Final Reflection

Reflect on this semester and assignments: Highs, lows?

• Throughout my experiences in this class, I have experienced a variety of emotions. Some feelings of discouragement from missing assignments or forgetting to declare assignments. Also feelings of happiness and satisfaction once you receive positive feedback on ideas that you once did not feel were important. Some high points were definitely the lectures, interacting with others and getting a chance to use research (both primary and secondary) to build an original concept from the bottom up. Some low points would definitely be keeping up with all assignments. 

What stood out as my most formative experience? Most memorable and joyous?

• Out of all of the experiences I have had during this semester, I would have to say my most favorite, memorable and joyous experience would have to be the interactions I had while conducting customer research. There were some assignments that I did not get to complete that would've allowed me more customer interactions, however from the ones that I did complete, I found these to be the best. I was able to break out of my comfort zone, which is something that I have always had trouble with. Also, it allowed me to meet new people, gain new perspectives on ideas and concepts as well as enhancing my communication skills. 

Do you see yourself more as an entrepreneur now?Do you think you have moved closer to developing your own entrepreneurial mantra?

• I would definitely say that this class has helped me see myself more as an entrepreneur and move closer toward developing my own entrepreneurial mantra. I say this because with all of the assignments and experiences that I have had the chance to encounter throughout this class, I never know how much work it entailed to actually be an entrepreneur. One must put in ample amounts of work to even get their concept positively acknowledged. Therefore, through assignments such a customer interviews and elevator pitches, as well as more research based assignments, I would definitely say that I see myself more an entrepreneur now than I did four months ago. 

Recommendation to future students? What do you recommend for best performance and a focused mindset?

• My best recommendation for future students would be to put forth as much effort as they possibly can into completing this class and all of the required assignments. There were some that I did not complete and I feel as if it took away from my full experience of being an entrepreneur through my venture. I feel like since there are no exams and this class is now more hands-on, in order to get the full experience from it, you should put forth as much as possible to get into the mindset of an entrepreneur. I would say having an open mind, not being afraid of criticism or rejection and being tenacious will be what gets you through this class not only successfully, but with real-life experience. 

Venture Concept No 2

Opportunity

Who has the need? What is the nature of the need?

For my business concept, the customers that have the need for my services would be customers with businesses that are not doing as well in spreading awareness about their services. More specifically, my company would deal with small-business owners, usually within college towns like Gainesville that are trying to spread awareness and to draw crowds into their businesses. This would apply to not only restaurants and small food stores, but to entertainment hubs such as bars and small clubs within college areas that just need more help getting business in their direction. Customers are currently satisfying this need through promotions teams for clubs and entertainment establishments, however for the food locations, usually local advertisement is what is drawing in customers. 

Innovation

For this business idea that I have had throughout the semester, I wanted to create a public relations company, possibly named Inspiration PR, that would be able to assist these small businesses in spreading awareness through promotional campaigns and really getting the public involved and engaged in their cause. What it would do is find out the specific problems that are leading to the failures and highlight what is already currently successful. Once this is determined, some qualitative and quantitative research would be conducted to help figure out what the customer’s customers want from the business. These research methods are of little to no cost because surveys can be conducted online for free and if focus groups are held, the major cost would involve incentives for the participants. After the research is conducted and the problems are identified, we would work to find a specific programming plan that, once put into play, would be evaluated to see how affective it was for the client. Essentially where the money comes in would be actually conducting the programming necessary for the campaign to take place. For example, if we wanted to implement a social media campaign or to shoot a video, the client would essentially pay us for these things to get accomplished at a better quality and for a larger audience. Social media is also a huge component in what we do. We not only use social media for research purposes, but to assist those on a larger scale. 

Venture Concept

Essentially, my public relations company would help spread awareness of these small businesses and establishments in ways that will attract more customers and get the name of the company out. It would also help to establish not only brand awareness but also trust between the customers and our clients. They want to go to places that are trusted and well known, usually through word of mouth. Through utilization of our services, we can help these companies get ten steps ahead. It would be rather hard to probably try and get customers to come because for small businesses to spend money on things they may not feel is necessary would be an issue. However, these businesses trying to tackle these things on their own actually end up costing more money than they probably expected. 

