Final Reflection

1. This has been a semester full of assignments in ENT3003. Some taught me quite a bit about Entrepreneurship and some left me a little confused. The assignment that taught me a lot about myself and my idea was the Venture Concept No. 1. I am developing a travel app and have done a lot of research to validate whether or not it's needed. When I posted the concept, everyone's comments blew me away with how much they loved my idea and how it was the best one they've seen all semester. For someone that's spent a lot of time on this project, it made me feel very good.

The assignment where we had to give away 5 one dollar bills left me a little confused. I am still not completely sure what that had to do with being an entrepreneur, but at least I can sleep at night knowing there are 5 college students with my money.

2. My formative experience - speaking with strangers about my idea and validating whether or not it was going to be used by the general public. I was very nervous about sharing my idea and talking to strangers, however, I realized that no one is going to take your idea. If anything, they are excited for you and will help spread the word when it's an actually thing.

3. I definitely see myself moving closer to the entrepreneurial mindset.

4. Stay ahead of your work! There are only 100 points in this course and skipping 5 assignments, which may not seem like a lot can kill any chance of getting the A you want. There was a couple times where I fell behind and it stressed me out quite a bit.

The picture I leave you with is the company I follow most closely - AirBnB. They are continuously innovating and design
minded. I use their business structure to model my own after. If you're searching for an entrepreneur to follow, please check out Brian Chesky, the CEO of AirBnB.

Week 15 Reading Reflection

Biggest surprise from the reading: Customer loyalty is one of the most useful tools in the growth of a company. I learned that building a customer base and a community around your product is essential.

One part of the reading that was confusing to me: I did not find any part of the reading that was confusing to me.

2 Questions to the author:  
What other companies do you think represent the base of the pyramid you had in the text?
Is a pyramid the best way to 'describe' your thoughts and ideas?

Was there anything I thought the author was wrong about? No, there was nothing I thought the author was wrong about.

Elevator Pitch No. 4

Venture Concept No. 2: Tinder For Travel

For anyone new to my idea - I am currently building a travel app named Tripon. The simplest way to describe the app is 'Tinder For Travel'.

The opportunity I recognized was that it's extremely hard fulfilling your travel needs with things you want to do in the most efficient manner possible. I brainstormed and found that no one had tackled the challenge of matching travelers' interests to specific trips that locals create. There are other travel apps on the market that let you search trips or even create your own, however, you are spent aggregating information from several different sites, which takes forever.

My solution - Here I will lay out the steps that a new user would take with my app:1.) Sign in
2.) Select where you're going and when you'll be there
3.) Select a few things you know you want to do or see (optional)
4.) Fill out travel interests

Once you have done these 4 steps, you are then presented trips in a 'tinder' format where you can swipe left to dismiss the trip or right to like it. Once you've found the trip that fits you, press go and it will tell you the most efficient way to get around the city in order to get to your first stop.

From the previous Venture Concept, I learned that my app would be used by a large majority of millennials. From everyone I spoke to and got feed back from, they all said this would be a fun and unique way to be presented with things to do. I haven't changed my concept from when I started because I believe that this is needed and is designed in a way that will make it easy for anyone to use.

The app will be coming to the iOS App Store in the Fall and will be free for users. We will make money by charging businesses to advertise on our app. This is similar to how yelp makes money - businesses advertise by paying money to be put in front of potential paying customers.

The resources I currently have are the skills I possess and the skills of my cofounder, Kolby. The skills I possess are graphic design and business management. I am able to design all of the assets for the app, which is very time consuming. Kolby, is writing the code for the app and is excellent with user experience - he is able to make very challenging steps extremely easy.

Once we launch our app in the fall, we plan to bring on investors if possible and promote our app very well. We will also use any money given to hire on more developers and designers to take the app above and beyond our wildest imagination. We plan to change travel planning for the millennial generation.

In the next 3-5 years, I would still like to be working on this concept. I will take any money I've made from the company and invest it in other startups in the future. I hope to live a very good life and travel constantly, using my app all the time.

Very Short Interview, Part 2

After reviewing the conversation I had with Bill, the co-founder of APS Propellors, the answers he gave to my questions aligned pretty well with how I feel now. I asked him what triggered him to start the company, what obstacle did he face and do you think it's becoming increasingly harder to start a company.

He said that he pulled the trigger to start his own company because he realized that he had all the tools to succeed and saw an opportunity that no one else was trying to attack. I felt the very same way when it comes to the travel app I'm building now.

He also said that the biggest obstacles he faced involved cash and purchasing equipment. I am not having these problems right now because of the type of product I'm trying to create. The app I'm building is very low cost because I'm building it "in-house".

Bill said that it was becoming harder to start a company because the world is becoming flooded with ideas and it's hard to start something original. I totally agree with this statement. However, you don't need to innovate, you need to take readily available technology and apply it to new applications.


Second Interview w/ Bill: 

1. How long did it take you to get your first sale?
1. "It took us 3.5 months to get our first sale. The sale was to a local plane manufacturer who use to work at McCauley aircrafts."
2. How long did it take to break-even?
1. "We broke even around a year in to the business. We had paid off all equipment and were doing very well at that point."
3. What types of marketing techniques did you use?
1. "Back in the day, we use to just sell to locals we knew we had a connection with. The industry we were working in was very small and once you knew one person, you practically knew them all."

Throughout this course, I've learned about several different techniques to approach others. These assignments have allowed me to try different types of contact between myself and others and has made me more confident to speak to entrepreneurs - I look at them as just another person now. I don't think Bill noticed much of a change in confidence level because we were speaking over the phone.

Google Gold

In order to gain better SEO, I focused on adding consistency to my blog throughout the semester. Whenever we were assigned the same format of blog posts every week, I would try and include the same style and wording to the post.

The keywords I used included the headlines that were assigned by Professor Pryor. I didn't really go out of my way to add key words in the text itself - most of them were very generic. If I were to do this again, I would try focusing on better use of words in the post itself.

Unfortunately, I did not try and utilize social media to boost my blog. I wish I would have used twitter or Facebook to promote my blog, however, since it was my first time blogging, I wanted to perfect the skill before I try and promote myself in the future.

My most viral post was the one about "My venture concept No. 1". I'm not quite sure why it went so viral but I did have a lot of page views. It might have been due to the use of the word "yelp" in the post - which is one of the biggest review sites in the world.

As far as making it to the top of google for particular keywords I used - I did not succeed. However, if you were to search "flgatorblogging" in google, I would now appear at the top of the list. This is a big step forward from my first blog post, when I wasn't even listed in the first 10 hits.

Week 14 Reading Reflection

What was the biggest surprise from the reading?  I wasn't really surprised by this chapter. Most of it was already discussed by Professor Pryor in lecture.

One part of the reading that was confusing to me:  Corporate entrepreneurship strategy - this is just something I haven't considered before.

2 Questions to the author:

• Is there a point when the organization should focus on either radical or incremental innovation?
• Is it really necessary to share the vision of the leaders of the organization to build/create corporate entrepreneurship?

Was there anything the author was wrong about? Along with the rest of the chapters, there was nothing I found that I thought the author was wrong about.