30A - Final Reflection

30A - Final Reflection

1. I can recall back to when I first decided upon Paradiso. A simple idea meant to help people in need. However I soon learned I'd have to get very in depth with this business, and I'm glad I was pushed to do so. I can remember the first time I did the elevator pitch, I worked very very hard on it. As I turned it in, I realized I was not standing up in the video, making it worthless, so I had to re-shoot! 
2. My most formative moment is probably when I spoke with people about my project for various assignments. When I was forced to go out and show people my project, it made me feel nice being told it was a good idea and one that had meaning. I was proud of myself in this moment for putting the work in and making something.
3. I honestly do see myself as an Entrepreneur. I take closer attention to businesses out in the real world, and I pay close attention as to why they do certain things. Whether it's to reap a benefit, or to counter a problem. I have definitely changed my mindset and I understand how to see problems in a firm and how to handle them.
4. My biggest recommendation would be to make sure you care about entrepreneurship. This is not a field to get into for the money, and one that you need to truly care about. Also, it's a very hard work (never give up) romanticized field. One where you can't stop to breathe, you need to be innovating all the time. For this course, I recommend they get into a groove of doing their assignments on time and making the most of the course. 

29A - Venture Concept No. 2

29A - Venture Concept No. 2

1)

Paradiso

Opportunity:  

• Key West is known for its amazing beaches and beautiful sunsets. It is a thriving tourist hot spot, and an expensive place to live. To comfortably live in Key West, you'd have to make around 70,000 a year to afford a one bedroom studio apartment. As such, around 5% of the population is homeless.
• Homelessness is described as: Sleeping in a place not meant for human inhabitants, or staying in a homeless shelter. According to endhomelessness.org, around 553,742 people in the United States are considered homeless. Most states actually decreased in number of homeless people since 2016, however California is up almost 14% in homeless population. 
• The forces behind this opportunity are high rent costs, low paying jobs, unemployment, mental health, and many other problems. 
• This market is defined all over the world. People are homeless and/or have insufficient living spaces all over the world. This market is more defined in high cost living places in the United States like big cities or Key West. 
• The need is for people to no longer be homeless, and to be helped back on their feet so they can contribute to society. 
• The need is being taken care of by many organizations that get funding from the state or by donations from individuals to fight homeless by providing amenities to those in need. 
• The opportunity is massive! Considered one of the world's most prevalent problems, homelessness is in need of being taken care of.
• The "window of opportunity" will be open for a very long time. I'm not quite sure if homelessness will ever ultimately be solved, but it's nice to imagine.

Innovation: 

• My innovation is a neighborhood of small houses for homeless people to live in, as a means of turning their lives around. What makes this different than a homeless shelter is that there are individual one person houses, rather than a large building. This will give a sense of ownership and responsibility to the people staying in the neighborhood. 
• Essentially what I am selling is an opportunity. This project will be funded by the state, or by donations. As such, the homeless people in the neighborhood will have an incentive to work whilst having amenities. This project sells the chance of turning one's life around for the better, while not having to worry about finding a place to stay. 
• The project will cost around $1.5 Million to fund, considering the costs for Real Estate, Materials, Construction, Plumbing, etc, in Key West. 

Venture Concept:

• People will help fund this project if they want to help contribute to getting rid of homelessness. It might be hard to convince people to donate, but it will be as hard for any charity fund. 
• My competitors would be other charities in the area, as well as other topics on the political agenda that will receive funding by the state before my project would. 
• The style of the neighborhood will be a selling point. The dainty, individual houses will give the homeless people a sense of ownership and responsibility that a normal homeless shelter does not provide. When developing and running, we will try to be as cost efficient as possible, since this business is purely run from state funding or donations. 
• A "business" would be organized in such a way that multiple of these neighborhoods exist across the nation, and one firm acts to make sure funding goes where it needs to. Also, a service where homeless people are helped to be ready to work, and to find work, could exist. As well as staff that would help maintain the neighborhoods. For employees you'd have: Accountants, Neighborhood Managers, Social Workers, and other low skill labor employees. 

The Three Minor Elements:

• My unfair advantage would be my intellectual property of Key West, UF, and the field this firm will be in. The connections I have and most of my business model showed few weaknesses when tested with the VRIN analysis. 
• What's next for my firm is to show the world how important equality of opportunity is rather than equality of outcome through my homeless neighborhoods. Giving these citizens another chance is a priceless service and a sometimes life-changing one.
• What's next for me in 5 years is I would have multiple neighborhoods throughout Florida, as this has become a widespread solution to slowly trickling down the homeless % of the state. In the long run, I would branch out to other types of businesses to build my wealth and probably eventually step down from the homeless shelter firm. 

