Final Reflection

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Final Reflection

1) This past semester in this class, I had a bunch of highs and a few lows. When looking through my past blogs and where I started and how far I have gotten in this class, I am truly proud of myself. It was a long journey but I think it was a great experience and I have learned a lot about my career path. When it comes to my highs, the opportunity I had chosen provided me with them. I loved learning more about our ocean and how it is truly affected by pollution and I also enjoyed sharing this knowledge with people who are involved in it. I also enjoyed interviewing and meeting such wonderful people and gaining tips from them as well. Some low points for me were when I struggled to push myself through this class. I had a hard time procrastinating to get this work done but in the end, it was definitely worth it. I also struggled with telling my idea in a written form to others. I knew what I wanted to do but when it came down to it, I had a hard time explaining it. However, every struggle that I had always ended up making me stronger and I learned a lot from this experience. 

2) An experience that I had during this class that stood out to me the most was trying to figure out a bug list. For some reason, this was very hard for me and it was also the first assignment so I did not truly understand the concept of the reason behind doing it. After finding the perfect opportunity, the bug list was not so hard and that there are a lot of major issues and opportunities in this world that need to be fixed. The most joyous experience was when I got to interview a member of an organization that helps clean the beaches. I really enjoyed talking to him and listening to how much he truly knows and loves our oceans. There are a lot of good people I got to meet along this journey that really care about our planet and have good hearts and I am super lucky to have met them. 

3) Due to this experience and all the information gained from this class about Entrepreneurship, I definitely see myself as an entrepreneur and have learned a lot more about it. Due to the information given from the professor and also having to create a concept to start a career, I know the basics of what I want to do with my life and more about my career path. Before I joined this class, I did not know the true definition of an entrepreneur but now I understand the whole meaning behind it and how to become one. I definitely see myself as one and have moved towards that mindset to become successful. 

4) For the students about to partake in this class and follow this long journey, I would recommend to work ahead in this class and to pay lots of attention to the videos. Also, to pick a very unique opportunity so that in the future, you have less competition. I struggled most with competition so if that does happen to your fellow students, try to find or create things to make you different from them and make you stand out. Other than that, I think you guys will really enjoy this class and it was a great learning experience for me and my career. 

Venture Concept #2

How Pollution Truly Affects Our Oceans

1) Opportunity

    My main audience for this service are restaurant owners and beach lovers across the South Florida area. I hope to reach more areas across the state of Florida in the future. Plastic pollution and trash along the waterways are a huge issue towards humans, marine life, and also the environment. There is a plastic ball the size of Rhode Island that covers the Atlantic Ocean that does not allow marine life to travel through. That is caused by fishermen, restaurants, and most people who leave their trash on the beach. The reason why I address this is because of my idea to ban all restaurants from the use of non-degradable items, such as plastic, located on the South Florida waterways. The potential customers are people who are educated on this matter and want to help save our oceans as well. Everyone has this need without even knowing or understanding it. Mostly residence living on waterways and people who go to the beach daily are the most interested in this service. I already have a variety of customers who are willing to help reach out to restaurants to end this issue and also customers who are willing to commit to this service for the long-run. Most people go to the beach to enjoy the scenery and the ocean but do not take the time to save it, so I hope to advertise that as well to my customers. This need is presented in many different ways such as, organizations and people who volunteer to collect trash. The customers that are loyal to those jobs just want to help so I know they will be very interested in my service as well. Most customers who are not interested in this service are people who do not have the patience to understand how much plastic damages our planet and also people who are careless about trash on the beach. I hope for this opportunity to last so that more restaurants across the world are open to using only degradable items and ban the use of all plastic. However, I believe this need will not only help marine life but also help educate people on this matter and hopefully reach out to those who do not understand how damaging plastic truly is to our Earth. 

