Assignment 30A

1. The most formative experience for me was when I was finally able to nail down one thing that I wanted to use as my idea for the rest of the semester. Though it does not feel like it was that long ago, I believe that we got these 'long term' ideas set within the first 3 weeks or so of the class, so 12-13 weeks ago, and have been posting about them in at least two posts per week since then. That is probably also the experience that is most memorable for me. The most joyous is writing this, final post, knowing that after this and my finals next week, I only have one semester left of school. That is also the same moment that I am most proud of accomplishing; in the classes that I have taken this semester, my lowest grade SHOULD be an A-. 

2. I still do not see myself as an entrepreneur yet, however I do feel that through both the posts and the lectures in this class, I have developed more of an entrepreneurial mindset. 

3. My recommendation for what must be done to succeed in this course is make a schedule and stick to it. While my personal schedule is not the best (all of my initial posts have been done on Friday night and all of my replies on Sunday or Monday, the day that they are due), I have been able to stick to it and only missed one deadline the entire semester using it. I would recommend to decide on your schedule for getting these assignments done in the very beginning and stick to it for the entire semester, as a way of making sure that you use it. If you switch between different schedules, you may forget if you did a particular assignment or simply think that you did it the week before and get a 0 as a result. 

Assignment 29A

The people who have this need are the exhibitors of show animals and their parents. This is a need that is currently under-met, with a very limited supply and high demand. This need is located in Central Florida, particularly Polk County. Currently, the customers are meeting this need by shopping for brand name show feeds that are expensive and limited in terms of options. This opportunity could be very big, expanding from the current local area to the state and at least the region. The window of opportunity could close at any time.

The innovation that I am offering is a new animal feed that will serve as a show animal feed. It will be more inexpensive than the current feeds and will serve as a complete ration, not requiring customers to mix the feed with other products to meet their animals' needs. The exact price will be determined by the cost of manufacturing the feed, however the plan is to cut out the middleman and therefore keep the price lower. This will be done by selling directly from a mill; most feed stores mark prices up at least 20%, in my experience. Cutting this markup out will keep prices down. 

The main two reasons that customers would switch are to receive a ration that is complete and because the new feed will be more inexpensive. It will be hard to get some to switch and easy to get others; it will depend on the particular person. All in all, most people will be likely to start out buying a few bags and trying the feed before they commit to switching all of their animals over to it. The competitors are Purina and Nutrina, the current two brand name feeds that have show feeds. They both have one main weakness; their prices are very high and customers do not appreciate that. If the business were to remain local, less than five employees would be needed. It would be made about two to three times a week in the mill and the same people would be able to serve the customers when they come to pick the feed up. As the market expands and the feed sells in new places, more people would be needed. The roles would basically be the same, as long as only one main feed was sold. If this expanded, a sort of feed store could be started, complete with managers and lower level employees. 

The advantage that I would have in this business are my contacts. From feed representatives of 'rival' companies to the people that would actually be buying the feed, I know many people in the area that are involved in the industry. 

Next for this venture would be expanding. This can be done in two ways. The first is expanding to new areas/markets. The second is expanding to new species; if we start out with only swine and cattle feed, we could expand to chicken or sheep feed in the future. One possible and very large way that this could be expanded into other breeds is by marketing it for pets, as well. By developing a new dog and cat food, for example, this would reach out to a much larger group than simply those that own show animals. 

In five years, this feed company could easily expand to cover the entire state, either all operating out of one location and customers coming to me or by having different locations spread about. The main thing that I aspire to be in the next decade is successful and profitable; this company has the ability to make me both in at once.

2. I received one comment on both of the posts that relate to this one. They both explained that they liked my idea and thought that it was very thorough, with one piece that the individual felt that could be added.

3. There were no changes to my idea from the first to the second draft of it; instead, one item was added. The concept of not only expanding to other show animals, but also to begin to go into the pet food area is one that I had not thought of, but am glad to add to the potential future plans of the business.

Assignment 28A

1. I would stay with the company for several years and continue to expand it throughout the region. I would then plan to keep it in the family and pass it down to the next generation, probably by the time I was in my fifties, and then retire in the future.

