Sunday, July 31, 2016
Thursday, July 28, 2016
My Exit Strategy
1. I
plan on expanding the business as much as possible in around 5 years. After
that, I would try to sell it at as high of a price as possible, while still
maintaining some stock in the company.
2. I
chose this exit strategy because as it stands I want to move on from this
business and into another one, either by starting it or by joining another
business. I want to continue to innovate in many different ways even after my
first venture.
3. My
exit strategy has definitely influenced how I planned out my venture in the
first place and how I spotted and grabbed my particular opportunity. From the beginning,
I was always interested in minimizing cost and maximizing potential for growth
and profits. I wanted to benefit and move on from my initial venture plan.
Sunday, July 24, 2016
Venture Concept No.1
For my venture
concept, I tried to find a need that was prevalent in my local community. For
my community, I realized that there have been many unmet needs within the
university of Florida itself. My primary concern was with the high degree of
costs within the university itself and looking for student needs that are being
either unmet or exploited in some way. For me, one of the most renewing “bugs”
I have is the high cost of textbooks that I get each semester. This was the
need I chose to explore in my venture concept.
This means that an
opportunity is open. For many students, the cost of purchasing a textbook can
be one of the priciest pieces of the semester. You can restrict yourself to
renting but then you miss out on highlighting and annotating important sections.
At the end of the semester you can get further shortchanged by selling the book
back for significantly less than you purchased it for. This need was created
because the university bookstore claimed an upcharge on every book that it sold
and purchased. This need is located within every college town and in any
university with an official bookstore, but in order to utilize this need, my
venture concept will be localized to the Gainesville community.
As of now, this
need is being satisfied through either simply ignoring the cost of buying and
selling, renting the book, using craigslist to find other books, and the use of
unofficial forums to locate other students with textbooks. Overall, students
are not loyal to what they use and will easily switch over to anything that
could offer a better service at a cheaper price. This opportunity is relatively
large as it can be expanded to any and all books worldwide however, it is
mostly focused on bookstores within college areas and is slightly smaller with
that in mind. This opportunity’s “window” is also very large as it exists as
long as universities and colleges exist worldwide, so there is no rush to
deploy my venture as quickly as possible.
In order to
exploit this opportunity, I want innovate by creating a website that would
connect students who have just taken classes to ones about to take the same
classes. This would connect students with books available for sale directly to
those who wish to purchase books for their upcoming semester. The website would
generate revenue exclusively through advertisements allowing students to buy
and sell books with no middle man allowing students to easily obtain books
without having to pay any extra cost. So for this instance, I am selling
connections in exchange for advertisement revenue. This revenue would be small
averaging around 25 cents every time someone clicks on an advertisement. This
small revenue would be counterbalanced by the minimal cost to run at around 10
dollars a year. This maximizes profit as I would only need someone to click on
an advertisement 40 times a year to break even. Any other additional click
would be additional income. This would also mean that I could easily expand at
little to no cost to other areas.
Finally, this opportunity
and innovation would culminate into a fully-fledged venture concept. Customers
would switch over to my website for price savings from traditional methods.
Getting them to switch would be rather difficult however as news of the website
would have to travel over time and spread and rapid expansion would be unlikely
at the start of the website. The competitors to my venture would be the
official university bookstore, amazon, and any other local bookstores as well
as services like craigslist that also help connect students to other
booksellers. Packaging, price points, distribution, and business location are
all inapplicable to this particular venture concept. Customer support and
customer experience do play an important role in my business concept however.
Customer support would be maintained through a support email address in a
contact us page within the website. As the business expands, customer service
could be outsourced to a secondary business that would control the objective
for several different geographical locations at once furthering the
minimization of costs overall. Finally, as the business expands further to many
different geographical locations around the united states, I would organize a
complete business to support the ongoing production of my service. I would
employee one or two web developers to continually update and expand the websites
to further accommodate students around the United States. As the website
develops further, roles would begin to emerge such as an expansion department,
a customer service department, and a design department.
Overall, the
venture concept would culminate in eventual expansion internationally. I
definitely think that the most valuable asset to my business venture will be
the very maintainable costs to run the website and incredibly low breakeven
point. This aspect alone makes the venture worth pursuing as the risk is almost
none at startup. After I hand my business off, the venture will hopefully grow
and spread to many different geographical regions, possibly even expanding its
services provided beyond simply connecting students to now acting as a buying
and selling service with minimal markup. As I pass off the venture, I will move
on to one of many different ventures that I could further develop into fully
fledged businesses. By passing it on, I would have made my first step into
becoming an entrepreneur. Also, by using this venture, I would have already
developed many of the skills that I would need to further my future entrepreneurial
concepts. It would also provide a perfect project to put on my resume should I
chose to retire from the entrepreneurial lifestyle at any point in time.