2) Innovation

    As I stated before, My idea is to create a service that bans or restricts the use of non-degradable items at beaches and restaurants located on the coast of South Florida. This solution will help take a bigger step to end plastic pollution in our waterways and oceans. My innovation is the service that will eventually stop the use of plastic in restaurants and on beaches by creating a business to donate other degradable items instead and also knowledge of the customers on the effects of pollution in our ocean. This will ensure that plastic straws, cups, lids, and all other items will not be entering the waterways from the restaurants. Over 1,000 sea turtles die a year from plastic, so imagine all the other sea life affected as well. I will be advertising how much plastic damages our oceans towards mostly restaurants and daily beach people and by doing this, I will be making money through donations and through my own advertising, such as selling stickers and shirts. I also will be working with restaurants to help spread awareness. When it comes to pricing it depends on how much people are willing to help prevent pollution and in the future, I hope for my business to reach many people in other areas that want to help as well. Also, that not only are that many sea turtles dying, but there is a ball the size of Rhode Island located in the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean as well. People are affected by pollution too so If we want a brighter future, this is a way to help solve it.

3) Venture Concept

     I believe customers will switch to buying into this service because of how effective it is compared to other services and organizations. I also think a majority of my customers want to just help save our oceans in the fastest way possible and to also spread awareness in a unique way. The main competitors are other services that do beach clean-ups. The only reason why they are competitors is because people usually volunteer to hope they are helping by cleaning up the beaches, however, I want to educate people on ways to clean up after themselves and how important it is. When it comes to the business location it is perfect because South Florida is a main area where tourists visit and there are a variety of restaurants located on waterways. When it comes to employees it would be mostly assistants and advertisers, since I just want to spread awareness and get my service to more people than just the south Florida area. 

4) The Three Minor Elements

    My service's most important resource is the customer support. This is my "secret sauce" because not a lot of organizations, similar to mine, have this. When it comes to a small service or business this is the most important factor to have so that the customers that do support your service share and spread it out to others. It will be difficult for someone to copy my idea due to the fact that I already have plenty of customers who are interested in it and my location as well is very unique and helpful. Like I have said before, I hope in the future this service spreads globally and ends all plastic materials not only in South Florida but in other parts of the world.  Lastly, In the next five years, I hope that this service has met its goal of restricting the use of non-degradable items and all I want to be is successful with this and hope to educate more people on this topic of pollution and the importance of protecting our sea life. Having customer support can help a business grow even further. 

Feedback

    When it comes to my feedback, I did not receive that much feedback from the students. Although I did receive compliments on how a student understands my concept better and thinks its a great idea and that I used a strong amount of detail.  So, since that is all the feedback I received, I decided to ask some other peers on their suggestions and tips to change this venture concept. They told me it was really well done and that I should talk more about why customer support is so important to your business and how that will truly benefit me. I agree and so I deeply addressed the importance of it. I added more statistics and just got even deeper with the meaning behind my opportunity. I think this assignment truly helped me acknowledge my business for the future. 

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My Exit Strategy

My Exit Strategy

1) My exit strategy would be to hopefully sell it to someone in the next five years. I am hoping for it to be spread to more areas than just South Florida so it can grow into something bigger, it might take more than five years but at this rate, I have a lot of customer support for it to spread in the near future. Although my service is year-round, the most popular season would be summer so maybe even in the near future, I will be able to only work during the summer and lean off of the majority of the rest of the year. I hope to make a larger profit when extending it past five years if possible.

2) I have chosen this particular exit strategy because it would hopefully make me the most successful when working less. I also think it would be beneficial to spread awareness through other services and connecting with them in the near future and selling them my business. 

3) This existing strategy has not influenced any of the other decisions I have made through this process. When it comes to the goals I have for this business, I was not thinking of leaving it anytime soon unless my goal is achieved and I make a large profit from this. When it came to choosing my opportunity I was not thinking of the exit strategy at all so it has not influenced my decisions. I wanted to make an impact on this planet, not just try to escape a business I have been successful in. For the resources I have used and will be using, this does not affect them at all. I have the resources I do to make my business successful but I do not think it has an impact on them. With customer support, I do think it will help me get to the exit strategy I want to use but I do not think I use certain resources for my exit strategy. 

Reading Respond 3

For the last reading response, I chose to read "The Art Of Social Media",

 by Guy Kawasaki, I felt it was very helpful when trying to start a new business.