2)

Unfortunately, I did not receive any student comments on my Venture Concept No. 1 post. As such, I will use the what's next post to determine my next move. The posts mainly discussed how it's crazy to see new ideas with the business this late into the semester. This further proves just how adaptable and expansive business really is. When you look at entrepreneurs like Elon Musk or Bill Gates, they constantly expand and grow their companies and networks. The new idea for my firm, Paradiso, was to include training service animals with what the homeless people there would do. The students who commented thought that this idea would add to the business and should be acted upon.

3)

What I would change to my venture concept would be to include training service dogs as part of the responsibility for the residents. Adding this program would give the resident a sense of responsibility and companionship with having a pet. This would be very expensive to add to the cost of the project. But it would be a great touch to the firm.

4)

28A - Your Exit Strategy

28A - Your Exit Strategy

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?

My exit strategy would probably consist of me leaving the business behind to tackle more venturous fields. If I was able to start a business with a large return, or even make this business sell for a large return, I'd do it. My intentions with this business were entirely to solve a problem in the world. As nice as it is to help people and make a difference, my passion is elsewhere.

Why have you selected this particular exit strategy?

I selected this strategy because I my passions don't coincide with the business. My biggest dream would be to be financially stable and be able to write/record music full time. Whether that's with a large amount of wealth from a business, or just by being able to make a salary from it.

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?

I would say that my exit strategy definitely shows that this was a temporary feat. I saw this opportunity as a moment to fix society and fix a problem in my hometown. This would only be the beginning for me. I'm a firm believer of being in flow and having a passion for something you love. That idea of self fulfillment is very intriguing, and I'd love to explore it past this firm.

27A - Reading Reflection No. 3

27A - Reading Reflection No. 3

1. In "How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big" by Scott Adams, the key to success is your viewpoint. Through Adams' own experiences, he also teaches valuable life tips, from creativity to appearance to mindset. 
2. One of my favorite topics from the book was the section about goals and systems. Essentially, systems are things you do everyday and work at. Goals are something you want to reach over time. As such, this class is very systematic. Every week: two assignments, videos for a cupcake, and peer reviews. You begin to get into a groove. You'll often be more successful if you slowly work at something in a systematic way rather than looking at it as a goal. 
3. If I designed an exercise for this class based on the book. I'd make the students come up with many examples of systems. So they can see how they could incorporate it into their ENT3003 Venture, as well as their own lives. 
4. My biggest "aha" moment was when Adams stated to begin your day with your creative work, as well as to do tasks that match your mental state. This means to do engaging, motivating work in the mornings. Get your mind flowing so you're in a good state of mind for the mindless tasks later in the day. I thought this was great to hear because I'm often bogged down with work and rarely find time to practice guitar. I really love playing the instrument and it makes me feel guilty when I can't find practice time. As such, following Adams' logic, I should begin the day with my music. 

26A - Celebrating Failure

26A - Celebrating Failure

1. A time I failed was when I took my 2nd calculus 2 exam. It was the Thursday night before Spring Break. I didn't have class on Friday so you can imagine I was eager to get the exam over with.  I studied quite a bit for the exam, but I'll admit I wasn't as good at these topics compared to the first exam. The first exam was a combination of advanced integral topics, problems I actually find very satisfying to complete so that was a breeze for me. However Exam 2 was a multitude of series problems with tests for convergence and divergence. I never truly understood why it never clicked for me on this exam. Being such a vastly different topic from integration I was pretty lost at times. Needless to say I didn't receive a score I was happy with. Granted, out of everyone in my group, another student and I had the highest scores, but I just wasn't happy with that. Exam 3 is coming up this Thursday, it's going to be a combination of Power/Taylor/Maclaurin series' (essentially complex Exam 2 problems), Parametrics, and Polarity. 
2. I think what I learned is that I need to start much earlier when practicing the problems for the exams. I would usually start a few days before. Whereas at this point I've already done a lot of work, and I feel more confident for this exam. 
3. Failure is an amazing tool, but it sucks when it happens to you. Failure can be very helpful as it can behave like a wake up call, it tells you whatever you're doing isn't working, and you need to innovate. I often analyze my failures in this way, what did I do that made this unsuccessful? I try my absolute best to view failure through optimistic eyes. As many entrepreneurs have to, this mindset is vital and applicable to anything. Obviously, UF losing a football game is incredibly frustrating, but I try to be a good sport where I can. This class further enforced to view my failures as something being wrong with my methods. Look as it like a flaw in a business' methods, or like a chink in one's armor.

25A - What's Next?

25A - What's Next?

What I think is next:

When discussing growth, what my firm will look into is expansion of the Paradiso, neighborhood design to other cities looking to fight homelessness in Florida. We'd try our best to grow our image through social media and advertising. Spreading the word of equality of opportunity that this country needs to stay true to. I would try to grow the popularity of the brand as much as I could, through merchandise and social media. 

