"Final Reflection"

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

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 thing that sticks out the most with this class was when we had to ask the people who know you best. That may seem vain but on the contrary it was more about me seeing that all the hard work I put into life shows to the people around me. I was proud of myself for actually really getting the people who know me best. They know the bad and the good in me and to see them speak on the good gave me motivation.

3) At the beginning of the semester, I mentioned that I wanted each of you to develop an entrepreneurial mindset. And we repeated the mantra -- I am an entrepreneur. 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 believe I have developed an even deeper entrepreneurial mindset because of all the thinking I had to do in this class

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?

I would tell student to plan. This class has lots of assignments. Some are easy and take little to no effort and others take lots of effort. You need to plan out how you intend to get the grades you want in this class. They need to not think that this class that is only worth 100 points is a cake walk. I did more work in this class than any class I’ve had my entire college career. 

Elevator Pitch 4

"Venture Concept No. 2,

Opportunity

•             What are the forces or changes in the environment creating this opportunity?

                The changes that are creating this change is the subscription based disruption that is happening across many business models. Many people no longer pay a set price for a service or a software but now they pay for them on a subscription bases. People aren’t paying monthly fees for cable anymore but instead they buy a subscription to service that offers the same thing

•             How is this market defined geographically and demographically?

                My geographic market is all across the world because every state/ country has some sort of cable or satellite system.

My demographics are people ages 23 to 40 because at age 23 you are probably not living with your parents and out on your own and understand what it feels like to pay bills. Not only are you on your own but you now have a career that doesn’t allow you to watch much TV. At 40 you probably have a whole family and a career and can only watch television on the weekends anyway so paying a monthly bill is a little over rated.

•             How are customers currently satisfying this need?  And how loyal are they to whatever they use now? 

                Customer currently are either paying for cable or investing in Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon prime

•             How big is this opportunity?

                This opportunity is HUGE. It is bigger than Hulu and Netflix because it has the capability of cable as well just without the price point.

•             How long will the “window of opportunity” be open?

                Not long at all. Netflix and Hulu kind of have this market cornered. Me getting into and presenting something new would only have me on top for a short amount of time. This is because they already have a customer base to upsell a product to. They could simply follow my business model and sell it to the customers they already have which means I wouldn’t be able to get those customers myself.

"Google Gold"

1)      A discussion of your general approach and strategy to search engine optimiation (SEO). What were some of the activities you did for each blog post to pursue SEO?

I must have missed this part of the blog writing because I put no efforts into SEO for my blog post

2)      What were your keywords? How did you select those keywords? Did you change or refine your keywords through the semester?

If I had known what to do I would have used keyword searches like,

Cable alternative

Cheaper cable

Show subscriptions

Better than Hulu

Hulu alternatives

Netflix alternative

I would have selected those words because I am sure people search for those topics because of the cable epidemic. I know it would have lead someone to my blog post

I did not change them because I never did them. I do feel like I may have added a few but I don’t think I would have changed them.

3)      How did you use social media to enhance your SEO efforts? What your your surprises or general impression of using social media to improve your blog's profile? Was social media generally receptive of your blog, or did it get ignored?

I did not use social media at all to enhance my SEO efforts. If I had used it I’m sure people would have wanted to know what the product was about

4)      What was your most "viral" post? In other words, which post obtained the most traffic? Why do you think?

None of my post got traffic except for my classmates because they were the only one who knew about my blog

5)      Finally, did you make it to the first page of Google results for your keywords? If not, what page of results did you make it to?

No I did not make the first page of Google

"Week 13 Reading Reflection" i

1)      What was the biggest surprise for you in the reading? In other words, what did you read that stood out the most as different from your expectations?

When we analyze the business they tell us not to compare it to larger businesses. I think that we should to a degree ad reading this kind of bothered me

2) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.

When the author says that you should do forecast for the trend of business. It is true that trends change so foresting your business on trends can be dangerous, why not do it on a monthly basis?

3) If you were able to ask two questions to the author, what would you ask? Why?

1. When they say how much does it cost to buy the business, does that number stay the same throughout the entire sale or can it change?

2. If they need more money to buy the business, do they add on to the budget or do they walk away from the sell?

4) Was there anything you think the author was wrong about? Where do you disagree with what she or he said? How?

I can’t say that they are wrong but I slightly disagree. I think we should look at large companies when we analyze a company to see if the company we are buying into has the capability to make it to that place. I don’t think we should make the same type of decisions but I do believe that we should look into it. 

"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. 

For the last few years I have been working on opening a luxury hair boutique. It seems like every time I try to do it, something with my money happens and I can’t focus on the business because I have regular bills I have to pay. This time I am not going to put it off. I have gone to cosmetology school this year and I refuse to not use it! I think that me accomplishing this milestone has made me more dedicated to accomplish what I need to accomplish

2)   Tell us what you learned from it.  

I have learned from this to never give up and change your plan a million times if you need to, just don’t change the goal.

3)   Reflect, in general, on what you think about failure. Failure is hard, isn't it? It's embarrassing, sure, but it also means that we have to change something about ourselves. Talk about how you handle failure (emotionally, behaviorally). Finally, talk about how this class has changed your perspective on failure -- are you more likely to take a risk now than you were four months ago? 

Like everyone failure does not feel good. I hate to fail because I try so hard to succeed. I will say that when something fails for me I can’t wait until the entire plan fails so I can start a new one. I hate wasting time on something that didn’t work! I hate going over it and over it in my mind. I simply want to get the things that don’t work out of the way so that I can move on to the things that do work! When I fail I something I IMMEDIATELY start to think of my next plan of action. I don’t dwell on it, it makes me depressed. Instead I direct my attention to what needs to be done. I don’t think this class has helped me look at failure differently, directly. I do believe that indirectly having to write about it has helped me to understand failure more. I believe that my writing about how I don’t give us has given me motivation to constantly keep going!

Week 13 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?

In the next 5 years I intend to sell my business for a huge profit 

2) Why have you selected this particular exit strategy?

I want to sell my business because this is not my passion. It is just a good idea that no one has thought of. It would be a good chance to make some money. 

3) How do you think your exit strategy has influenced the other decisions you've made in your concept? For instance, has it influenced how you have identified an opportunity? Has it influenced your growth intentions or how you plan to acquire and use resources?

The exist has made me make sure that all the cable customers come to me so that way they are interested in buying my company.