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#30 – Final Reflection

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Throughout the course, I learned a lot about entrepreneurship and myself. I was taught a lot of valuable lessons that will help shape my future career. I think my most joyous experience was the Reading Reflection No. 1. I have always been surrounded by sports and grew up owning many Nike shoes of my own, so reading Shoe Dog by Phil Knight was really inspirational. I actually read the book in about two days because I couldn’t put it down. I also found my Bug List to be pretty joyous because who doesn’t love writing down things that annoy you, but then further thinking why they annoy you and why it’s a problem. I don’t think I’ll ever look at a problem the same after that assignment. The assignments that were formative and that I’ll remember years later were the ones that dealt with my business venture. Thinking about how to start a company or business venture for a whole semester really makes you think of all the small details you would normally just pass over. Every one of the assignme...
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#29 – Venture Concept No. 2

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My Opportunity: The opportunity that I identified was the need for a new app that could aid runners in sustaining a consistent pace when they participate in outdoor runs. My product would only apply to a select group of individuals, as not everyone is a runner or is concerned with their pace. I am specifically focusing on athletes, competitive runners, and true beginners. I would also consider targeting a radically different target such as personal trainers and gyms who are looking for new technology. My product will create value for these people because they come in contact with my original target market and could increase the trainer-athlete relationships. There are so many variables when it comes to running and pacing is a difficult one to control. There are many pacing problems that occur very commonly outside, which can consist of over-striding, gassing out too early, or losing control on hills. Current devices on apple watches and smart phones provide split times, but not your ...
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#28 – Your Exit Strategy

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1. In the next five years, I hope to have grown this business to a national scale and to have become one of the market leaders for running applications. I intend to sell my business, most likely to one of my competitors, for a large return. However, if we are well established and financially stable and someone in the company wants to take over, I will evaluate the option of passing down the business. 2. I have selected this particular exit strategy because I don’t want this business venture to be my whole career. I think it’s a good start for the direction of careers I want to pursue, and I’ll definitely gain a lot of useful skills and experience from it, but I don’t want to rely on a specific app business for the rest of my life. 3. I think this exit strategy has influenced my decisions in some ways since I knew from the beginning that I didn’t want to do this my whole life or for that long. For example, this influences my growth intentions because I want to quickly develop the app a...
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#27 – Reading Reflection No. 3

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Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol. S. Dweck, Ph.D. 1) This book explores two different mindsets that people have and how these mindsets can lead to specific behavioral traits and actions. The main theory that Carol S. Dweck discusses surrounds the idea of a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset. 2) In order to be successful in life, and especially as an entrepreneur, individuals have to be aware of their mindset. ENT3003 is a class designed to teach students how to be successful as an entrepreneur, and having the correct mindset is just as important. Knowing how to change from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset can open many doors for an individual. This book also relates to Professor Pryor’s conversation and assignment about failure, and how one views failure. 3) The exercise I would create for the class would involve a survey that identifies which mindset everyone has an individual. Then, I would have everyone identify an area in their life in which they have a fixed m...
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#26 – Celebrating Failure

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This fall, I took a class called Intermediate Business Programming, with no background knowledge in any programming languages. I thought I would be fine on exam one, since I had done pretty well on the other assignments and quizzes beforehand. I had a decent understanding of the content and when studying, I used the help tool embedded in the program when I mistyped something or got a question incorrect, so that I could learn from my mistakes and get them correct on the exam. Well, things didn’t go as I had hoped. Exam one was a handwritten, non-computer test, with questions that asked you to write out the code. As one could guess, I didn’t do too well. I was pretty frustrated with myself afterward and embarrassed of my grade. However, as a result of that, I started to dedicate a lot of time to the class and focus on doing better on exam two. I learned that programming doesn’t come natural to everyone, including me. I needed to dedicate more time to this class in order to fully grasp th...
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#25 – What’s Next?

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Existing Market. 1. In terms of products and services for my venture, I would have to start the app and ankle bracelet development. I would first do trial runs before officially putting it on the market and really advertising it to customers. 2. My potential customers have been really helpful and have given me a lot of useful feedback when it comes to helping with my business idea. The people I interviewed mentioned that my next step is figuring out how to launch the app, while also connecting with the right people. I was told by one person that the fitness industry is a very competitive industry, so I have to consider all the barriers and make sure I product differentiate. My other interviewees emphasized the importance of advertising and marketing for my business. In order to really get my company’s name out there, I was advised to develop social media pages and start gaining followers that way. 3. Based on my own expectations and feedback, my venture still sounds like a solid idea. ...
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#24 – Venture Concept No. 1

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Embrace Your Pace App Opportunity: The opportunity that I identified was the need for a new app that could aid runners in sustaining a consistent pace when they participate in outdoor runs. My product would only apply to a select group of individuals, as not everyone is a runner or is concerned with their pace. I am specifically focusing on athletes, competitive runners, and true beginners. There are so many variables when it comes to running, with pacing being a difficult one to control. For example, some pacing problems that occur very commonly consist of over-striding, gassing out too early, or losing control on hills. Current devices on apple watches and smart phones provide split times, but not your real time pace. My business venture is to change that. My customers will all have a pacing problem when they run outdoors, and many will be unhappy with their current running applications. They will all have the mindset to get better and achieve their target pace goal. My product wi...
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