Final Reflection

 While looking back at this past semester and the various assignments that I had to complete for this course, it is hard to just pick out one that I will remember years from now. However, I believe I have narrowed it down to the venture concepts, elevator pitches, and many, many interviews. These assignments I feel helped me gain more experience and more knowledge about the entrepreneurial mindset because I feel that these assignments were the ones that I either put the most time in or found the most difficult. I spent a lot of time completing my venture concept and found myself very proud with how it turned out as I know that my business was really coming together and I truly got to see all the work that I had done throughout the semester make sense in one huge document. The elevator pitches, I admit, scared me when I first learned that they were going to be a part of the semester. I enjoy speaking with people, but I always found it weird to speak in front of a camera in my dorm room just talking about my venture and trying to only touch on the things needed within a 90 second time frame. However, after doing them several times and having many trials and errors, I feel like they are one of the assignments that helped me grow the most. They helped me become more confident and allowed me gain experience as I know I will be doing a lot of elevator pitches throughout my life. The interviews were also something that I dreaded, but after completing so many I started to enjoy them as I realized that I was learning so much about my peers and what my target market wanted and if this product was something that could truly be successful. The interviews helped me grow as they pushed me out of my comfort zone and forced me to talk to a variety of different people.

Now that I am here typing this out and reflecting on this past semester, I recognize that my mind has definitely moved closer to developing an entrepreneurial mindset. I feel that I see the world a little differently and have even decided to purse entrepreneurship as my minor because I enjoyed the way this class forced my mind to work and to think.

For students who are going down this path in the future, my greatest recommendation is to come in this course with an open mind and a positive attitude. You truly will get the most out of this class, but only if you want to get the most out of it. To perform best in this course, I suggest finding an opportunity that they are undeniably passionate about and to pour themselves into each assignment. Not only will it allow them to get the most out of the class, but it will allow them to enjoy the assignments and honestly, complete them at a quicker pace. To foster the entrepreneurial mindset, take what you learn from this class and exercise that in your daily life. Become entrepreneurial in all of your assignments for different courses and in your everyday life. It will allow you to grow more as an entrepreneur and allow you to look at the world in a different way.

 

                                                    

Venture Concept #2

Opportunity:

·      The forces in the environment creating this opportunity is the increasing population and the increase of drivers in popular areas and limited spaces to build more parking lots or parking garages. This increase causes individuals to spend a significant amount of time looking for parking spots. In addition, individuals typically are very busy, have specific times they need to be somewhere, or have more tasks that they need to complete for the day and therefore have a higher need for parking to take up less time in their day.

·      The market includes a variety of different demographics. The market is typically in a busy city or area or traveling to a busy area frequently. College students on large campuses, shoppers at the mall during busy hours or holidays, and travelers who must park their car at the airport are some of the largest parts of my market. In addition, those who own the parking garages and parking lots are also a part of my markets as it will be their say if my product is installed into their lots.

·      Consumers are satisfying their need currently by simply just searching for empty parking lots or arriving earlier to allot more time for themselves to find a parking spot. The current approach to their need does not fix the issue that parking a car can take up a large amount of time within one’s day. Therefore, many consumers are not loyal to how they are handling the situation, but have no other choice in how to address it.

·      The opportunity stands out against many other current systems as it includes features that the others don’t. Many consumers would benefit from the opportunity and would use it frequently if they were to live in the specified geographical areas.

·      Though the opportunity is great, technology is advancing rapidly on a daily basis and the opportunity may not be opened for too long as someone may implement it sooner or come up with an even better technologically advanced system for parking.

Innovation:

·      The product I am offering to my consumers is a real-time display board paired with a smart phone application. The real-time display board would be installed in busy parking lots and parking garages and would show an overview of the lot and where the vacant spots are. I would offer the opportunity to install this real-display board in existing garages and lots and in garages and lots that are being constructed. The application would allow individuals to plug in directions directly to a spot and would allow them to search for nearby parking lots or garages that have vacant spots. Included in the application would also be a feature that allowed individuals to pay directly for a spot from the app instead of having to use the current system for lots that require a fee to park.

·      The application for the smart phone would be free as I would allow other companies or apps to place ads on the app. I would charge the parking lots and parking garages to install the real-time display board and I would charge them about $50,000 for the product and for installation of the product.