1) The overall theme of this book is the ways and tips to creating a business-like brand on social media. The main key points were strategies for posting on social media in a unique form that will make you different than your competitors. 

2) This book connected with this class because of the ways to market your product, Pryor discussed to us in the videos. This class and the book both discuss the importance of a target audience and how to advertise the business in a unique way. When it comes to the customers, knowing what they want and having an exact type of customer will benefit you in the long run when it comes to small businesses.

3) When it comes to creating an exercise for this class based on the book, I would have each student identify how many hours go into their advertisement and posts on social media. It should take a while to make sure everything is unique and precise. I feel like the students dedicating more of their time to their posts will help them understand the importance of it.

4) The biggest "aha" moment for me or that I was surprised about was when Guy mentions in the book a paraphrase of how not everyone can just post something and get noticed right away and how each post must come with purpose when it comes to getting recognized. I'm surprised by how much comes to social media and the work of process people go through just for one post.

Celebrating Failure

   KiteBoarding

 The time I have failed in this past semester would be the time I spent trying to learn how to Kite Board. All summer I have been wanting to learn and I thought it would be the easiest watersport since it just has the kite do all the work. I failed horribly the first couple of times, slamming my self against the water and being dragged with the kite. I got very frustrated and just wanted to give up. I spent hours trying over and over again but just kept failing multiple times. After a couple more times and hours of trying, I finally got the kite up and started riding. I did give up and fail over and over again, but with more practice and time things started to click. I learned a lot from this experience, I learned to never give up and that certain tasks can take patience and time to succeed. Failure is hard and very frustrating but I believe it can push you to succeed at a task. Failing multiple times was definitely embarrassing and a huge struggle, I always want to be the best at the task I am trying to achieve but it always comes with failing first to learn the ways to reach a goal. This class has taught me a lot about failure and how I overcome it to reach my goal. I always take risks but after this class, I know to just accept failure and to take a different perspective on it to achieve what I want in life.

What's Next?

Existing Market

In the near future, the next step is to further my service to more people and restaurants around the world by growing my advertising and spreading the awareness even further. For the products, I just hope to have more donations and revenue towards this cause so it can spread to even more people. When interviewing the three people, they said very similar ideas when it comes to planning new ideas. The overall helpful idea is to also clean up beaches and work with more local organizations that can help with my business so that more people understand my concept. They also said to make sure that I have enough people interested and understand what I am trying to achieve. Lastly, they noted to maybe even reach further than just restaurants on the coast and try to reach out to plastic-making factories and get them to recognize the damage they are creating.

Overall these were all very good points made from each interview. I believe that I can achieve all of these ideas and that they will end up benefiting my service in the long run. For my venture, I believe that reaching out to factories can be a stronger way to spread the awareness and acknowledge the damage being created. I think that once I have my service running, that will be my next goal. 

New Market

For my new market that is very different than my own, I am reaching out to people who do not live near waterways or on the coast of South Florida. I am focusing on people who live in Suburb areas and cities.

The reason why this is very radical is because the plastic they use does not affect waterways as much as living near the beaches. I chose this area because plastic still affects the environment in these areas, just in a different way. The location of this service and the audience is very different than my original market, I still hope to reach out to these people as well in the near future. Even though these people do not live near the ocean and get to experience its beauty, If I educate them on the damage of pollution I believe it will still make an impact on those who care about the beautiful Earth. Plastic damages earth in every city and every part of this planet, just because people do not live near waterways doesn't mean trash should still be left in the cities. I believe that no matter what location I present this issue too, people will still try to help save our planet and recognize the damage being done by us. When interviewing, the key points this time were to make sure I have a good presentation of how harmful it truly is and how they can help. They said this will truly help meet customers like them so that they truly understand what I am trying to achieve and what they can do to be apart of it. 

Reflection- From this new market I learned that I have a variety of customers that are interested in helping than just my main targeted customers. I was surprised that people who even live in large cities want to understand how pollution affects our planet and oceans, even when they don't even get to see our oceans they still care enough to hear about it and help. This new market was very helpful and I feel even stronger as a business that more people will want to spread awareness and that I have a variety of customer support from all over Florida. 

