Week 12 Reading Reflection

1.) What was the biggest surprise? The amount of time venture ideas take. The process they laid out in the text was extremely long.

2.) Which part was most confusing to me? There was no part of the reading that was confusing to me. Just like the rest of the text, it is very straight forward for me.

3.) 2 Questions to the author:
How can you allocate time to venture ideas, to complete the most work in the shortest amount of time?
What is the most important part to a venture idea?

4.) Was there anything the author was wrong about? No, there was nothing in this chapter I thought the author was wrong about.

Venture Concept No. 1

Traveling is great when planning and finding unique experiences is extremely easy. However, what happens when it's not easy and you don't find the things you want to do? 

Travelers everyday visit new and familiar cities with one common problem. They generally know one or two things they want to do in this city, however, they don't know the rest. With such little time in most cases, people want to see the most and get the most out of their trip. Locals provide a very distinct advantage over travel services and tourist oriented trips. They know where to go and what to see compared to other services provided. They are familiar with local cuisine and travel options that your typical travel guide wouldn't suggest.

Travel apps & websites such as yelp and trip-advisor offer excellent listings for businesses in every city in the world. They provide a list of the top destinations to see and the restaurants to try according to thousands of reviews. However, what they don't provide is an entire trip from start to finish with the traveler in mind. Yes, maybe that traveler wants to see all of these listings, however, efficiency, budget and time all play very large factors. 

The travel industry is extremely large and continues to grow at a rapid pace. More and more travel apps are being created to help meet these needs, however, no one has solved the problem of finding a trip for someone based on that travelers interests. There are currently apps that provided hundreds of trips, yet you, the traveler, has to go digging through these trips to find the right one for you and who you're traveling with. 

Tripo solves this problem by matching your interests to a trip, created by a local/travel expert that will help you get the most out of your trip. 

App Steps

1. Download Tripo from the Android or Apple Store

2. Sign in with facebook or email

3. Selet the city you would like to travel to

4. Select the dates you'll be traveling

5. Fill in your travel interests - Do you like Nightlife? Art? Music? Nature? Etc.

6. OPTIONAL - Choose a couple of the major destinations in that city that you know you want to see

= A set of trips appears in a user interface similar to Tinder. Each trip is presented as a map with the specific pins  identifying the exact stops along your journey. You can click on each pin to get more info. or swipe left to move onto the next trip or right if you like it and might possibly want to try it. 

*****Again, these aren't computer generated trips, they are trips created by people who live there and know what to do and where to go.

By providing travelers a simple and easy way to find experiences they normally wouldn't try, I believe we can completely change the way people travel. There has been several times in my life where I've visited a city for the first time and knew one or two things that I know I wanted to do. However, after doing these things, I realized that I wasn't utilizing my time in the most efficient manner and felt like I wasn't getting the most out of my trips.

Tripo will use a business model structured like yelp.  Yelp provides a free mobile application/website to it's users and makes money through advertising businesses listed on their app. These advertisements are known as sponsored ads that are pushed to the top of the yelp search page. We will use this same model, however, we will make the advertisements less 'bulky' and provide them in a different format. 

We will make the advertisements less bulky and more discrete by integrating them into a map pin. Map pins that have advertisements in them will be inserted to relevant trips that have other businesses near the one being advertised. 

By allowing free access to our app, I believe we can have an extremely large community of users. Through our 'free' format, we can create more value to the traveler. The ability to provide them a trip tailored to their specific interests at absolutely no cost to them is extremely powerful. 

The best part about all of this is that we aren't reinventing the wheel. The technology we are using has been around for years and the business listings and reviews are already readily available.  By using available technology and software, my company is reducing R&D costs and allows us to ship a product sooner. 

Some of the most successful companies in the world didn't create great things from scratch. These extraordinary companies took readily available resources and applied them to new applications to solve common problems that everyone shares. This is what I consider my unfair advantage - I have discovered a problem, opportunity and technology and found a way to use it to my advantage to help others. 

My team and I are currently developing tripo and will launch this summer. Once we have successfully launched our first version, we will begin working on integrating reservations, ticket sales and hotel/airbnb reservations into our app. 

In the next 5 years, I see myself still continuing to innovate tripo with an ultimate goal of helping travelers plan their trip from beginning to end in a quick manner. After successfully building tripo, I will take my earnings and become a venture capitalist to help other entrepreneurs fulfill their own dreams.  I absolutely love seeing young entrepreneurs continuing to innovate and launch revolutionary products. I think I'll be most happy when I can help others achieve this and watch them and their products grow. 