·      Creating the technology for this endeavor will be and expensive process, so I will have to plan accordingly to ensure that I have the appropriate funds to invest into this opportunity. In addition, I will have to ensure that businesses and parking garages will want to purchase this product and see the benefit of spending their money on this product. These are the two greatest things that my business needs focus on to start-up as I feel that these will be difficult to acquire and are extremely significant to my opportunity’s success.

Venture Concept:

·      Individuals who use the application will definitely switch to this new product as it requires no fee and it will make their driving lives a lot easier. In addition, it will allow them to save a lot more time during the day to get their other tasks completed.

·      However, it will be a lot harder to get parking garages and parking lots to switch to this new technology as it will cost them a lot of money and they may not see the benefits to it. Those parking garages and parking lots who do not require a fee may believe that the real-time display board and application pairing may be too expensive for what they would be gaining out of it.

·      There are a few competitors, but very little. There is a parking display in the Tampa International Airport and a few other busy locations. However, these competitors do not have the application paired with the display boards and their display board are not as high of a technology that the real-time display boards would be.

·      Price point, customer support, and business location play a huge role in defining my business concept. I may have to work on the price point of the real-time display boards as many parking garages and parking lots may find the price unattractive. Technology always comes with some issues at one point or another so I am going to need my company to have a solid customer support unit to help individuals with issues with the application or with the display board. Business locations are by far one of the most important as these display boards will only be truly successful in certain areas that have a large amount of traffic.

·      The organization of my business would be really important. I would have to have different sectors as there is a lot of different aspects that goes into my business. The most important sector would be those who are technologically advanced and can produce the product and application for the business. For the start-up of my business, I would start smaller and have as little employees as possible and focus entirely on producing the product and then I would work to sell the product and manage the business.

·      In addition to my organization of the business, I believe that partnering with someone is technologically savvy and has the skills and experience to help develop and lead this product would be beneficial to me and my opportunity. I feel that this would allow the business to run more smoothly and the technological side of the business would have a much stronger base. In addition, by having this individual as my partner I would be able to share the risk of the entrepreneurial endeavor, while ensuring that the technology being used is advanced, updated, and easy to use making it a competitive product in the market.

The Three Minor Elements:

·      My connections and determination will make it hard for competitors to copy my success. I have a lot of connections with those who would provide a lot of help in starting the business and giving me even more connections. Most of my family is involved in business and my father works for Par Technology, so I automatically receive a lot of help from those around me. I am passionate about this product and it would be hard to copy my determination and passion.

·      Next for my innovation, I would like to focus on more features that I could include with the application and possibly team up with some car companies to get a program installed into the car that works with the application. However, I truly believe that most of my success will come from the basics of this opportunity and just focusing on the businesses and schools that experience this issue the most.

·      In 5 years, I hope that this venture is successful and still making lives easier. In the next decade, as an entrepreneur, I hope to be establishing more ways to make life easier for people and to be using my entrepreneurial mindset in whatever line of work I am in. This first venture helps me understand the process of a business venture and gives me the experience to help me grow as an entrepreneur.

Feedback & Alterations:

            Reading the feedback that I received on the Venture Concept #1 was very helpful and I received a lot of amazing feedback that allowed me to better my Venture Concept. Each student that provided feedback on my post was complimentary of my business while also offering me advice that proved nothing but helpful. One student offered up the idea that I partner up with someone technologically savvy to ensure that I do not have so much on my plate and so that the technological side of my business has a strong basis. This student continued on to point out that this venture may be an expensive one and that I would have to find a way to invest into the many prototypes it may need. Another student advised that I offer this product to existing parking garages or lots and upcoming parking garages or lots. This is something I had not even thought to explicitly state within my venture concept. The last two students agreed that I should stay focused on the business and schools. Even though my idea to pair up with companies was innovative, they explained that the businesses and schools would be where this product was most beneficial and would have the biggest effect.

            Based on the feedback I received, I altered my venture concept to better incorporate some of the advice that was provided. Within the innovation section of my venture concept, I added more information on the importance of receiving funds and investing money within this business as that will truly be a make or break for my business. In addition, in the innovation section I clarified that I would offer this product to existing and new parking garages and parking lots. I also added more information about the organization of my business and included the idea of partnering with someone who is technologically savvy as I feel that this would be incredibly beneficial for my business and take a lot of weight of my shoulders and allow me to pour myself into the business side of the venture, which is where my strengths lie. Last, I added in the three minor elements that though I do have possible plans for the innovation of my product in the future, I may have to reevaluate as the time comes closer as continuing to focus on businesses and schools might be the better option for my venture.