Final moments in this class is bitter sweet. I’ve had a lot of good moments and a lot of dread on different assignments, Mostly good moments though. A few that I can recall is the first assignment when we had to write about 20 things in our life that annoy us and we can’t change through easy means. It allowed me my first taste at an entrepreneurial mindset. I remeber just walking around the house thinking of things I didn’t like that I could try and make better in my everyday life. It was actually pretty fun. My low I felt like was all the interviews. I really felt like I was pushed to get random people or people I know to help participate in my assignments. Which I understand now as an entreprenuer you need to have people you can throw your ideas with but for me then I felt like it was such an inconvenience for them.
I think the most formative experience for me was doing all the elevator pitches. I had to do one previously for another class and I remember it being awful. I wasn’t great at it and I was very awkward in front of the camera but after doing it and rehearsing it a thousand times I felt pretty comfortable doing my pitch and even did it in less than 3 takes at one point. I feel pretty proud of that experience and I look forward to giving more now that I feel more comfortable at it.
When I first heard that I’d develop an entrepreneurial mindset I didn’t believe the proffessor but now as I am nearing the end of the class I do feel like I’ve had a change of thinking. I definitely look for opportunities more than I used to. It amazes me that I have thought up my own ideas into businesses and that through working them them through each process I can see them being successful. I do not think I can call myself an entrepreneur yet. I think there a few things I’ll need to work on as well as actually starting a business before I truly feel like an entrepreneur but I can resolutely say I have gained the mindset.
If I could recommend to students in the future to do well in this course I would say buckle down and get ready to do a ton of work. It isn’t hard work but it requires a good bit of thinking before attacking each assignment. Therefore, take a bit of time each week preferably before the last day you turn in your assignment to prepare and not have to rush to get your assignments. I’ve seen plenty of good assignments and plenty of rushed assignments (I am guilty of the rushed assignments too.) and taking the proper amount of time to complete makes your blog look a lot cleaner. I also recomend on your blogs to make them look as clean as possible and having your paragraphs spaced out because nobody wants to read huge blocks of text like this assignment. I enjoyed taking this class and getting to know everybody in my discussion group, good luck to everybody in future classes!
Quick Bite - Venture Concept
My business venture that I would like to jump into would be to answer one of the biggest questions couples and friends might ask each other. That question would be “What should we get to eat?”
Opportunity:
1. Who has the need?
I think the need is for people that may want to grab something super quick because they are on break at work or for people that are traveling to find out what’s close to them and for the highest quality food.
2. Nature of the need
People will always have the need to eat but I think this will help up the competitiveness of restaurants making whoever the fastest and most high quality restaurant more prevalent in the market. This wouldn’t be a need that could be satisfied once and could build a good following with “foodies”
3. Forces to create this opportunity
I think a major force in my community is that there are a lot of places that are newly being built. So the options for food is growing rapidly and it’s getting harder to weed out what is good and what is not. Making my app a good place to go to and easily accessible on your phone when you want to see what kind of food is around you.
4. How is this market defined geographically and demographically?
I don’t expect this app to blow up with older people I would say my average user would be a college student in a new place with a plethora of options and no idea what to eat. Also, just because technologically younger people are more likely to trend set up and coming apps to see if it is any good. Geographically it would be more for cities and areas with high populations to weed out all the places that are packed and wait times being in the extreme.
5. What are my consumers alternatives?
Consumers of my app could use the app called “Around me” which is fine! I use it all the time to know what’s available in my area. But, My app offers the alternative of ranking whats around you and making it more personalized to fit your criteria of satisfaction. People I know like me are very loyal to the “Around Me” app because it is provided by Apple.
6. How big is the opportunity and how long is the window of it?
Technically the window has always been there and it is slowly closing. There are many people who have had the idea of mobile ordering but I don’t think they have ever considered having places rated. This opportunity could be huge due to the sheer mass of people who have smartphones
Innovation:
My Product would be an app that offers full functionality allowing access to see food in genres. By clicking on a genre of food it will go in detail and show you what is offered around you in a 20 mile radius and rate each place in a system that will tell you what is the best place to eat at due to quality of food, cleanliness, how fast the wait time is, and service in general. It will also include reviews along with graphs of their busy hours and price points compared to other places. For it to be fully functional you will have to make an account with our app that is a one time login on your phone. By making an account you will be able to personalize that account by saying what you like food wise and ask you a series of questions that could help us personalize the rankings of restaurants to you. Our app will not be taking money to endorse about certain food places to get it higher rankings. Instead we will be offering our service to members for a $5 monthly fee and for free members of our service we won’t be using personalized services and just give general rankings. All members of this service will be able to place orders online and be able to see rankings around them. Subscribed members will be allowed to use this service to set where they plan to go like for example Atlanta allowing them to plan out what kind of food is in that area along with graphs of wait time and other personalized features. Adding onto this feature through personalization you will have the ability to limit the amount of time on the app through quick actions you can click on when starting the app.
Venture Concept:
My app would be beneficial for businesses that have high quality goods but are having a hard time getting off the ground. This would allow them a bit of spotlight if they make the rating list. Consumers would potentially buy into this app because of the ability to use one app to do all for their food concerns. Right now people only have access to apps like “around me” that just tell you very general details. It might be hard to get people into this app at first because around me tells you not just about food but this will be the essential app you would need to have as a traveling person or newcomer in town trying to figure what’s good without locals telling you. Like I have been saying there are competitors but with the growing trend of subscription based content and personalized service this could go into the vulnerabilities of other apps giving only general details and not a fully detailed list of rated restaurants. If I were to organize this as a business I would have a building of 30-40 people that splits into different teams. I would have 4 different roles for the group of employees. customer service branch, marketing, research and development, and a App quality group. Each playing into making sure the app has the most functionality while maintaining high quality standards.
My unfair advantage:
My skills are that I fully understand how to market to consumers and through having a mentor to help with my ideas and by using clever twitter following builders and getting up recognition of the brand I can bring people to the app.
What’s next for me and my venture?
Eventually I want my app to be able to become compatible with major food industries allowing the access to place orders with say pizza places instead of having to go through their own website. That way you don’t have to enter information in a ton of different websites and you can just use your phone to place those orders. This app would help me start of the venture of trying out other ideas. Through subscription based content I can have a steady flow of money that could allow me to try new Ideas with my team and eventually tackle owning my own International foods store that could receive quality goods from all over.
Feedback:
I received wonderful feedback from both my whats next and responses from my original venture concept post. I pushed in more easy accessibility from what others are saying through the use of icons to make locating different categories easier to find and even a mile radius icon so that you can easily have a radius of places to go to in your area. I think accessibility is important and I appreciate that there is the ability to incorporate it into my business.
If I could recommend to students in the future to do well in this course I would say buckle down and get ready to do a ton of work. It isn’t hard work but it requires a good bit of thinking before attacking each assignment. Therefore, take a bit of time each week preferably before the last day you turn in your assignment to prepare and not have to rush to get your assignments. I’ve seen plenty of good assignments and plenty of rushed assignments (I am guilty of the rushed assignments too.) and taking the proper amount of time to complete makes your blog look a lot cleaner. I also recomend on your blogs to make them look as clean as possible and having your paragraphs spaced out because nobody wants to read huge blocks of text like this assignment. I enjoyed taking this class and getting to know everybody in my discussion group, good luck to everybody in future classes! 
