30A-Final Reflection

1) Read through your posts from this semester. Recall all of the experiences you've had a long the way -- the highs, the lows -- the fun moments, and the moments of drudgery, and even the moments of dread.

Reading through all the posts it seems like it has been years since I wrote those blog post.  I was surprised to see how much I wrote in total because it didn't seem like that much doing just a few posts a week. Starting out was definitely a low because you can tell I was really lost and all over the place with what I was wanting to come up with. As the semester went on I got a better grasp for how to turn an idea into something that I could work with. So week after week I feel like I had a passion and understanding for what I wanted to say.  

2) What sticks out to you as the most formative experience? The experience that you'll remember years later? What was your most joyous experience? What experience are you most proud of yourself for accomplishing?

The experience of actually taking an idea that I had or a need that I recognized and taking it further than just something I thought in my head. Actually getting in contact with people that could help me better understand what I need to know to create this product. Doing an elevator pitch is always something to be proud of for accomplishing. For most people talking into a camera is awkward and for me I don't prefer it.  

3) At the beginning of the semester, I mentioned that I wanted each of you to develop an entrepreneurial mindset. Now, at the end, do you see yourself as an entrepreneur? Do you think you have moved closer to developing an entrepreneurial mindset?

I do see myself as an entrepreneur and I honestly didn't think I would at the beginning of the semester. I look at things differently now and look at them with an all around more in depth mindset.  

4) What is the one recommendation you would make to the students who are going to journey down this path in the future? What would you recommend they do to perform best in this course? What would you recommend they do to foster that mindset?

Students in the future will succeed in this course if you keep an open mind and are actually dedicated to the assignments. With the way the grading is set up I could see a lot of people just filling out blogs to meet the requirement, get the grade, and not be looking to get anything more out of it. You can get a lot more out of this course if you really show some passion and put forth effort into becoming an entrepreneur.

 

29A-Venture Concept No.2

Part 1

Opportunity

There are roughly six billion cellphone users worldwide and that number is constantly growing. Phones, and smartphones in particular, have become a large aspect of everyday life. Therefore, from an entrepreneur’s perspective you can see that there is a large number of potential customers in this market. So, with such large market I felt that there has to be a need out there these customers have that is not being filled. What I discovered was an area in the cell phone accessories department that was lacking and realized a wireless charging would fill this unmet need. For this opportunity there is an unbelievable number of potential customers, possibly six billion like previously mentioned, but I would focus on the white-collar workers. The customers that recognize this opportunity the most are the ones that are in the business world, using their phones all day, multiple electronic devices, and thus are familiar with the latest technology. The need that they have isn’t a full-on crisis, they could survive without this product. However, there is a level of convenience and sustainability that this product would provide that will drive their desire for it. The wired way of charging is not sustainable for the phone or the cord and is a hassle at times. This poor design on the phone manufacturers part has created the opportunity and their customers deserve better for what they are paying for. Our product likely won’t be to the liking of the phone manufactures because they won’t have to purchase new chargers from them frequently or new phones as often, less money for them. Which leads me to be wary that the window for opportunity won’t last forever. Their answer will either be to create their own form of wireless chargers or design future phones in a way that doesn’t fit our design.  At this point we will go back to the drawing board, but those counter moves would take time, time that we will certainly capitalize on.