Existing Market Interviews:

1. Interview 1- Ben stated to me that in the future, I should go to cities where it would be most cost efficient for the company in proportion to the percentage of homeless in the city. Also, he said that the customers only really expect for my firm to succeed, and for them to see their money being used effectively. 
2. Interview 2- My mom actually brought up a great idea which was to somehow incorporate service dogs in with the neighborhoods. Furthermore, actually have the homeless at Paradiso care for and learn to train the dogs, as this will give them a sense of responsibility over the pet. Also, this can expand the range of contributors as people who donate to animal-based charities can look into our firm. She said the customers will want for my company to use their money accordingly. 
3. Interview 3- My friend Sam stated that Paradiso should look to expand to other cities with a homelessness problem. She also suggested expanding into the realm of animal shelters. 

Reflection: 

After listening to the interviews, I received thoughts I expected, and thoughts I didn't. Everyone basically said that the customers (people donating) just want me to do well, and for their money to be spent well and accordingly. I'm considering a service to where the more you spend the more amenities and the more involved you are with the project. 

Also, it was strange how 2/3 of the people I interviewed thought about animals as well. Ideas of service dogs and caring for stray animals was most of my interview time. This is definitely a new market I could consider.

New Market:

A market I didn't consider before was incorporating volunteer service dogs into the firm's function. Incorporating a program where the Paradiso residents learn to train service dogs can, obviously train service dogs, as well as give the residents a companion who can help give them a responsibility and a sense of connection. Having a pet will hopefully push the guests to care for their pet, as well as themselves. 

New Market Interviews:

1. Interview 1- I spoke again to my mom because she actually brought up this idea. We discussed how this will increase the amount of people willing to donate to me, while also hiking up costs because of the dogs, and training program now.
2. Interview 2- I spoke with my friend Sam again about the possibility of incorporating the volunteer service dogs, she believed it was a great idea, and one that would catch traction in the public eye. 

Reflection:

I was surprised by how well this new idea for Paradiso did. I never thought of including volunteer service dogs into the firm. As such, this was a great opportunity to have another set of eyes take a look at my idea. I believe if Paradiso was able to sustainable and successful throughout the state, then I would attempt to implement the volunteer service dog program. 

24A - Venture Concept No. 1

24A - Venture Concept No. 1:Paradiso

Paradiso

Opportunity:  

• Key West is known for its amazing beaches and beautiful sunsets. It is a thriving tourist hot spot, and an expensive place to live. To comfortably live in Key West, you'd have to make around 70,000 a year to afford a one bedroom studio apartment. As such, around 5% of the population is homeless.
• Homelessness is described as: Sleeping in a place not meant for human inhabitants, or staying in a homeless shelter. According to endhomelessness.org, around 553,742 people in the United States are considered homeless. Most states actually decreased in number of homeless people since 2016, however California is up almost 14% in homeless population. 
• The forces behind this opportunity are high rent costs, low paying jobs, unemployment, mental health, and many other problems. 
• This market is defined all over the world. People are homeless and/or have insufficient living spaces all over the world. This market is more defined in high cost living places in the United States like big cities or Key West. 
• The need is for people to no longer be homeless, and to be helped back on their feet so they can contribute to society. 
• The need is being taken care of by many organizations that get funding from the state or by donations from individuals to fight homeless by providing amenities to those in need. 
• The opportunity is massive! Considered one of the world's most prevalent problems, homelessness is in need of being taken care of.
• The "window of opportunity" will be open for a very long time. I'm not quite sure if homelessness will ever ultimately be solved, but it's nice to imagine.

Innovation: 

• My innovation is a neighborhood of small houses for homeless people to live in, as a means of turning their lives around. What makes this different than a homeless shelter is that there are individual one person houses, rather than a large building. This will give a sense of ownership and responsibility to the people staying in the neighborhood. 
• Essentially what I am selling is an opportunity. This project will be funded by the state, or by donations. As such, the homeless people in the neighborhood will have an incentive to work whilst having amenities. This project sells the chance of turning one's life around for the better, while not having to worry about finding a place to stay. 
• The project will cost around $1.5 Million to fund, considering the costs for Real Estate, Materials, Construction, Plumbing, etc, in Key West. 

Venture Concept:

• People will help fund this project if they want to help contribute to getting rid of homelessness. It might be hard to convince people to donate, but it will be as hard for any charity fund. 
• My competitors would be other charities in the area, as well as other topics on the political agenda that will receive funding by the state before my project would. 
• The style of the neighborhood will be a selling point. The dainty, individual houses will give the homeless people a sense of ownership and responsibility that a normal homeless shelter does not provide. When developing and running, we will try to be as cost efficient as possible, since this business is purely run from state funding or donations. 
• A "business" would be organized in such a way that multiple of these neighborhoods exist across the nation, and one firm acts to make sure funding goes where it needs to. Also, a service where homeless people are helped to be ready to work, and to find work, could exist. As well as staff that would help maintain the neighborhoods. For employees you'd have: Accountants, Neighborhood Managers, Social Workers, and other low skill labor employees. 