• ·      A few things that I believe will make my venture more unique is the fact that I have traveled and lived in different places, therefore I have had experience with all different types of people and have seen what appeals to them. This also allows me to bring in multiple influences that can give me ideas toward campaigns for clients.
• ·      The next opportunity that I would want to tackle with my venture would probably be to broaden my services to not only small businesses but to medium or larger ones. More opportunities however would essentially include more staffing if this were the case.
• ·      In five years with this venture, I hope to see myself successful and possibly with multiple PR facilities throughout college areas. Over the next decade, I would like to see this venture grow into a company similar to Ogilvy. 

In all honesty, the feedback that I received from my last venture concept as well as my "What's Next" assignment was all positive. There was not much constructive criticism given as far as how my concept could be changed. There were comments about how others would utilize my services to assist them with their own venture concepts, as well as the uniqueness of creating a PR firm as opposed to creating a product or brand. However, the one piece of feedback that I did take into consideration when completing this assignment again was the mention that social media would be one of my biggest competitors. Therefore, in this venture concept, I decided to address that concept by incorporating the usage of social media for PR purposes as well.

Week 14 Reading Reflection

Something that I found interesting about the reading for this week would be the definition of a social entrepreneur and the two types of innovation that was mentioned in the chapter about corporate entrepreneurship. I found these two to be interesting because firstly, the term "social entrepreneur" was not one that I had heard of before. However, after  reading the section and finding our that these are people who adopt missions for social values, I do see more social entrepreneurs these days than before. As for the two types of innovation, I did know that there was radical innovation however I did not know that there was a specific term in relations to incremental innovation. Something that I was confused about was mainly within the corporate entrepreneurship chapter since I did find the reading about social entrepreneurship more interesting. I found the whole concept of intracapital confusing because there was only one sentence in reference to it, however I want to know more. This leads me to one of the questions I have in regards to intracapital: in what circumstances would you need to use it? Meaning an example of this kind of behavior. My other question would be why the author chose to mention the concept of I-teams well before defining what it meant? I feel like this is just a style issue, however I was slightly confused when I first read the section and later saw the definition. I do not disagree with the author in regards to the content and organization of the chapters in themselves because the information was very enlightening and I do appreciate that the first chapter dealt with corporate and then it transitioned into social entrepreneurship.

Going For Google Gold

During this class, I have done certain things within each assignment to ensure search engine optimization. Firstly, with the weekly labels that are included, this does bring attraction to my blog.  I used keywords such as entrepreneurship, innovation and I also included words related to my business concept that included public relations and firms. I selected these keywords because they are ones that I thought should be highlighted the most throughout my posts and these choices remained the same throughout the semester. The only social media platform that I used that has influenced my blog was YouTube. Including links to YouTube videos helped not only direct traffic toward my blog, but toward my actualYouTube channel as well. I would say it was generally ignored because my views on YouTube were minimal, however there were views, leading me to believe that there was some activity taking place. According to the number of views on each blog post, my very first Elevator Pitch was viewed the most. I believe that this one has the most views because not only was it done earlier in the semester but it was also most viewed out of the videos that I have posted this semester. After doing a search on Google, I did not end up on the first page for my keyword's results, and once I reached about page 10 on each search, I still did not find my results. Honestly, looking back on it, I feel as if I should not have used such generalized keywords because if I would have had more specific, unique ones, the results would have showed up on the first page.

Very Short Interview, Part 2

When I look back at the initial interview that I had with Mr. Mastrangelo, I asked three questions: what does it mean to be an entrepreneur, what should I learn from an entrepreneurship course and what advice is there for me while taking an entrepreneurship course? When I first initially asked these questions, and received the answers that I did, I did not expect the answers to be so true. From where I stand now, two weeks from the end of the semester, I did not expect to see what this man has seen in the last 10 years within four months of a class.

