30A- Final Reflection

1) high- first coming up with this business idea and being able to be so creative
low- determining the barriers and obstacles I'd face in pursuing the idea
I had fun imagining what could come of the business, but I found some of the assignments to be more time consuming than beneficial.

2) I'm proud of myself for creating a realistic business and then trying so hard to understand the market for it. I think this practice will benefit me with any future marketing or entrepreneurship. I enjoyed reading about the other creative ideas in the class too. I also appreciated the feedback they gave me.

3) Unfortunately, I am stubborn and do no think I have developed much more of an entrepreneurial mindset. I now understand how the process works better, but I am not exactly inclined more to become and entrepreneur than I was before. I may have had this feeling to begin with so there wasn't much more convincing to do.

4) I would recommend that students set aside time each week for this course because it is more time consuming than it seems. I would also advise them to really bring in the concepts and values in the course and try applying them to their own lives, rather than only to the assignments. There is a lot to learn from the course and it can be shown in just these assignments. I think it may be difficult with this online course. I'd also recommend that they keep an open mind.

29A- Venture Concept No. 2

My onsite scooter repair service, Riley's Scooter Repair, is a great opportunity for the Gainesville market and the University of Florida because there is a large number of consumers who need the repair because the own scooters and also because the students have demanding schedules and desire convenient solutions. There is an increasing number of students who are purchasing scooters. There also is an increasing number of students at the University of Florida, which could lead to greater scooter sales overall. Having a scooter is a convenient transportation solution. It is inexpensive (relatively), easy to operate, and allows a student to park in more areas on campus than a car would. This demand for my service arises from the fact that because these consumers have purchased a convenient product, they probably also want a convenient solution to their problem (when their scooter needs to be repaired). My market can be defined as the University of Florida campus. If this service was to succeed here, it could be replicated in other college towns. The customers would be college students who own a scooter. These people are typically 18-24 years of age. These customers are typically fast-paced and are always looking for innovative new products and services. These customers are typically reliant upon their parents for some financial support and make purchasing decisions with this in mind. The window of opportunity for this service will probably be open until students are no longer purchasing scooters that need repair. This service is innovative because there is not currently an onsite scooter repair service that has a strong market share in Gainesville yet. This service provides an innovative solution to repairing scooters by doing them onsite, so that the customer doesn't have to worry about time their scooter spends in the shop or having to transport it to the shop. This service would cost the customer whatever the cost of parts is plus a $15 per hour charge for labor. There are already many scooter repair services in Gainesville. Some of them have a much stronger hold on the market than others do. There is demand for scooter repair in general, so by providing a service that stands out to customers as more convenient than the competitors is what will bring in demand. The competitors are well established but do not provide the convenience this business would offer. They typically have the customer bring in the scooter or charge a fee for transporting it. The scooter then sits in an office for an extended period of time. If my business can provide the same quality of service as the typical repair shop, I think that customers will gladly switch to my service. Customer service and price will be the most important factors to my customers. My business would need to start small, with few employees before I could expand. This startup doesn't require too many employees at first. My most important resource is the convenience. This convenience is the difference between my service and other services. My next business venture would be to offer a sort of membership to customers. This would make it so that customers could have their scooters checked up on, washed, maintenanced, etc on a recurring basis, onsite. Assuming this business was to succeed, I'd be most concerned with increasing market share in my current market and then extending to other college campuses. This way I could increase my revenues and acquire enough capital to continue creating startups or manage this money better. I think that I may have underestimated the start up costs for this business. I will need to purchase many vans and hire skilled mechanics in order to keep up with demand. I also will need to get the repairs done quickly so that customers don't decide to go somewhere else for service. This may be difficult.

My feedback was positive for the idea. They liked how I differentiated my product and said that I could find customers. I personally found that I will need a lot of start up capital and will also need to be very efficient to keep customers pleased. My workers will also need to be very skilled in order to address the range of problems that may arise in the field. It may be difficult to satisfy customers if we cannot do the repair onsite as promised.