Innovation

There are forms of wireless chargers out there, but they are very few and present a laundry list of complaints. None of the ones I have found are manufactured by one of the bigger names in phone accessories. Most of them are designed to only charge one device at a time and the phone has to be sitting on the charging mat allowing your use to limited while charging. In addition to this, the biggest gripe is that there are very few ones that it is actually compatible for. Thus, our product was created in attempt to address all of the issue and then some. Picture this, a relatively compact mat about the size of a book. On this mat there will be a power supply on the back end of it that connects via usb like most of your phone chargers out there. This will provide power to the four wireless chargers that are docked on the charging station, but removable. The idea for this is that if you don’t need to be using your phone while it charges you can lay it down on one of the four chargers and walk away. On the other hand, if you need to use your phone and charge at the same time you can grab one of the removable chargers and it will have enough power for one full charge before it needs to be put back on the dock. No longer will you have to plug into your charging port with one of the cheap iPhone cords that frays or snaps at the tip. No longer do you have to worry about that charging port on your phone giving out. Anyone that has had to experience these negative effects to the current charging design will buy this product. We will get them on shelves in BestBuy and Target most importantly. After this we will attempt to get them in stock at the phone retailers. The reason this wouldn’t be the first priority is because usually that’s only where you go to buy a new phone or get yours fixed and this wouldn’t generally be an accessory you would considering buying at those times. This is separate from the phone manufacturers, like Bose selling wireless earbuds that they want people to buy instead of Apple’s. Currently our best estimate for price will be somewhere around $40. Considering it can serve as four separate charges, that’s a bargain and it could be higher.

Venture Concept

Not all customers will buy this product right off the bat, it could be an underwhelming amount in fact and we will be prepared for that. The reason for this is large in part due to the number of customers that for a product like this will want to watch others be the guinea pig. Also, there will be another group of customers that have yet to experience the complications with wired chargers, so they won’t understand the need yet. All of this being said, eventually word will get out and people will recognize the convenience of them, they will then become common in households across the country. All it is going to take is our product to appeal to enough of those consumers that always buy the newest technology because they are curious and those that have experienced the unmet needs that created the opportunity. From there it will become like everything else in technology where people want what everyone else has. There will be competitors come along the way, but none with more control than those that design the phones themselves. They can create their own design and with their brand they will outsell us even if they have an inferior product. This product will still be able to succeed though. It is just going to take the right connections and some strategic marketing along with releasing the product at the ideal time.  

Part 2

To summarize the feedback I received this time around was all positive and there was feedback given from four individuals so I would have to take it as this is heading in the right direction. There wasn't really any negative feedback given or ideas for what should be changed. So what I was able to do was take in some of the positive things that seemed to echo in the feedback and be sure to focus on them because it obviously must have some importance to those looking at things from the outside. The biggest of which was elaborating on the descriptions leaving no room for questioning what is trying to be said. 

Part 3

The feedback was strictly positive so I just elaborated more on what I had. Things seem to be moving in the right direction so no need to stop now or drastically change things. 

Part 4

 

28A-Your Exit Strategy

1. My exit strategy and plan is to sell this business within the next 5 years. The design and our product will hopefully be sold completely to one of the larger tech accessory companies or directly to Apple, Samsung, LG etc.
2. I choose this because I can see the writing on the wall in this market. The large companies basically control everything and when there is someone new that enters the market they buy them out. That is the goal here because even though this product meets a need our customers have that we want to fill, that's not where we see the most value in this product. The reason that I see value is because this product will fill a need and take business away from the big cell phone companies. It basically calls out their design and pegs the question, why didn't you guys design this? I believe this won't give them much choice but to buy our business to protect theirs.
3. Having this exit strategy in mind has altered the way that I have gone about designing this product and laying out the road-map. There is a lot more we could do with this product and many different chargers/accessories that we could branch off of it. However, that would not fit our exit strategy because that would be typical of company that is trying to last awhile and expand their product. 5 years or less and hopefully this will be sold entirely to Apple, where they will then have another competitive advantage over Android by beating them to the punch.   

27A-Reading Reflection No. 3

The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users, Guy Kawasaki
1. The general theme for this book is how to use the major social media networks and it describes just this through over one hundred tips.
2. This book is full of great information and tips that are helpful for anyone that is wanting to use social media whether it be for business or personal use. In ENT3003 I have realized that social media can be a huge asset for an entrepreneur and can contribute to your success. All of the tips that Kawasaki mentions could help with this success. For example, he talks about why it is important to understand what your audience values when thinking of what to post.
3. Create a social media page for your product or business and focus on five tips from the The Art of Social Media when starting up your page.
4. There were a few things I read where I sort of had an 'aha' moment and it was because they were ideas that I had never thought to look at in that way. They talk about being a 'mensch' on social media meaning to be honorable and do somethings for others without expecting anything in return. Doing so will really change the way your audience views your content.