2. I have chosen this strategy for several reasons. I would pass it down to the family because I feel that doing so would give the next ownership a true sense of pride in the company not simply as a thing or as a title, but in the fact that this is something that their family began and has always run. My stepping down and letting my children take one by the time I am in my early fifties also serves three purposes. First, they would have time to work under and with me in leadership roles and begin to learn how things have been run. Second, they would still have me working under and with them as they take over and I can guide them as I see fit, while also giving them some freedom to try new things. Lastly, it will keep people that are younger, more up to date with the current (or in this case, the future's current) technology, and therefore allow the company to remain innovative.

3. My exit strategy is something that I had not thought much about, specifically. I do not truly consider it an exit strategy, in my case. I would be here for the long haul. With that in mind, it did have some effect on my business plan. I was not thinking of this as something that I would try to make worth a lot of money fast so that I can sell it for a maximum profit and move on; I was considering it something that would, theoretically, be my and my family's life work.

Assignment 27A

Elon Musk

1. The thing that I found to be most surprising was actually the first thing that was talked about. Musk said no and did not cooperate with the biography for several months, and only changed his mind to cooperate by getting to be the one that got to read through it first, make edits and add footnotes. To me, that was most interesting. The thing that I admire most about Musk is that he is not a rich person who is surrounded by what the author calls 'handlers'; he is speaking his own words/thoughts and does not have someone to buffer between him and those around him. I believe that this is admirable. The thing that I least admired about him was the way that he talked about women. While it could have been a joke or could have been serious and I am looking into it wrong, he talked about the 'minimum' amount of time that a woman would want for someone to spend with them when they are in a relationship. To me, this is something that should not be a set number. It should be something that is simply natural for both people involved. Elon Musk has definitely encountered adversity and has been able to push through it. He has, in most recent memory, done so by coming clean publicly and apologizing for actions that he has taken. In the past, he has simply not given up and continued working hard in order to succeed again.

2. The entrepreneur exhibits a vast amount of competencies, with some of the most obvious being that he is very intelligent and hard-working. Pairing those two things together without many other things would make someone successful; however, Musk has those plus many more. Those are simply the two that I view as the most important, personally.

3. I got a bit confused reading about his life goal of dying with humanity having a bright future. He plans to do so by helping make it possible for humans to migrate to Mars.

4. What should I do with any money that I have to invest, and what is your one start up idea that will make me a billionaire? The first would be something that I would ask in order to invest more of the money that I would like to buy stocks with. This is because, while his portfolio became very risky very fast, he has become a very rich man based on those risks. The other is because he has already started and sold two businesses for large sums of money; large enough that I could sell one and never work a day in my life beyond that.

5. He views hard-work as mandatory. This is obvious through the fact that he profited $22 million on his FIRST (and significantly smaller than his second) start-up company, and turned around and used that money to start another. He could have retired and been comfortable for life after that first company, but did not. This shows that he is a hard-worker. I share that view.

Assignment 26A

1. I failed one specific shift at work several times this semester. I was hired to work in one department (seafood), and have done well in my own opinion in each and every one of my shifts inside of that department. However, sometimes I am asked to work in the meat department, which is what I actually applied for when I applied for a job. However, the meat department shift that I work is one that is relatively busy and that I was never well-trained for in my store. With that in mind, my first time I did not get to make all of the products that I was supposed to, and at the end of the day I had to leave most of the things that I was supposed to clean for the next person to finish. Each time following this, I got slightly better but still failed to do all of the tasks that I was assigned.

2. I learned that what you think you want to do is not always what you really want to do. When I started, I was disappointed to learn that I would be in seafood and wanted to work in the meat department more and more. As time went on and I got comfortable working seafood, this completely changed and I began to want to work in the seafood department.

3. Failure to me is not succeeding in anything. In some cases, failure on a test could be getting a B, while in others it could be that you literally failed (got a C- or less). In different situations, failing can be different. I feel that I handle failure relatively well. I am a person that is usually pretty confident and I do not react much in terms of emotions very often. I hide from others that I have failed by doing this, even when I know that I have and they do not. I am no more or less likely to take risks after this class. I have always been someone who feels that I can do things well. While this class strengthened my viewpoint on this and made me see that some risks are more worth it than others, I do not think that it made my risk taking preferences any different.