Based on the feedback, I couldn't change much. I just have to prepare for when these problems arise and find a way to still provide customer service by offering discounts if things go wrong or take preventative action.

28A- Your Exit Strategy

I plan to hold onto this business until my children can take it over. If they were not to take it over, I would sell it to someone else and use the money I earn to invest in other businesses or portfolios. Hopefully this business is enough to provide me with the lifestyle I desire. I think that I would be content working in this business for my entire career if I could also responsibly invest and get large returns elsewhere. I have decided to do this because it provides me with stability and also allows to provide my children with a job with an income they like. I also would have pride in this business, so I wouldn’t like to see anyone else take it over. Considering the fact that I will be holding onto this business for many years and then watching my children take it over, I am going to find ways to create long term growth. This may include making large capital expenditures now so that later on, the company is prepared for growth. This also may include setting lower prices for market penetration, establishing a large customer base for later on when I can start setting higher prices. I plan to look at the business as a progression and may be more forward looking than focused on the present. This exit strategy means that I need to treat this business as my main priority and that I need to save my money wisely so that my kids are in a good position.

27A- Reading Reflection No. 3

Cognitive Surplus by Clay Shirky

This reading is about how people can improve the world they live in by utilizing time, networking, and technology better. It is about being more efficient with the tools available to them and how they can benefit society. Shirky argued that in order to maximize our abilities, we need to utilize the advice and conversations we have with others and use them to fix our current lives. We can take feedback and understand other people’s views. This is important when trying to market your ideas or products to other people. Understand other people allows you to tailor to their wants and needs. Technology can help in this by making communication with many people at once more possible. You can also collect more opinions from many areas with this. The idea is that you need to take advantage of how information is shared in the world around you. In order to apply these concepts in class, I would ask students to identify the encounters they have every day with other people, technology, the world, etc that provide them with new, beneficial information. I would then ask them to see if any of this information could be applied to their business idea or another business idea. I would then ask them to determine which types of mediums (technology vs person to person etc) that provide certain types of information. I would also have students identify time they spend wasting (like watching TV) and then ask them what they would be doing instead if they weren’t wasting it. They then could realize how much they may be missing out on. I was interested in seeing how much time we all waste and what would happen if we all took a bit of that wasted time and put it towards a common goal. While I think it would be difficult to convince many people to be more productive, I was surprised by how much time people actually wasted watching television. Television can provide beneficial information or stress relief, but it is used in excess.

26A- Celebrating Failure

Earlier this semester I failed when searching for internships. I must have pushed them off too late or had been applying to the wrong ones because up until this month, I was afraid I wouldn’t have one at all for the summer. I tried applying to a few different type of internships and in different areas as well. I began to get desperate and anxious once I heard all of my peers were starting their interview process or even accepting offers. Some of the places I applied to said they were full by the time I had applied. Other places decided to cancel the internship all together. Some just flat out didn’t reply to my applications. After speaking with advisors and friends, I was told to start applying through the UF Career Resources Center. After my first application sent through UF, I was interviewed and offered the internship. I learned that I need to be more proactive with such things that require interacting with other people. There are some things you can push off that only require your own effort; but when you push things off that require other’s efforts, things may go wrong. This is because not everyone operates on the same timeline and schedule as each other. I think that failure is scary. I think that is a natural feeling that almost everyone feels. The difference is that some people are more acceptable with certain levels of failure than others. When I fail, I have to sometimes numb myself to the pain and then hopefully I can determine whether I did something wrong or if risk just took it’s course. I think it’s important to understand what you have to lose with each possible failure, the odds, and the period of time that the failure will affect you. While over time I am better able to judge the risk of things and the repercussions of a potential failure, I do not think I am more likely to take higher risks than I was before. I think risk taking has to do with personality traits, which are difficult to alter.

25A- What's Next?