26A-Celebrating Failure

During this semester there was one big failure that I experienced and in doing so it consisted of numerous small failures. This experience happened outside of class at my job as an assistant high school football coach. In my field failure and losing really go hand in hand and losing is something we became too familiar with this past season. Going into it before even taking the job we knew this situation would be tough as this school had lost 13 games in a row, but we still hoped our guidance would be able to turn this failure into a success. This was not the case, we lost nine games and failed to accomplish what we wanted to. However, this experience taught all of us coaches a lot about failure. Don't get me wrong, we have lost games every year with teams I was coaching for, but not like this. 12-2, 6-4, 9-2, those were the seasons I had become accustomed to. Over the course of those seasons we lost games and we failed to reach goals, but nothing like going 0-9 and honestly not even being competitive in most of our games. There were somethings that I learned for how to succeed in the future, but what this failure really taught me was that sometimes in some situations there is just too much going wrong that you will never we able to get control off. So basically I am saying that sometimes you are just set up to fail. I absolutely believe this was one of those situations and it led to a lot of coaches resigning, including me for the first time in my coaching career resigning from a school with no current plans to go elsewhere and simply because we felt like there was nothing more we could do to turn it around. There are just some things that you can't control such as: only having 18 dressed players in our last game of the season due to injuries and suspensions, not having a player on the team that runs below a 5 second 40 yard dash, and an all around lack of size. A lot of these issues that caused us to fail are just things that you can't coach or teach. We can't make a 5'10 175 lineman type kid 6'2 240 like most others. We can't control a kid from getting tackled and tearing his ACL. When you fail like this we can't make big enough strides in the weight room to correct it and we can't fix it all with scheme and coaching. There are improvements to be made by working hard these areas, but even if we did all of this to our highest potential it still wouldn't be enough. If you are set up to fail because of one reason or another you will continue to fail until you have the tools to come close to competing on the same playing field as your competitor.

25A-What's Next?

Existing Market
The next step for our product will be taking the design to be manufactured and then the biggest hurdle of getting the product out there. The design is relatively basic and the materials won't carry a high cost, in fact every feature of our design is very common in terms of being manufactured for other tech products out there. Basically we have just combined a few different tech features and the only hurdle in terms of manufacturing it will be making sure we obtain a strong enough power supply for the capabilities we desire. The consensus when talking to a few people that are very familiar with the market about what is next for us was that we should expect some resistance getting the product into the hands of retailers. Unless my connections are stronger than they are thinking, I could be a little disappointed in the early results. The reasoning was that with the tech accessories market they are very much dominated by the major brands. So, not only will you have to compete with the phone companies own line of accessories, but also fight off the major tech accessory companies. Having heard all of this I think it makes the most sense for our product to spend more money and more resources to create brand awareness. Rather than trying to get our product on the shelves at Best Buy and Target as fast as possible we should build our brand first. Social media is certainly one of the ways we can do this. Contests and giveaways will get people talking about it and into the hands of consumers. Another idea we will explore will be celebrity endorsement. I have a few contacts in the music world and they all have a lot of followers on social media that we could target to build our brand.
New Market
If we were to enter a new market radically different from our current one it would need to target a poorer part of society. Essentially meaning we would like to make a cheaper type of product, not necessarily off limits to wealthy people, but they won't be the more frequent customer. This market would be for rechargeable AA batteries. The cost for our product would be much lower and the customer will be able to use it for anything in their household requiring AA batteries. The value a product like this creates is it is a money saver in the long run. You will no longer have to go to the store and buy AA batteries. Talking with a couple customers of the market I heard a couple of things that I had already known. I knew going into this it there are other companies out there with this product and there isn't much we can do to separate us from our competitors. The best thing we can do is pride ourselves on having the cheapest rechargeable batteries out there. This would echo our idea of targeting a poorer part of society and the hope is that it would push our brand into as many consumers as possible. Profits wouldn't be much off of this, but people would be more aware of our brand and look into purchasing other products of ours, products where we are turning more profit. This market is not going to be one where we will make a lot of money, but getting into it would serve a purpose. 