Tuesday, July 19, 2016
Celebrating Failure
In this semester of Ent3003, I failed. For the first week of
comments, I noticed that not everyone in my assigned group of people to comment
on did the assignment. I was overjoyed as I now only had to comment on a single
post. I really should have read the assignment details as it stated that you
MUST comment on 3 posts even if you have to comment on someone outside of your
assigned group. I took the easy way out and it cost me the point. From that
point on I learned to take extra time to read the details behind every
assignment and to always comment on three posts for each comment assignment.
Failure hurts but it is the only true way to improve upon your past self. This
class has also changed my perspective on said failure as now I view it as the
only way to truly succeed is by first failing. I think I am much more likely to
take a risk now than I was before this class.
Sunday, July 17, 2016
Elevator Pitch No. 3
My Unfair Advantage
1. Localization
a. Valuable:
High, as this is the big thing that differentiates from other big businesses in
competition.
b. Rare:
Medium, as few other competitors have this degree of localization.
c. Inimitable:
Low, a competing website can very easily establish a localized webpage
d. Non-substitutable:
Medium, other stores have different local resources to help
2. No
customer cost
a. Valuable:
High, this is probably the key draw to choosing my service over others.
b. Rare:
High, few other book sellers offer no cost to the customer.
c. Inimitable:
Medium, other websites can run without any cost but it can be difficult to do.
d. Non-substitutable:
Medium, customer cost is hard to imitate in terms of value.
3. Minimal
cost to run
a. Valuable:
Medium, while it provides no customer benefit, this can definitely maximize profit
by minimizing costs.
b. Rare:
Low, most websites do not require much other than a server to run.
c. Inimitable:
Low, any book seller can easily setup a website through third party services.
d. Non-substitutable:
Low, websites and other low cost sites are plentiful.
4. Easy
to market
a. Valuable:
Medium, while good for later profits, this provides no benefit for the
consumer.
b. Rare:
Low, anything localized to a certain area has an increased marketability.
c. Inimitable:
Low, because of the ease in localization, this also means an ease in
marketability.
d. Non-substitutable:
Low, other resources can easily provide marketability.
5. Easy
to access
a. Valuable:
Medium, anyone with a smartphone and access to the internet allows them to
access the content on the website.
b. Rare:
Low, any website on the internet will have the same degree of accessibility.
c. Inimitable:
Low, just by setting up a website access is easy to all.
d. Non-substitutable:
Medium, other resources can provide accessibility but not to the extent of web
communication.
6. Readily
available community
a. Valuable:
High, there is already people who want to trade and sell books without easy
access to do so.
b. Rare:
Low, other communities with various needs also exist.
c. Inimitable:
Low, any others who create a similar service will also have access to the same
community.
d. Non-substitutable:
Low, creating a community is key to any successful website.
7. Accessible
resources for startup
a. Valuable:
Low, elimination of cost would not provide that much in terms of startup
access.
b. Rare:
Low, any website would also have easy access to startup resources.
c. Inimitable:
Low, every website is easy to startup.
d. Non-substitutable:
Medium, other services could have potentially easy startup potential.
8. Potential
for rapid expansion
a. Valuable:
High, if the website takes off, then any other are is a potential new expansion
zone.
b. Rare:
Low, many other startups would have a similar potential for expansion.
c. Inimitable:
Medium, for the expansion to take place another website would need to be
successful.
d. Non-substitutable:
Low, many other services have the potential for rapid expansion.
9. Cross
regional access after expansion
a. Valuable:
Medium, this will expand the services offered to a larger area.
b. Rare:
Low, cross regional product differentiation is common in growing businesses.
c. Inimitable:
Low, many other services offer cross regional access at any time.
d. Non-substitutable:
Low, other services could provide cross regional localization form the start.
10. Strong
word of mouth spread
a. Valuable:
High, word of mouth would be essential to growing the website.
b. Rare:
Low, many other localized businesses often have a large degree of word of mouth
spreading.
c. Inimitable:
Low, other local businesses often have word of mouth as the primary marketing
technique.
d. Non-substitutable:
Low, other marketing techniques could provide the same benefit.
My top resource would be the zero
customer cost as it provides a benefit to the customer and differentiates the
website from other services in that also provide books in the local Gainesville
area.
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
Amazon Whisperer
1. Revenue
drivers: For my venture, my only revenue driver would be advertising revenue.
2. Next
product: Since my service would be localized to the Gainesville area, the next
product that I would offer would be other areas in Florida such as our arch
nemesis in Tallahassee next.