Existing Market

I think that I could offer more services than just a traditional scooter repair that occurs when something goes wrong. I think I could provide continuous maintenance by offering "memberships" of some sort that offers customers frequent checkups, preventative maintenance, cleaning, etc. This would be an opportunity that isn't currently available in Gainesville and would appeal to those who do not understand how to take care of their scooter.

Current customers in my market say that they are content, for the most part, with how scooter repairs are currently done and also with my new innovative ideas for onsite repairs and memberships that offer preventative maintenance. These customers emphasized improving my current processes rather than offering totally new ones. They said that if I could offer quality service that is affordable and convenient, I would win their business. They focused more on the fact that current providers of scooter repair take a long time, are expensive, and are time consuming. According to my current market, I should focus on these things. They were open to the preventative maintenance service though (assuming I could prove that a scooter needed continuous maintenance).

Based upon my consumers and my own ideas, I should work on perfecting my current idea. I need to appeal to consumers by offering a service that they can afford and also one that won't require much of their time. This comes down to minimizing costs and offering great customer service. These two objectives are somewhat difficult to do at the same time, but if I can do so, I will have a great advantage in the market. 

I would need to start small and hire labor that isn't expensive. My rent would also need to be cheap. My employees would need to be customer oriented. I would need to decrease the amount of time I spend working on scooters and also would need to repair scooters onsite, sooner than the competitors. 

New Market

I think that the next step, after increasing market share in Gainesville, is to extend to other college campuses. The needs and wants that students have at the University of Florida are probably the same of those at other campuses. While the amount of scooters purchased and the size of the school may differ, it is safe to say that anyone who need a scooter repair will want a convenient one that saves them time and energy.

These new customers would experience the same benefits my current ones do. They'd be pleased by a repair service that is convenient and affordable. If I were to pursue a more affluent market, I could possibly raise prices or offer more memberships. Everyone who owns a scooter needs repairs to be done, but my service would make it more convenient than other services could. 

The customers I spoke to on another college campus in Florida said they like the idea of having a convenient and cost sensitive repair. They spoke about how much trouble they had getting to class or work while their scooters were in repair. My onsite repair would decrease this amount of time that a customer spends without their transportation. They emphasized that if I can also make it affordable, I would beat the current providers because they are apparently overpriced.  

I learned that my new market has the same wants and needs as my current one. They want an affordable repair that isn't time or energy consuming. My assumptions were correct and these new customer seem similar to my current ones. I was surprised to hear that all of the current providers were overpriced. I figured someone would come in and offer lower prices if that were the case. This is somewhat of a red flag for me in this new market. Maybe it's got barriers to entry that I do not know of. 

This new market is attractive but it is more risky. I'm worried that there is a reason for why  new businesses haven't come in to offer lower prices to win over customers. Maybe there is something I don't know. It is attractive in that I would be able to differentiate my business by offering both convenience and affordable service though. 

