Final Reflection

1)  As I read through my blog, I realized that most of the experiences that I had this semester were good ones.  Giving away the dollar was probably my highlight of the year because I did not realize how hard it would be to give away free money!  The most interesting point was my interview with a successful entrepreneur.  I learned a lot from this experience and I will never forget it.

2) The experience that will stick with me for years was the interview with an entrepreneur.  I was given very good advice on both being an entrepreneur and life.  I will never forget the information that I acquired through that experience.  I am most proud of myself for actually coming up with my business idea.  I've never sat down and really brainstormed like this before and I think it will really come to help me in the future.

3) I think that I definitely have moved closer to an entrepreneurial mindset.  At the beginning of the semester I wasn't even completely sure what an entrepreneur was.  Now I not only know what an entrepreneur is, but I also know how to be a successful one.  I have created my idea and I have gotten feedback on it.  Now I have the courage to go ahead and get started on my project.

4) The one recommendation I would give to students who will be taking this course in the future would be to stay organized with your assignments.  In order to succeed in this course, just make sure that you are completing the assignments early and putting effort into it.  In order to foster that mindset, just take a step back and realize the amount that you can get out of the course.  You are only going to get something out of this course if you give effort.

 

Elevator Pitch No. 4

I did not get back any feedback that could be constructive for my video.  Everybody seemed to think that I was a good speaker and had very good body language.  I stayed consistent and gave a pitch that was pretty much the same.  I hope that one day my product will be on the market and you will all receive the benefits from it.

Venture Concept No. 2

Opportunity

·         As society is moving quickly towards a completely technological lifestyle, people are purchasing more electronic communication products.  These products need to be charged to be usable

·         My market would mostly be sold to colleges and high schools.  One day I hope that my product will also be found in public libraries, airports, and restaurants.

·         My customers are currently satisfying their need of charging their electronic devices with either stock or store-bought chargers.  My customers are not going to loyal to these products because my product will make their lives much easier.

·         This opportunity is huge.  There are so many people that could heavily benefit by using my product.

·         My window of opportunity will probably run out within the next five years.  There are a few companies that are currently researching this area so I would have to get the technology started as soon as possible.

Innovation

My innovation is called the Magnetable.  My product, in short, is pretty much a table that charges your electronics.  All my customers would have to do is place their electronic devices on the table and they would begin charging immediately.  The table is water proof and would only need one outlet to plug into and then it would serve as a wireless charger for all electronics.  Each Magnetable would cost $5000 before taxes and I am very confident that they would sell for that price because I would be selling them to big companies and colleges. 

Venture Concept

·         The reasons that customers would want to switch to my product is because it would make their lives so much easier, which is why I believe that it would not be hard to convince my customers to use my product.

·         My competitors would be any company that has electronic products that would need to be plugged in.  The weaknesses of my competitors would be that people forget their chargers all the time and chargers also break very often.

·         Distribution would be very easy because most of my customers would be buying these tables in bulk because they would be providing the Magnetables for all of their customers.  The price of these Magnetables is relatively cheap for the service that it provides so I believe that it would not be very hard to convince larger businesses to buy my product.

·         I would have to hire a few engineers to design the table.  After that, I would hire about ten salesman to go sell the product.  Being the CEO of the company, I would be managing the company funds and allocating those funds towards product production, materials, and employee saleries

Minor Elements

1.       My “Secret Sauce” is that I am extremely personable and easy to talk to.  I feel very confident that I can pull anybody off the side of the street and convince them that my product is the best product in the world right now.  I feel that convincing large companies to buy my product would be even easier than pulling people off the side of the street.

2.       The next big product that I would start producing would be a portable universal charger for most electronics.  The charger would magnetically attach to your electronic device and begin to charge it upon contact.

3.       In five years, I want to have my product in every large university in the nation.  In ten years, I want to be recognized by larger businesses as a successful entrepreneur so that it would be easier to convince them to buy my products.  This venture will help me get to where I want to be because I believe that the product is a very brilliant idea and will become very successful throughout the world.

 

 

The only feedback that I received was that my idea was a great one and that my customers cannot wait for my product to be out in the market.  One person did ask if my Magnetable was waterproof.  I stated that my product was, in fact, waterproof.  This was the only change that I made to my venture concept.

 

 

Week 14 Reading Reflection

1) One thing that surprised me was that companies are constantly bootlegging ideas on their free time.  I would not think that people are constantly taking their work home with them instead of enjoying their free time off from work.

2)  One thing that confused me was that the author said that for an emerging business opportunity, you should be thinking really big but be starting small.  It makes more sense to think small and start small and then once things start to come together, start thinking big.

3)  One question that I would ask the author would be is "At what point should an entrepreneur think about terminating a project?" I am just curious about what point an entrepreneur should shut down a project when the project is failing.
Another question I would ask the author is "At what point should a successful business begin thinking about starting up new projects?"  I am unsure about when one project is stable and successful enough to begin thinking about new opportunities.