3. How
it enhances: This would enhance my current product by allowing cross regional
trading of books as well as local trading.
4. Amazon
product: While amazon does not offer a product like mine, they do offer a
service similar to the one I plan on offering. They offer rentals both on eBooks
and also hardcopy deliveries.
5. Customer
dislikes and likes: While there are no customer reviews on a service as wide
ranging as this covering many different products, as a consumer of this service
myself, I have a general idea of the positives and negatives that this service
has. The likes are that renting a textbook is easy to do and cheaper than a
conventional rental from the university bookstore. The dislikes are that the
product drastically increases in price the longer you hold on to the book and
buying books are still not as cheap as exchanging them.
6. Changes
I would make: I would personally make it easier to hold books for longer and
offer exchanges for a surcharge that would add to the already profitable service.
7. Why
it’s a good addition: This extension of my service would be a good extension as
it allows an easy slope up and expansion with minimal risks that could maximize
profit and opportunity realization.
Thursday, July 7, 2016
Idea Napkin 2
1.
You. My name is Alan Crowetz, I am a junior here
at the University of Florida studying information systems and operations
management. I enjoy technology and am very adept at understanding computers as
a whole. I know the basics of html and website design. I really want to enter a
business in my field and hopefully one day become a CEO or upper management. If
I were to start up this entrepreneurial business right now, I would most likely
spend little time on it as I am currently very busy with school and work but
when it is all started up, maintenance would be quick and practical.
2.
What
are you offering to customers? I am offering a website that would connect students in
previously enrolled classes with those currently enrolled in the same classes
for book sales and purchases.
3.
Who
are you offering it to? I am offering it to students in the local Gainesville area with
ties to the University of Florida and Santa Fe College.
4.
Why
do they care? Students would be able
to purchase and sell books without a middle man saving them potentially thousands
of dollars over the course of their academic career.
5.
What
are your core competencies? Localization
in Gainesville means quick responses and ease of use for the customer as well
as safety and trust concerns with other larger businesses.
I
still think that my five elements fit together perfectly as everything creates
a localized ideal customer with a strong need. A trustworthy website could
easily draw in the people with this need and the customers to further fund the
website. Hopefully by fulfilling this need, the website could grow to meet
needs of college students nationwide.
1. I tried to make everything more concise and clearer.
2. I made the area and “who” much more specific than before.
3. I expanded on who I am and what my skills are.
4. I explored different core competencies and chose the one
that best fit my plan.
I tried to broaden the scope of which my initial project entailed by
being more descriptive of the services rendered
Sunday, July 3, 2016
My Secret Sauce
Five ways in which I have human capital that is truly unique:
1. I
have always had a great deal of curiosity for everything unknown to me. When I
find something new, I love to take it apart and rebuild it and learn how every
aspect works.
2. I
have a great deal of fascination and passion for technology as well as the
experience to continually explore new technologies and developments as they
occur.
3. I
have a driven attitude and always want to work harder and push for things more
and more until everything is accomplished.
4. I
am very organized in everything I do and do not forget dates or assignments
easily.
5. I
have a good sense of humor and easily bond with people from all walks of life.
Interview the people who know you best:
1.
Pedro
Molina-Torres
2.
Savannah
Padgett
I think this interview definitely reflects my want to work
hard. I really strive to make all of my friends as happy as possible.
3.
Taylor
Stearns
This too shows how I work hard in everything I do. Even
though I can be extremely busy at times I don’t let that interfere with my
friendship.
4.
Lauren
Stearns
While I’m glad that my friends appreciate my selfless
nature, I was honestly surprised that this would be one of the key things that
they thought of. I am glad that I am able to serve my friends without realizing
it
5.
Christian
Freeland
This definitely shows the humor side of me. I have close
friends and am not afraid to share a laugh and bond with them more.
Reflect on the differences:
I personally see this activity as a chance for personal
reflection on how I view myself versus how others view me. I tend to see myself
with more rigorous and impersonal skills while my friends view me with strong
and caring personality traits. I think that the differences emerge because I
tend to view myself in a much more antagonistic tone. I think my interviewees
are for sure correct about me. I wouldn’t make any correction to my list
however as I feel as though my list can accurately sum up everything that I
feel about myself and how others tend to view me.
Saturday, July 2, 2016
Elevator Pitch No. 2
While I did not get much feedback from my first elevator pitch, I definitely think that the feedback I did receive was key in forming and structuring this new elevator pitch. I tried to introduce my topic earlier than before and I also tried to improve the lighting in the room as well (though it was not as beneficial as I thought).
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