Week 11 Reading Reflection

1.) What was the biggest surprise for you in the reading? There was nothing that surprised me in the reading. All of the material, including the part about innovation landscape gap, were things I had already known.

2.) Identify one part of the reading that was confusing to you? There was no part of the reading that was confusing to me. This was one of the easiest chapters to understand.

3.) 2 Questions to the author 
Which companies are showing the most innovation in the _______ product group?
Which industries do you think need the most innovation?

4.) Was there anything that the author was wrong about? There was nothing that I disagreed with the author about.

The Amazon Whisperer

For those that don't know my company, I am building an app that is made for travelers. The app lets you pick where you want to go and when you'll be there and then select what types of travel interests you like. Once that is complete, you are given trips that match your interests and preferences best. The trips are created by locals who know the city and businesses the most. The trips are provided in a "tinder" format, where users either swipe left to dismiss the trip or right if they like it.

The app will be free for users. We will make money by charging businesses for "sponsored" advertisements on our app. They will choose the business they want to advertise and how long they want to advertise for. We will then take that business info. and distribute it through our app depending on the location of the business and where users select to go. For example, if someone wants to travel to NYC and the business is located in NYC, then we might push that information in front of the user.

The main opportunity that I have to work on for my company is the "magic" behind matching peoples' interests to a particular trip. When people use Uber, it's so simple and quick that it really does feel magical. It is an extremely complicated process behind the scenes, yet Uber makes it so easy to use. Another important factor for my company is not providing businesses that don't apply to the preferences a user is selecting. Yelp has been in the news recently for forcing businesses on users because those particular businesses pay them a lot of money. We will focus on quality content for our users and not force paid content on anyone. The third factor to my business is providing trips to anyone, no matter where the go. Some travel apps only provide trips for major cities, however, we would create trips for any city in the world. This consistency will help grow our user count. My business service is an app, so I can't do the amazon product search portion for this assignment.

My unfair advantage

10 resources:

1.) Adobe elements experience
Knowledge of adobe elements is valuable because it allows you to create professionally designed mockups and convey your ideas to others. Anyone can learn adobe, however, it takes quite some time to master it.
2.) Xcode, Swift experience
This is the most readily used code these days and swift is being updated constantly to allow for quicker app building. This is the code we are using for our app and it is very useful and inexpensive. Anyone can learn code, however, it takes a lot of time to perfect.
3.) Graphic Design experience - Sketch
I am able to turn ideas into designs in the matter of minutes. Also, using sketch's database, allows me to tweak other people's designs that I like and customize them to fit my own.
4.) 3 Day Startup
By attending 3 day startup, I was able to learn how startups function and the speed at which they need to grow. It taught me that you should just build great things that people love. Just go, go, go! and never look back.
5.) Investors
Having investors allows us to focus on the product without any financial constraint. Our investors believe in us and know we will make them their money back.
6.) Friends with other founders
Being friends with other founders allows me to pick their brains about what the next steps should be for my company. They've done it - now I just use what they learned, to perfect it.
7.) Marketing experience with SportsGuru
By interning with SportsGuru, a startup company, I am able to see how to communicate with a team and completely many different tasks.
8.) CTO - technical founder
He is very valuable. He has been coding for about 6 years now and has built multiple websites and apps that are being used by thousands of people. There is a limited amount of highly skilled engineers and he is one of them. Some engineers are extremely hard to work with, yet he remains focused on design and UX.
9.) Technology
The technology already exists for what we need to do. We are just applying that technology to a new application to create something special. We don't have to reinvent the wheel.
10.) GitHub account
This allows us to use code that people have already created to use as our own. This saves so much time!

My most valuable resource is my CTO - he is able to solve technical problems and find solutions for what we want to construct. He is also great at taking my designs and mockups and turning them into a working prototype.

Week 10 Reading Reflection

1.     What surprised me the most: The amount of graphing and charts needed for responsible business practices. 

2.     What confused me? Capital Budgeting. I'm sure if I studied this a little more I could understand it, but at this point it is a little confusing.

3.     2 Questions: 
What do you think is the most difficult type/style of budgeting?
Can you explain the preferred payback method a little more?

4.     What was incorrect? There was nothing about this chapter that I thought was incorrect. 

Elevator Pitch No.3

In the comments left on elevator pitch no. 2, people told me to explain what differentiated my app from others that already exist. The biggest difference is that you are still having to go find trips that match what you want to do. My app automates that process by taking the interests you fill out, listing one or two things you know you want to do and then finding a trip that has already been created by local travel experts who know what to look for.

