is today. Job's had the mind to think of the future and what would be innovative and cutting edge. Along with this, he had the work ethic to back it up and make it possible that these innovations and changes were put into action. I least admired Job's attitude towards some people. Job's was not polite to a lot of people and often cut a lot of bridges before they were made. Job's of course faced much adversity in his life. One of the biggest ones would be of course when he was fired and forced to leave Apple, but he then joined another company called NeXt, which would later then be bought by Apple and Job's would go onto becoming the CEO of Apple again. When it come's to competencies, Job's just seemed like he felt superior to everyone and was hard on rules that he set. He didn't bend the rules for anyone and if you went against what he said, he looked down upon you with almost disgust. If I could ask Job's two questions it would be how to he kept Apple so innovative and on the cutting edge of technology. Then I would ask him the hardest part of the initial start up process. Just because I am at that point with this start up idea for this class. I think like every great entrepreneur, Job's believed you need hard work to be successful. I am 100% confident Job's was the first one in the office and the last one out and worked harder than everybody in the room to be successful. I believe in this as well and I want to instill this work ethic early in  my working career to try and make sure I am successful.

26A-Celebrating Failure

This assignment was an easier one for me as I just went through multiple interviews for internships this summer and have an answer for the time I failed. For mine, it was in my freshman year and I had a great opportunity of getting a position as a student manager on the football team in the equipment room. So I got to help with the team and their practices, help sort out gear, be on the sidelines for all the games and travel to some of the away games. I did this for about 3-4 weeks and then I started to fall behind in my classes. This opportunity was a great one but it ended up being almost a full time job and I was not prepared for that. Mind you this was my first real semester at UF so I was still adjusting and then throw this on top and I was not doing great. But the moment of failure came when I just went to my boss and told him I was going quit with out asking anybody for advise or trying to get help. I didn't talk to my parents about it, my friends or people around, I just dropped it when it started to get hard. When I told my parents they were extremely angry that I just gave up and didn't get help or anything and pulled the "we're not mad, we're disappointed". The failure in this was that I just gave up when it got tough and when I was doing something new, which is not like me at all. From this I learned that even when it gets tough or you're not in a position where you're comfortable, you can't give up. You have to get going and it will eventually get better. I have this mind set now which is great because I will be doing an internship this summer and I will be put out of my element and it will be challenging and different, but I know I will learn from it and won't just drop it when it gets tough. As far as I handle failure, I mean for everyone it is embarrassing, but you have to learn from it and be able to move on. If you don't, you won't be able to learn a lot in life. I am firm believer that you learn more from your failures than you do when you are successful. This class has shown me that it's okay to fail even in business and entrepreneurship but it's how you rebound from failure that defines the type of person you are.

25A- What's Next?

Existing Market:
In terms of whats next for in terms of product and services for my next venture, I think the best move for me would be to expand to other campuses around the U.S. I think if this venture was successful here at UF, it would be successful at other campuses. When talking to customers this week, I interviewed Sean, a student here at UF and he said what you should be doing now, is focusing on the content that you will have on the app such as classes and such, and then the user-ability of these functions on the app. He said you should be trying to develop an app that is as easy to use as possible so users can use it easily. Rachael then said, she agrees, but mainly needs to focus on getting a customer base and the ways that you will grow that base. Whether it be advertising on campus or doing different promotional deals or advertising on social media. "Right now, growth for you is crucial and getting your name and product out right now is how you will grow the fastest". Hunter said when interviewed, that he thinks customers would want maybe a more interactive Study Buddy, where you could help on different topics from students all around the country. This would just a cool way to get a different perspective on the topics you are learning and see how other students who are just like you are learning them.