The Three Minor Elements:

• My unfair advantage would be my intellectual property of Key West, UF, and the field this firm will be in. The connections I have and most of my business model showed few weaknesses when tested with the VRIN analysis. 
• What's next for my firm is to show the world how important equality of opportunity is rather than equality of outcome through my homeless neighborhoods. Giving these citizens another chance is a priceless service and a sometimes life-changing one.
• What's next for me in 5 years is I would have multiple neighborhoods throughout Florida, as this has become a widespread solution to slowly trickling down the homeless % of the state. In the long run, I would branch out to other types of businesses to build my wealth and probably eventually step down from the homeless shelter firm. 

23A - Your Venture's Unfair Advantage

23A - Your Venture's Unfair Advantage

1. Social Capital: Connections in Key West- Valuable: Living in Key West my whole life has allowed me to personally know many important business/government people in the town. Rare: The resource is rare in comparison to UF. Inimitable: This is repeatable by other people fro Key West but that's about it. Non-substitutable: It is substitutable depending on the city. 
2. Charity/Philanthropic Venture-Valuable: Being placed under this type of business gives me an advantage when gathering investments, and seeking public acceptance. Rare: This type of philanthropic venture is rare in Key West and needed. Inimitable: This can be replicated but it's unique to Key West. Rare: Again, this hasn't happened in Key West. Non-substitutable: It would be substitutable if someone was willing to put the time in.
3. Lobbying- Valuable: An extremely valuable political tool, and very exploitable. This idea could catch some popularity in Key West. Rare: A very common way to have legislative action be done. Inimitable: Not necessarily? Non-substitutable: This form of political action is just one of many possible scenarios.
4. Fundraising/Volunteering Experience- Valuable: Having been a part of many volunteering clubs in high school and college, I have spent a great deal of time in this sector and know more than most. Rare: This isn't rare among driven college students by any means. Inimitable: This comes with hours of volunteering and you can't really just box it up and sell it. Non-substitutable: This would be substitutable if someone else had the experience. 
5. Intellectual Property of Key West- Valuable: My parents have been Real Estate Appraisers for 20+ years in Key West, so I'm very lucky to have access to intellectual property about the commercial/residential Real Estate market. Rare: This is a rare tool to have as many people do not know about Real Estate in Key West, Florida. Inimitable: This is a skill/amount of memory that takes years to develop and grow. Non-substitutable: This is not very easy to replicate as few know a lot about Key West.
6. Leadership Experience- Valuable: Having been the president for a high school club, I have some experience being the leader of a volunteer club. Rare: Again, many driven students at UF were the leaders of clubs at their own high schools. Inimitable: Another aspect that comes from experience and is hard to build. Non-substitutable: Also hard to replicate as it comes with experience.
7. Social Capital: Architecture and Engineering friends- Valuable: Having friends who are studying architecture and engineering can help me with R&D with this project. Rare: Many students choose to major in these difficult fields. Inimitable: These degrees are very hard to receive and take hours of hard work studying to obtain. Non-Substitutable: They're are many talented people who know these topics that can help.
8. Finance Major- Valuable: A degree in Finance means I am taking classes that can help me develop intellectual property that would be relevant to this opportunity, including taking ENT3003. Rare: There are many finance majors at UF. Inimitable: Finance is a tough major as it requires very good grades in many of the core courses. Non-substitutable: Again, many students choose to enter the field of Finance every year. 
9. University of Florida Education- Valuable: A renowned university around the country with many alumni connections, a UF degree is incredibly valuable for the price. Rare: The university is competitive to get into, and a degree from UF is considered an academic feat by most. Inimitable: The University is rigorous and few get degrees from it. Non-substitutable: An education is available in most places, however the academic prestige and connections UF brings is priceless. 
10. Single House Design- Valuable: This is a unique design and makes the property feel more at-home for the residents, this is a key selling point for the opportunity. Rare: Again, a unique design. Inimitable: Easy to replicate. Non-substitutable: Again, something better can replace it.

After doing the VRIN analysis of my opportunity, I realized there are a handful of flaws and weaknesses in the firm. However, I'd say the fact that the firm being a philanthropic venture, and my access to intellectual property/ social capital of Key West gives me a huge advantage in the grand scheme of things. Being a philanthropic venture allows for legislative action to be taken, or for investments from many to be accepted. Furthermore, access to a network of important people, as well as knowledge of the area, will help me succeed in Key West.