This time I decided to add what differentiates myself from the competition in this space. Hope you like it!

Week 9 Reading Reflection

1. What surprised me the most was that there was a whole section focusing on the Internet. The internet is readily used these days and everyone knows that it is important in today's society, so I was surprised that they spent that amount of time on the subject.

2. The marketing philosophy section wasn't very clear - wasn't really sure where they were going with it.

3. Questions:
 Is knowing the financial ratio super important to the success of the business?
When is the right time to do market research - when should you begin?

4. There was nothing that I found that I didn't agree with the author on.

My secret sauce

Five ways in which I am unique enough to start this company.

1. I am extremely innovative. Where others see problems, I see opportunity. My mind is constantly running with ways to improve our everyday lives. 

1. Taking technology and applying new applications to it. I am always using tech. Whether it be on my phone or computer I'm always staying up to date with the latest technology. I am constantly thinking of news ways to apply tech features to new ideas in order to solve problems. 

1. I can influence others. Whenever I'm passionate about something and know the end goal I want to reach, all I need is a short period of time and I can get anyone to join my team. The idea doesn't have to be great, however, the way you talk about it does. 

1. I'm great at taking a bunch of different thoughts and conveying it into one message. My co-founder has a lot of great ideas and is very A.D.D., however this is where I come in. I can take her thoughts and great ideas and turn them into one powerful message or idea.

1. I'm very big into UX/UI design. I can envision how I want something to look and function as soon as an idea comes to mind. 

Interviews - they are voice recorded because they live back in Ohio(where I'm originally from) and sent me their thoughts last minute.

After hearing what kelsey has to say, it sounds like she thinks I'm very innovative and I don't look at things like the rest of people. I'm always see opportunities in everything I do. 

Isaac stated that I was really good at coming up with ideas and expressing them in real life. Some people can come up with great ideas, however, they don't know how to design them so others can understand.

It sounds like my dad thinks I would be very good at starting this travel app because of our experiences with traveling all around the world and the problems we encounter.

From my brother's perspective, he clearly thinks I'm smart enough to make this app very successful. It was amazing actually hearing nice things from your younger brother. That doesn't happen very often to anybody.

Reflection:All of the things that I listed above are 100% how I feel about myself. I'm a fairly confident person and I can recognize what my strengths and weaknesses are. Even without mentioning what I thought about myself to my family and friends, they said pretty much the same things I mentioned above. I'm pretty happy to hear this from them, because it reassures that I must be doing something right. I would not make any corrections because this truly is how I feel about myself and they confirmed them.

Idea Napkin No. 2

You. 
Hello, I'm Drew Stuerman. I'm a third year student studying Business Administration at the University of Florida. Aside from school, I spend time designing and building projects such as iOS applications, 3D printed models, and website design. I plan to take one or two of my many ideas and turn them into a very successful company that can help others. I see TripIt(travel app that connects your interests to trips others have created) as being my future as long as I can make it worth while and build a community of users that love it. 

What am I offering to customers through TripIt?
I am offering a travel platform for people who struggle to get the most out of their trips. Almost everyone I've spoken too feels like they didn't get 100% out of every trip they've been on because they didn't know where to go or how efficient to be. TripIt changes that because you can select a couple things you know you want to do and we'll find a trip that fills in the rest and is very highly rated.

Who are you offering TripIt to?
I am offering TripIt to travelers that aren't sure about what they want to do or struggling to figure out the most efficient way to get things done. Through market research, I've discovered that the age range of 18-32 male and female is the sweet spot I want to target. 

Why do they care?
In my business model, users will value our product because it's free to use, quicker than other travel methods and laid out in a very simplistic way. 

What are your core competencies?
What sets us apart is the fact that we aggregate all of the information for you and connect you to destinations that match your interests. Currently, you have to do the research and aggregate the info. yourself through multiple sites such as yelp and trip advisor.



I believe all of these segments/questions fit with each other nicely. If anything, it justifies that what I'm doing, needs to be done. I'll let you all know when it's available in the app store. I hope I can not only provide users with an easy way to plan travel but also allow you to find and try things you typically wouldn't. 

Feedback I received:

• People are still using multiple travel sites to plan trips.
• People carry their phones on them all the time when traveling.
• Travelers generally know one or two things they want to do in a city, but that's it.
• Travelers are very much focused on a particular budget and satisfying their groups needs.
• People would much rather have an iPhone app than a website - to start out with.