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30A – Final Reflection This semester I had a lot of fun and feel like I learned a lot. I think the best thing I got out of it was just losing all reservations about walking up and asking people to talk to me. I can see that being a really useful skill, and the first round of interviews was definitely the moment where I realized that this class would make me get out there and try things. Some of the things I'll remember are the three books I read for this class, because I enjoyed the wright brothers book so much that I started a personal tradition to make a custom bookmark for every new book I read. These are the three for the books I read for this class, but I have done one for the eleven books I read since the Wright brothers and really enjoy it as a way to remember and think about books I read.   (The story behind that one is that I so far completely have ignored all social media, but reading the book on it made me realize that I do many of their practices for a ...

29A – Venture Concept No. 2 Note: Most of this post is the same as my last one because I only received positive comments since then. To make it easier, I am putting all the changes or additions in bold. I welcome any new readers to see the whole thing and give me any thoughts, but did't want people who saw the last one to have to find the slight tweaks I made. Most of my changes are simply to add an extra detail or idea I got from one of the comments or interviews.  Opportunity: Thousands of new students, alumni, parents, and sports fans walk through the UF bookstore each year. As they tour the campus, many will end up buying merchandise showing the UF colors or logo. Currently the bookstore has hundreds of items in orange and blue so that all can display gator spirit, find a gift, or get a souvenir. Many of the current merchandise options are clothing and clothing accessories for that gators can proudly wear their spirit, but as anyone who has shopped for a clothing I...

28A – Your Exit Strategy 1) Identify the exit strategy you plan to make. Do you intend to sell your business in the next 5 years for a large return? Do you intend to stay with the business for several decades and retire? Do you intend to protect the venture as a family business, and pass it down to your children? Once the ZipStrip makes it big and the concept starts being copied by others, I plan to just sell what I have and move on instead of trying to keep a patent or fight for market control. This has been a great experience, but I am not passionate about making clothing accessories and plan to focus on other projects. 2) Why have you selected this particular exit strategy? I have a lot of interests that I feel strongly about and a lot of opportunities that I want to pursue before I would invest in the ZipStrip. I think that working until my idea is taken up by others is a victory on its own because even as I work on other things I will be able to see the ZipStrip thriv...

26A – Celebrating Failure 1) Tell us about a time this past semester that you failed -- whether in this class, or outside of this class. Don't spare any details! It'd be even better if there was something you tried several times this semester, and failed each time.  My biggest failure for this class was that I was completely blindsided by one of the most valuable assignments and had to rush to the point of considering skipping it and banking on the extra credit workshop. The assignment in question is 20 Growing your Social Capital. I normally plan these assignments ahead at least if I don't do them earlier in the week, but that week I had just looked at the other assignment and the title of this one before deciding I could wait until Friday. I don't know if I expected this assignment to just be more easy interviews or maybe doing the pitch to people in the real world, but when I read on Friday morning that I was supposed to reach out to real business people and ...

27A – Reading Reflection No. 3 For this assignment I chose to read the Art of Social Media by Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick. 1) What was the general theme or argument of the book? This book was a really interesting pick for this assignment because it was less about the value of Social Media for an entrepreneur, and instead focused fully on the steps you should take to build a social presence for a new company or personality.  2) How did the book, in your opinion, connect with and enhance what you are learning in ENT 3003? This book is less about what we are learning in this class, and more lessons that will help to make all the work we do on this class effective. I think this book will add to any business I create in the future and really help get my ideas noticed, funded, and sold. 3) If you had to design an exercise for this class, based on the book you read, what would that exercise involve? I think the most fitting exercise for this book would be to have st...

25A – What’s Next? Existing Market: The "Fan" group from my customer avatars Step 1: Talk about what you think is what's next in terms of products and services for your venture. As I keep targeting the Fan customers, my next step would be to expand from just UF and to reach out to other brands and teams that would want something like the ZipStrip. Step 2: Alison: Her biggest recommendations was that I keep talking to as many people about it as possible to further understand what customers want, and to make more options for the actual designs I would sell. Andrew: He also wanted multiple designs, but also said that I should be careful to make the product easy to understand in a store with a informative display and by allowing people to try attaching ZipStrips to their jackets in the store. Alex: His advise was to start selling online to start, and that I could consider selling jackets as well Step 3: With this round of interviews I really cemented my impression t...

24A – Venture Concept No. 1 Opportunity: Thousands of new students, alumni, parents, and sports fans walk through the UF bookstore each year. As they tour the campus, many will end up buying merchandise showing the UF colors or logo. Currently the bookstore has hundreds of items in orange and blue so that all can display gator spirit, find a gift, or get a souvenir. Many of the current merchandise options are clothing and clothing accessories for that gators can proudly wear their spirit, but as anyone who has shopped for a clothing Item in the bookstore these are usually sold at a high price. A shirt could cost $40, a vest $120, and a jacket upwards of $60. There currently is few options for people who want to wear orange and blue on a college budget without choosing between a textbook and that cool jacket. I believe there is a strong market opportunity for wearable UF gear between ten and fifteen dollars. As it stands the closest product to fill this gap is a few of the ch...

23A – Your Venture’s Unfair Advantage My product is the ZipStrip. It is a strip of fabric with zippers on both sides that you can zip up into a normal jacket. After the last round of feedback, I am now just targeting the "Fan" group of customers and hope to partner with UF to reach specifically the Gators as my first test. These ten strengths set it apart from other ideas and will let me uniquely help customers.  1. A new idea Valuable - people pay for novelty, and the market is open Rare - no one I interviewed had heard of something like this Inimitable -  it will be easy to copy, but if I successfully brand with UF then that would change Non-Substitutable - this is much cheaper than most clothing accessories 2. Simple, easily manufactured product Valuable - low manufacturing cost and few components will mean we can make a profit Rare - most products are mor complicated and involve more steps to manufacture Inimitable - again, this can be copied Non-S...