Exit Strategy

For my exit strategy, I plan to sell my business within the next five years for a large return. I plan to do this because though I am passionate about making this business work, I feel that I have more strengths and a greater passion in other fields. In addition, I only know so much about the technological side of my idea and feel that it may be in better hands in a couple years with someone who is more technologically advanced. I think my exit strategy has influenced a lot of my decisions with my business concept. For example, when identifying this opportunity, it was really easy for me to see the issue and want a change with the issue, but I also knew that I could only go so far with my concept. In addition, I know that I would rather dedicate my life to a concept that helped those with disabilities or those who were underprivileged because that’s where most of my passion lies. In conclusion, this concept is important to me now, but I do not plan on dedicating my life to it or adopting it as a family business. Therefore, I plan to sell the company for a large return and then use what the large return to fund another business concept in the future.  

Reading Reflection No. 3

The Art of Social Media by Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick 

1.     The general theme of this book is pretty self-explanatory. Its sole focus is on how to take full advantage of social media. The book is filled with tips on how to use social media for business, an organization, or even yourself and how to get the most out of social media.

2.     This book connected with entrepreneurship in many different ways. First of all, social media is a huge part of ENT 3003 since the way that we submit all of our assignments is through a blog. This blog allows us to gain more experience with different types of social media, while also allowing us to submit our assignments and review each other’s assignments in a fun and creative way. In addition, social media will continue to grow through the years and there will always be new forms of social media. These forms of social media can be used to promote a product or business that we created in this class or a product or business that we might decide to create in the future. Last, this book relates to ENT 3003 because you can conquer social media profiles with an entrepreneurial mindset while still being professional about it.

3.     An exercise I would create for this class based on the book, would involve reflecting on the current forms of social media profiles that students have. In other words, the students would have to choose one or more of their current social media platforms and assess if they are following some of the tips that are included in the book, and how they could ensure to make their profiles better. Another exercise I would design for this class based on the book would be to draft a more professional social media profile that would focus on promoting their idea that they created in this class. This would involve them drafting a couple post they might use to promote their product and setting up their profiles (bio, description, etc).

4.     One of the things that most surprised me while reading this book was one of the tips was to create a Pinterest post for every blog post. This really surprised me because I have a Pinterest and I never truly realized how much I see blog posts on Pinterest until that was pointed out in the book. In addition, I never would have thought that it would make such a big difference for those who use blogs. I found this very interesting and will keep it in mind for future reference.

Celebrating Failure

In this past semester, I actually had a terrible (or maybe amazing?) experience with failure. As an eighteen-year-old in my first semester at the University of Florida, naturally I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life so I was in a wide variety of courses, including business, engineering, and the dreaded chemistry. When I say dreaded chemistry, I mean I was taking CHM2045 at 7:25 am Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Aren’t I just the luckiest? Soon enough we had our first exam and I studied as much chemistry as I could possibly take and I still failed it. I decided to try to stick it out and do some more studying and focus more of my attention on chemistry and even used the beloved Study Edge. This time I walked into the second exam and thought I killed it. Nope, I got another F. Coming from a straight A student from high school, who had never ever gotten an F on anything, this was pretty hard for me to take. However, I found out that failing and ultimately dropping chemistry was probably one of the greatest learning experiences I’ve had.

            As I said, I came to UF having no idea what I wanted to do because I was interested in way too much, but failing those two chemistry exams really showed me where my weaknesses and strengths lie. Obviously, chemistry was not a strength and maybe it could have been, but I realized that the class did not excite me and the path I would’ve had to take to major in engineering did not excite me either. Failing chemistry also humbled me and allowed me to get a grasp of just how hard college would be. Throughout the entirety of my life I had never felt the need to study too hard for any exam, but that first chemistry exam really showed me that I needed to fix my studying habits and learn how to study in a more effective manner. All in all, this failure that I experienced this semester had a lot more positive outcomes than negative ones and ultimately allowed me to figure out exactly what I was going to major in. 

Honestly, I have a fear of failure. Maybe it was the way I was raised or just because it is not the norm for me, but it’s a legitimate fear. However, I feel that just in this semester I have been able to conquer this fear and not let this fear control me and my daily life. I used to really beat myself up for failing and I would let it eat me alive. This semester I learned to focus on the good that comes out of feeling, even if it doesn’t necessarily feel good at the time. I learned to really focus on what lessons failure brings and how to better myself so I can try to prevent failure in the future. Based on this class and just the personal growth I have experienced in the last couple months, I definitely feel that I am more inclined to take a risk now because at the end of the day I know even if I do lose, I still gain the knowledge, lessons, and the personal growth that I will inevitably need for the future.