Unfortunately, same as first interview, I was not able to record the interview. I understand and respect his decision to not want to be recorded, however the three questions that I asked were: How much growth do you see in me as a person compared to the first time we spoke, What advice would you have for me as far as the business world upon graduation, and what does entrepreneurship mean to you? The answers that I received were a lot more elaborate compared to the first interview, and Mr. Mastrangelo did mention that he did see growth in me as a person, therefore he felt as if he could speak and I would relate more since now I did know what it was like to think in an entrepreneurial mindset. He was also surprised to see that this is what I learned from a class because in the initial interview he was skeptical as far as how much I would actually learn from a class instead of actually creating a business. I definitely enjoyed our second conversation much more because I felt as if I were talking to an equal rather than someone who knew something versus someone who knew nothing.

Week 13 Reading Reflection

Something that surprised me about the chapter was learning more about due diligence and how it applies to the entrepreneur and his or her ventures. Due diligence involved a thorough analysis of every facet of the business, which is pretty in-depth. This applies not only to business ventures but for analyzing aspects of one's own life. Knowing what key questions to ask are essential because without asking the right questions, how does one identify those parts of their venture that need work or that are doing particularly well? Something that I found confusing about this chapter was how elaborate the examples were, however I think they should have been placed after the explanation of each component. For example, the book shows you examples of methods for venture valuation and then breaks it down. I feel like it would have been easier reading the information and then going through the examples.I only really had one major question for this chapter and that would have been for more explanation on performing due diligence through the example that was provided in the table in 14.1 as well as the methods for venture valuation. I saw the examples and read the sections however, I was still a bit confused by the information presented to me. I did not think that the author was incorrect with any information provided because this is all relatively new information for me, therefore I feel as if I cannot say that something is wrong. The information was insightful.

Celebrating Failure

Failure is something that I have come to realize as something that is necessary in life to teach you how to be a tenacious person and to get back up after you have been shot down multiple times. Throughout the semester, there have been plenty of different times in which I have experience failure, however one incident that I can remember clearly off of the top of my head would be when I was most recently trained at my current job on a new market of customers. From October 2015 until about February of this year, I had only dealt with customers in Georgia and gas related services. In February, I was trained on how to now answer calls in both Georgia and Texas and now I was dealing with gas and electricity related services. This was a failure for me at first because the level of confusion I faced, along with jumping between two different markets and also being a bilingual customer service representative, it was overwhelming. My scores at work were declining because it would take me longer to resolve issues since I was still learning how to manage all of these responsibilities and remembering the specific rules related to them. What I learned was that failure can sometimes make you break out of your comfort zone to get to the ultimate goal: success. I spoke with my supervisor to see what I could do to help me adjust to the new pressure and took steps within myself to become better adjusted. Sometimes when I fail, I tend to get down and I feel as if everything that I try will never work. However, it has taken me some time to realize that some things will just never work. It is okay to fail and I am fine acknowledging that. This class has impacted my perception of failure in a positive way because it has allowed me to accept that failure will happen. It has also shown me that taking risks is essential. We cannot predict the future, therefore if we fail we must get back up and keep moving toward the better goal ahead.

My Exit Strategy

As for my public relations company, I feel as if the exit strategy I would take when leaving this venture would probably be to stay with the business for 5-7 years and sell the company. The reason why I would choose this exit strategy is because in those 5-7 years, many changes in the external environment can take place, therefore I could potentially be in a position in which I am not receiving as much business. My biggest threat would be the growth of technology and the opportunities that will most likely arise in the future that will make PR services mostly virtual. Therefore, I would most likely sell the business and try and venture onto a more virtual PR platform for client services. I do not feel as if my exit strategy influenced my other decisions because it took me some time to actually figure out which exit strategy I would want to choose. I tried my best to weigh the pros and cons before doing this assignment therefore I don't really think it has affected prior thoughts and opportunities I had for this venture. 

Week 12 Reading Reflection

Something that I found interesting about this chapter was the section on fatal visions in strategic planning. I am currently enrolled in a management course in which we learn about strategic planning and this was not something that I initially learned about until I read this section. These are very fatal visions and some see them as achievable but it is key to know when you are pushing your limit and being unrealistic. I didn't find anything confusing about the chapter because since I have had exposure to this material through a different class, I did have a great idea of what I was going to read through in the section in order to fully understand what is going on. One question I probably would ask would be in relation to the managerial and entrepreneurial mindset. I just want to know how they work intertwined. I would only probably change the way the chapter is divided simply for clarification purposes, however this is just an opinion.