Assignment 25A

Existing Market

I believe that the future for this business is expanding beyond the local area that it will begin and serving new customers, as well as the original ones.

Once I talked with my potential customers, I felt that I was right. One person in particular's response strengthened this idea; he told me about a friend in a neighboring county that he felt would appreciate the idea and would be glad to buy the feed, if it were available near them. He also told me about the people in the area that this friend of his knew, and therefore the domino effect could take place in terms of new customers in that particular area beginning to buy the feed, if the opportunity was given to them.

This would be an example of growing the existing market because it would be the exact same product in both areas. Essentially, the goal here would be to establish a name for the brand. By mastering one type of feed for the state's climate and then moving to a county or area that has essentially the same climate and same needs, the feed will appear to do well from the start for any of those who have not heard of it before and try it. Doing this will give a good reputation to the brand and help grow it further in the future, by exploiting other areas of growth.

New Market

The new market that I can see becoming available for this company would be different species of animals, with sheep and chickens being the particular species that come to mind for me.

I found out through my interviews that this is actually not as much of a need as that of the swine and cattle industries. It turns out that most sheep feeds are not very expensive, and most chickens do not eat enough feed to make it necessary for people to worry as much about the amount that they spend on each bag. However, that does not mean that the market would be impossible to enter. Like the other two areas, there are a very select few options that are available to those who raise show sheep and show chickens.

Taking advantage of this area of the market, simply trying to enter the product in as something new that the customers have never seen before and keeping the price of the product just below that of the competition's similar feeds would make the feed something that could possibly sell. In my opinion, that paired with the (hopefully) good reputation that the company will have built from its swine and cattle feeds in the same areas will make it something that people would at least be willing to try. Pairing that with changing the formula and attempting to perfect it early on based on customer feedback, and I feel that this is a new area of the market that the company would excel in, in the long run. However, especially in the short run, the existing market will be more successful.

Assignment 24A - Ration-X

The people who have this need are the exhibitors of show animals and their parents. This is a need that is currently under-met, with a very limited supply and high demand. This need is located in Central Florida, particularly Polk County. Currently, the customers are meeting this need by shopping for brand name show feeds that are expensive and limited in terms of options. This opportunity could be very big, expanding from the current local area to the state and at least the region. The window of opportunity could close at any time.

The innovation that I am offering is a new animal feed that will serve as a show animal feed. It will be more inexpensive than the current feeds and will serve as a complete ration, not requiring customers to mix the feed with other products to meet their animals' needs. The exact price will be determined by the cost of manufacturing the feed, however the plan is to cut out the middleman and therefore keep the price lower. This will be done by selling directly from a mill; most feed stores mark prices up at least 20%, in my experience. Cutting this markup out will keep prices down. 

The main two reasons that customers would switch are to receive a ration that is complete and because the new feed will be more inexpensive. It will be hard to get some to switch and easy to get others; it will depend on the particular person. All in all, most people will be likely to start out buying a few bags and trying the feed before they commit to switching all of their animals over to it. The competitors are Purina and Nutrina, the current two brand name feeds that have show feeds. They both have one main weakness; their prices are very high and customers do not appreciate that. If the business were to remain local, less than five employees would be needed. It would be made about two to three times a week in the mill and the same people would be able to serve the customers when they come to pick the feed up. As the market expands and the feed sells in new places, more people would be needed. The roles would basically be the same, as long as only one main feed was sold. If this expanded, a sort of feed store could be started, complete with managers and lower level employees. 

The advantage that I would have in this business are my contacts. From feed representatives of 'rival' companies to the people that would actually be buying the feed, I know many people in the area that are involved in the industry. 

Next for this venture would be expanding. This can be done in two ways. The first is expanding to new areas/markets. The second is expanding to new species; if we start out with only swine and cattle feed, we could expand to chicken or sheep feed in the future. 

In five years, this feed company could easily expand to cover the entire state, either all operating out of one location and customers coming to me or by having different locations spread about. The main thing that I aspire to be in the next decade is successful and profitable; this company has the ability to make me both in at once.