24A- Venture Concept No. 1, Riley's Scooter Repair

My onsite scooter repair service, Riley's Scooter Repair, is a great opportunity for the Gainesville market and the University of Florida because there is a large number of consumers who need the repair because the own scooters and also because the students have demanding schedules and desire convenient solutions. There is an increasing number of students who are purchasing scooters. There also is an increasing number of students at the University of Florida, which could lead to greater scooter sales overall. Having a scooter is a convenient transportation solution. It is inexpensive (relatively), easy to operate, and allows a student to park in more areas on campus than a car would. This demand for my service arises from the fact that because these consumers have purchased a convenient product, they probably also want a convenient solution to their problem (when their scooter needs to be repaired). My market can be defined as the University of Florida campus. If this service was to succeed here, it could be replicated in other college towns. The customers would be college students who own a scooter. These people are typically 18-24 years of age. These customers are typically fast-paced and are always looking for innovative new products and services. These customers are typically reliant upon their parents for some financial support and make purchasing decisions with this in mind. The window of opportunity for this service will probably be open until students are no longer purchasing scooters that need repair. This service is innovative because there is not currently an onsite scooter repair service that has a strong market share in Gainesville yet. This service provides an innovative solution to repairing scooters by doing them onsite, so that the customer doesn't have to worry about time their scooter spends in the shop or having to transport it to the shop. This service would cost the customer whatever the cost of parts is plus a $15 per hour charge for labor. There are already many scooter repair services in Gainesville. Some of them have a much stronger hold on the market than others do. There is demand for scooter repair in general, so by providing a service that stands out to customers as more convenient than the competitors is what will bring in demand. The competitors are well established but do not provide the convenience this business would offer. They typically have the customer bring in the scooter or charge a fee for transporting it. The scooter then sits in an office for an extended period of time. If my business can provide the same quality of service as the typical repair shop, I think that customers will gladly switch to my service. Customer service and price will be the most important factors to my customers. My business would need to start small, with few employees before I could expand. This startup doesn't require too many employees at first. My most important resource is the convenience. This convenience is the difference between my service and other services. My next business venture would be to offer a sort of membership to customers. This would make it so that customers could have their scooters checked up on, washed, maintenanced, etc on a recurring basis, onsite. Assuming this business was to succeed, I'd be most concerned with increasing market share in my current market and then extending to other college campuses. This way I could increase my revenues and acquire enough capital to continue creating startups or manage this money better.

23A- Your Venture's Unfair Advantage

List of Resources in my Venture:
Human Capital- I already have experience in starting my own business.
Social Capital- I have an understanding of the customer because I can relate to them.
Innovation- My service is new to my market.
Convenience- My service is convenient for the Customer.
Time- My service saves the customer time.
Financial Capital- My service will generate a large amount of revenue.
Organization- I am an organized person who can keep their business the same way.
Deregulated- My industry does not have much regulation.
Risk- My industry does not have as much risk in comparison to other industries.
Low skill- My industry does not require it's laborers to have much professional experience.
VRIN for each resource:
Human Capital: The ability to lead and have experience is very valuable. My experience in starting a business is not very rare. My ability to start a business is imitable and can be attained by many people. Having experience is non-substitutable.
Social Capital: Understanding the customer is very valuable. Understanding customers is not very rare and is necessary for any industry. Understanding your customers is imitable. You cannot substitute knowledge of your market for anything else.
Innovation: Being innovative is what sets your business apart and can get you more customers, so it is valuable. Being innovative is rare. Innovation is not imitable. There are other options for innovative things, such as a product that is simple and easy to use.
Convenience: The fact that my service is convenient may be one of the most valuable traits. Convenience in service is rare in my market but the concept is not. This convenient service could be replicated. Convenient services could be substituted with higher quality ones.
Time: Time is valuable to some customers but not all. Time is a concept that affects all industries and businesses. Understanding how time affects consumers is easy to imitate. Being time conscious could be replaced with higher quality.
Financial Capital: Having financial capital is very valuable and the reason you have a business. Having money is not rare. Attaining high financial capital is not easy to imitate. Financial capital is not easy to replace or substitute.
Organization: Being organized is very valuable. It is not rare, organization is necessary. It is easy imitable. Organization can be substituted with high demand for a product.
Deregulated: Having a deregulated industry is valuable, but not that valuable because the competitors have to deal with it too. Deregulation is not rare. Finding deregulated markets is not difficult but you cannot create one very easily. You can substitute a highly regulated industry with a deregulated industry and the customer will not see much of a difference.
Risk: Risk is valuable and considered by all business owners. Many industries have varying levels of risk. Finding an industry that is more or less risky is very possible. Risk is difficult to substitute but can be compensated by higher returns.
Low skill: Having low skill labor means that it is easier to find employees. This is not rare. It is easy to choose a business that is low skill. You can substitute low skill labor with highly skilled labor but expenses would change.
Top Resource:
My convenience factor is my top resource. It is the reason I will attract customers that typical scooter repair services wouldn't.