Venture Concept #1

How Pollution Truly Affects Our Oceans

1) Opportunity

    My main audience for this service are restaurant owners and beach lovers across the South Florida area. I hope to reach more areas across the state of Florida in the future. Plastic pollution and trash along the waterways are a huge issue towards humans, marine life, and also the environment. There is a plastic ball the size of Rhode Island that covers the Atlantic Ocean that does not allow marine life to travel through. That is caused by fishermen, restaurants, and most people who leave their trash on the beach. The reason why I address this is because of my idea to ban all restaurants from the use of non-degradable items, such as plastic, located on the South Florida waterways. The potential customers are people who are educated on this matter and want to help save our oceans as well. Everyone has this need without even knowing or understanding it. Mostly residence living on waterways and people who go to the beach daily are the most interested in this service. I already have a variety of customers who are willing to help reach out to restaurants to end this issue and also customers who are willing to commit to this service for the long-run. Most people go to the beach to enjoy the scenery and the ocean but do not take the time to save it, so I hope to advertise that as well to my customers. This need is presented in many different ways such as, organizations and people who volunteer to collect trash. The customers that are loyal to those jobs just want to help so I know they will be very interested in my service as well. Most customers who are not interested in this service are people who do not have the patience to understand how much plastic damages our planet and also people who are careless about trash on the beach. I hope for this opportunity to last so that more restaurants across the world are open to using only degradable items and ban the use of all plastic. However, I believe this need will not only help marine life but also help educate people on this matter and hopefully reach out to those who do not understand how damaging plastic truly is to our Earth. 

2) Innovation

    As I stated before, My idea is to create a service that bans or restricts the use of non-degradable items at beaches and restaurants located on the coast of South Florida. This solution will help take a bigger step to end plastic pollution in our waterways and oceans. My innovation is the service that will eventually stop the use of plastic in restaurants and on beaches by creating a business to donate other degradable items instead and also knowledge of the customers on the effects of pollution in our ocean. This will ensure that plastic straws, cups, lids, and all other items will not be entering the waterways from the restaurants. Over 1,000 sea turtles die a year from plastic, so imagine all the other sea life affected as well. I will be advertising how much plastic damages our oceans towards mostly restaurants and daily beach people and by doing this, I will be making money through donations and through my own advertising, such as selling stickers and shirts. I also will be working with restaurants to help spread awareness. When it comes to pricing it depends on how much people are willing to help prevent pollution and in the future, I hope for my business to reach many people in other areas that want to help as well.

3) Venture Concept

    I believe customers will switch to buying into this service because of how effective it is compared to other services and organizations. I also think a majority of my customers want to just help save our oceans in the fastest way possible and to also spread awareness in a unique way. The main competitors are other services that do beach clean-ups. The only reason why they are competitors is because people usually volunteer to hope they are helping by cleaning up the beaches, however, I want to educate people on ways to clean up after themselves and how important it is. When it comes to the business location it is perfect because South Florida is a main area where tourists visit and there are a variety of restaurants located on waterways. When it comes to employees it would be mostly assistants and advertisers, since I just want to spread awareness and get my service to more people than just the south Florida area. My process is very simple and all it takes is the customers to understand the importance of it and how much this service can truly help our oceans.

4) The Three Minor Elements

    My service's most important resource is the customer support. This is my "secret sauce" because not a lot of organizations, similar to mine, have this. When it comes to a small service or business this is the most important factor to have so that the customers that do support your service share and spread it out to others. It will be difficult for someone to copy my idea due to the fact that I already have plenty of customers who are interested in it and my location as well is very unique and helpful. Like I have said before, I hope in the future this service spreads globally and ends all plastic materials not only in South Florida but in other parts of the world.  Lastly, In the next five years, I hope that this service has met its goal of restricting the use of non-degradable items and all I want to be is successful with this and hope to educate more people on this topic of pollution and the importance of protecting our sea life.