New Market:
I think most of my current market would be students out of Greek life, but if I have try a new market, it would be Greek life. This would be a challenge because I feel like a lot of the students already have a lot of connections to where they wouldn't have to branch out and try to find students in their classes for help when they are all right there. However, with Study Buddy, this could reach all across Greek life and help connect the students from there and this would give them an even bigger realm of students to get help from. I interviewed Rob who is in ATO here at UF and he said if there was a way to organize it to make it easy to connect with people, he thinks it would do well in Greek life because he said it's so big, it's hard to make connections sometimes and this would be a way to stream line this process. Then I interviewed Olivia who is in KKG and she said this would be beneficial for some of the students in Greek life who aren't as involved and would be an easy way to connect with students just like them.

I was surprised to hear that this new market would potentially be a place to sell. The fact that some people would maybe be interested makes it in intriguing into what other markets are available out there. I still think my original market would be more attractive and easy to sell in, but once students started to realize that my product works and it doesn't matter how many people you may know, I think it would start to spread to new markets like the one described. If it shows results and people see that it's working, they will give it a try.

24A-Venture Concept No.1

This semester has been a new challenge for me in taking this class, as this class has really stretched my mind into finding a new business idea that I have come up with. This will be my first Venture Concept for Study Buddy.
1. To start off with, I will dive into the opportunity section of the Venture Concept. My opportunity stems from groups of students around campus that feel like they have reached a dead end or are having trouble in their classes and haven't found a way that they can try and help their grades. This group of students also feels like they don't have the "social capital" that others around campus do and may not have the biggest group of people around them to try and help them with classes. The un-met need is just a way that someone could connect with their fellow students in their classes and try and form study groups or try and help find tutors or get help and ask questions to other students as well. More specifically around UF, a lot of students are involved in Greek life which is great, but the students who aren't don't have that great amount of people around them, who some of them are most likely in the same classes as they are, which gives them an easy way to get help outside of the classroom. The students who aren't in Greek life, don't have a way to really branch out and look for help outside of the classroom because they don't have this large group of students around them like others do. I am firm believer that you should learn the material in your classes from multiple different sources, especially if you are struggling and a great way to do that is through study groups or even tutors. This way a student can see the material in a different way and then hopefully do better in their classes.  I think this market could stretch and be seen in many of the large Universities around the U.S. So the markets could be spread out through the U.S, but would be more defined to college campuses and not really anywhere else. I also think that this opportunity will be around for a long time as technology is always changing and we are getting better tech everyday, students will always have this need to get help outside of the classroom no matter how far tech has advanced. So I think an opportunity like this would last for a while.
2.My innovation for this idea is only slightly different than things that are out there right now. My idea is to develop Study Buddy just like a social media app that would allow students to just download on their phone and use it from there. The idea of apps is not "innovative" but having a way for students to connect with their classmates in social media type manner, that is made to help students outside of the classroom I believe is innovative. Every student now a days feels more comfortable on their phone and so trying to reach out and form study groups or post on a wall about questions or even looking for tutors, doing this on a smartphone in a social media app would make students feel more comfortable. At first, I would make money by trying to sell ads on the app itself that students would see while using the app. I would charge a small upfront fee of 5 dollars to download the app, and then try and have promotions on the app to try and get the user to get their friends to sign up.
3.I think my customers would buy my product because of a couple reasons. One, they have tried everything in their power and haven't found successful ways to try and get help outside of the classroom. Study Buddy is a great way for them to turn and lean on their classmates for help. Two, students feel comfortable with meeting people over social media now a days, so giving the app a try and finding out that there are students who could help you do better in school would be a reason they stay. My competitors are the local tutoring places around Gainesville and while they offer a lot of entry level courses, they don't do a lot of upper level classes that students struggle with and so we would be able to try and help where our competitors couldn't.

Minor Elements:
My biggest resource I think would be the social capital that I have around me to help and develop my app. I have a lot of resources and people that are very technical that can help me develop my app which I believe would be one of the biggest challenges of this venture. I can tailor the business model or my market I am going for, but to sit down and develop a full functioning app is a huge challenge in itself. My next venture, if successful would be to try and tackle other campuses around the U.S. I think if successful here, it would be a great resource to have at other campuses. Then as far as what's next for me, I would want to keep trying and developing new apps, as I am fascinated at the tech start up of the worlds and have always wanted to start my own or be apart of one.