24A-Venture Concept No. 1

Opportunity

There are roughly six billion cellphone users worldwide and that number is constantly growing. Phones, and smartphones in particular, have become a large aspect of everyday life. Therefore, from an entrepreneur’s perspective you can see that there is a large number of potential customers in this market. So, with such large market I felt that there has to be a need out there these customers have that is not being filled. What I discovered was an area in the cell phone accessories department that was lacking and realized a wireless charging would fill this unmet need. For this opportunity there is an unbelievable number of potential customers, possibly six billion like previously mentioned, but I would focus on the white-collar workers. The customers that recognize this opportunity the most are the ones that are in the business world, using their phones all day, multiple electronic devices, and thus are familiar with the latest technology. The need that they have isn’t a full-on crisis, they could survive without this product. However, there is a level of convenience and sustainability that this product would provide that will drive their desire for it. The wired way of charging is not sustainable for the phone or the cord and is a hassle at times. This poor design on the phone manufacturers part has created the opportunity and their customers deserve better for what they are paying for. Our product likely won’t be to the liking of the phone manufactures because they won’t have to purchase new chargers from them frequently or new phones as often, less money for them. Which leads me to be wary that the window for opportunity won’t last forever. Their answer will either be to create their own form of wireless chargers or design future phones in a way that doesn’t fit our design.  At this point we will go back to the drawing board, but those counter moves would take time, time that we will certainly capitalize on.

Innovation

There are forms of wireless chargers out there, but they are very few and present a laundry list of complaints. None of the ones I have found are manufactured by one of the bigger names in phone accessories. Most of them are designed to only charge one device at a time and the phone has to be sitting on the charging mat allowing your use to limited while charging. In addition to this, the biggest gripe is that there are very few ones that it is actually compatible for. Thus, our product was created in attempt to address all of the issue and then some. Picture this, a relatively compact mat about the size of a book. On this mat there will be a power supply on the back end of it that connects via usb like most of your phone chargers out there. This will provide power to the four wireless chargers that are docked on the charging station, but removable. The idea for this is that if you don’t need to be using your phone while it charges you can lay it down on one of the four chargers and walk away. On the other hand, if you need to use your phone and charge at the same time you can grab one of the removable chargers and it will have enough power for one full charge before it needs to be put back on the dock. No longer will you have to plug into your charging port with one of the cheap iPhone cords that frays or snaps at the tip. No longer do you have to worry about that charging port on your phone giving out. Anyone that has had to experience these negative effects to the current charging design will buy this product. We will get them on shelves in BestBuy and Target most importantly. After this we will attempt to get them in stock at the phone retailers. The reason this wouldn’t be the first priority is because usually that’s only where you go to buy a new phone or get yours fixed and this wouldn’t generally be an accessory you would considering buying at those times. This is separate from the phone manufacturers, like Bose selling wireless earbuds that they want people to buy instead of Apple’s. Currently our best estimate for price will be somewhere around $40. Considering it can serve as four separate charges, that’s a bargain and it could be higher.

Venture Concept

Not all customers will buy this product right off the bat, it could be an underwhelming amount in fact and we will be prepared for that. The reason for this is large in part due to the number of customers that for a product like this will want to watch others be the guinea pig. Also, there will be another group of customers that have yet to experience the complications with wired chargers, so they won’t understand the need yet. All of this being said, eventually word will get out and people will recognize the convenience of them, they will then become common in households across the country. All it is going to take is our product to appeal to enough of those consumers that always buy the newest technology because they are curious and those that have experienced the unmet needs that created the opportunity. From there it will become like everything else in technology where people want what everyone else has. There will be competitors come along the way, but none with more control than those that design the phones themselves. They can create their own design and with their brand they will outsell us even if they have an inferior product. This product will still be able to succeed though. It is just going to take the right connections and some strategic marketing along with releasing the product at the ideal time.