4)  One thing that I do not agree with the author about is that you should be giving rewards based on results.  I do not think that this is a good way to go about getting things done.  What if the business starts to go through some difficulties?  In this case people would not be as motivated to get work done and the business will probably fail.
 

Google Gold

1.   One thing that I did to achieve SEO were sharing the links to my blog posts on other peoples' blogs when I left comments on them.  By doing this, there are many more connections to my blog giving me a higher SEO.

2.  Some keywords that I searched were Kigel, blog, blogger, and entrepreneurship.  I selected these keywords by thinking what words would be connected to all of my blog posts.  All of these words would be associated with my blog so that is why I typed the into the google search bar.

3.  I did not use much social media to share my blog this semester but I record a few videos for youtube.  I feel like social media can be used as a great tool for getting people to read your blog.  By posting your blog on facebook once or twice a month, your blog followers will probably increase exponentially. 

4.  Idea Napkin No. 1 was my most viral post this semester.  I think that this was my most viral post because more people were assigned to comment on this post than usual and people had to refer back to this post if they wanted to get a better idea of what my product was when they were assigned to read my Venture Concept No. 1 post.

5.  I did not make it onto the first page of my google search but I did appear on the third page.

Very Short Interview, Part 2

When looking back at the questions that I asked Daniel Cane, one of the founders of Blackboard LLC, I think that I've come a long way.  I really learned from the questions and applied the answers that I was given to this course.

Three Questions:

1) At what point did you decide that it was best to sell your first business?

My competitor decided to pay me a sum of money that was much more than my product was worth.  I decided that the money that I would gain from selling Blackboard could be used to start up many new projects.

2) Did you decide to try to start up any new businesses?  If so, how many attempts did it take to create a new successful product?

I did try to start up a new business shortly after I sold Blackboard.  I actually tried more than ten times to invent another successful product.  I was actually close to giving up but I stayed persistent and finally designed a winner.

3) If you could give one piece of advice to a up and coming entrepreneur, what would you tell them?

Don't let anybody tell you that you can't do something.  I've seen many of my peers overcome much more adversity that me and still succeed.  Being successful is a mindset.  Even mistakes are successes.  From every mistake I have made, I have learned something new about being an entrepreneur and the industry I was in.

I have come a long way in this class.  I knew almost nothing about being an entrepreneur when I signed up, but now I feel like I have general knowledge about all aspects of being an entrepreneur.  Because of this, I felt much more comfortable taking to Daniel about his businesses.  Daniel actually did make a comment on how much knowledge I had acquired since the last time I had seen him.  He told me to keep up the good work.

Week 13 Reading Reflection

One thing that surprised me in the chapter was that the author stated that a question that should be asked when acquiring a company is "Will the previous owner be competing in the same industry?"  I didn't think that people would sell a business in a certain industry and buy another one in the same exact market.  It doesn't quite make sense to me.

One thing that confused me in the chapter is when the author said that one reason for acquisition is reducing fixed costs by acquiring a firm that will permit elimination of duplicate fixed costs.  I 'm not really sure what that means.

One question I would ask the author is "What is the first thing that an interested buyer should look for in a company when thinking about acquiring it?"  I'm just curious what the most important aspect I should be looking for when looking into buying a company.

Another question I would ask the author is "Would it be more ideal as a buyer to begin negotiating with a reasonable price or low ball the person?"  I'm just curious if owner's would view a low ball price as an insult or view you as more of a business man.

On thing that I did not agree with the author about was that buyers are willing to pay more than the evaluated price for a company to avoid start up costs.  I'm not so sure that this is true.  I feel like people enjoy developing their own business from scratch and the pleasure that they receive from being successful.  I feel that the only people who would buy a company for a higher price would be the top 1%.

Celebrating Failure

I failed at getting straight A's this semester.  I really needed to pull up my GPA this semester but it doesn't seem feasible at this point.

What I learned from this experience is that I have a lot of room for improvement.  I worked a lot this semester so my grades suffered a little bit, but I could have definitely used more of my down time for study time.  Another thing that I learned from this failure is that my life is not going to dictated by the grades that I get.  I have met many people and made many connections this semester and each of those connections is much more important that the grades that I get every semester.

I handle failure by turning it into something positive.  As Benjamin Franklin once said "I didn't fail the test, I just found 100 ways to do it wrong".  If you look at every mistake as a good learning experience, you can never get upset.  I have learned from many of my experiences in college, good and bad, and I have never made the same mistake twice.  This class has taught me that you may fail many times, but through those failures you will figure out where you went wrong.  Through doing this you will become a better business man and a better person.

My Exit Strategy

I intend on selling my business in five years for a large return because the technology business is a very hard one to stay in.  People are constantly developing new technology which means that it would be very hard to stay on top.
My exit strategy did not change most of my decisions that I've made for my concept.  My business was intended to exponentially grow until a certain point and then top off because that is what happens to most technology companies that only have one popular product.  My business will probably flourish for a couple years and be out of commission afterwards.