30-A Final Reflection

30-A Final Reflection

1) Read through your posts from this semester. Recall all of the experiences you've had along the way -- the highs, the lows -- the fun moments, and the moments of drudgery, and even the moments of dread.

This was a tough semester-long process for me.  I do not like talking to strangers.  It was very difficult for me to get over that fear. At one point I had my husband standing by our car while I walked the parking lot trying to get interviews.  I do NOT live in a good area, so this was frightening to do at 7-8pm at night.  I had no other time to do it because I work during the daytime hours. I absolutely HATED the stranger interviews. I dreaded reading the assignments due each week, wondering if I was going to have to go back out and interview people. 

2) What sticks out to you as the most formative experience? The experience that you'll remember years later. What was your most joyous experience? What experience are you most proud of yourself for accomplishing?

I also had a rough time coming up with an idea to even focus on, and when I came across the parking lot problem, I thought I had come up with such a great idea.  Who actually likessmall 90-degree angled parking spots---no one?  I thought I was going to rock the whole semester solving this problem.  But right after I chose it, things went awry because Dr Pryor made it clear that there is only a problem if you know you have it. And I found out quickly, businesses did not want to know, and did not care.  So, the joy that I had was replaced with frustration on how I was going to make it through the rest of the semester.  I had to skip assignments because there was no real way for me to complete them, because I had discovered there was essentially no problem.  I will never forget the fact that just because there is a problem, sometimes there is no fix for it.  

I am most proud that I realized I am right, and I am not an entrepreneur in any sense of what I thought it was before this class started and what I learned during the class.  I do not have a problem-solving mind. 

3) At the beginning of the semester, I mentioned that I wanted each of you to develop an entrepreneurial mindset. Now, at the end, do you see yourself as an entrepreneur? Do you think you have moved closer to developing an entrepreneurial mindset?

I am not a problem solver.  I have been taught now how to go about solving a problem, but I did not enjoy it and would not pursue a career at doing it.  

4) What is the one recommendation you would make to the students who are going to journey down this path in the future? What would you recommend they do to perform best in this course? What would you recommend they do to foster that mindset?

Pick a problem that you know A LOT about and have many people to talk to about.  To perform best in this class, wait to watch the lectures JUST before the cupcake so you won’t forget the minute details of the lectures. Be a time management freak and schedule yourself to the nth degree to get the stuff done on time.

29-A Venture Concept No. 2

29-A Venture Concept No. 2

Safety Parking Lot Painting

Opportunity: Who has the need, or are the potential customer, are businesses that are losing their customers because they have unsafe parking lots.  The forces of change that comes from this is that their customers are tired of having to park far away from the door because they cannot park in a perpendicular parking lot, or worry about their car getting hit, or door-dinged while they are in the store.  The nature of this need is that my potential customer needs to find a way to lure their customers back to their store to make sales/money.  The customers are now doing nothing, they are just watching their customers leave the area.  This is not a huge opportunity.  The window of opportunity will only be until all the businesses change to the better parking lot situation.

Innovation: My product is not particularly innovative.  Anyone with the proper kind of cement paint and the ability to design a safe layout can do this job.  Because of this I will need to maintain excellent customer service and keep the prices fairly reasonable to prevent someone coming and stealing my customers. I will go to the customers parking lot and do extensive measurements and then go back to the office and create 60-degree angled, 105-inch wide parking spots in a layout that will use the maximum amount of area and have the most amount of parking spots.  I will then go to the parking lot and strip the old parking spot striping off the concrete.  I will then repaint the spots in the new lay-out.  To prevent loss of business, I will do this mid-week, and only do ¼ of the parking lot of a 4-day period.  I will be charging the customer for cost plus 10% if all material items.  I will charge $750 per day for the labor and cost of machinery usage.  I am predicting that they average cost for an average sized parking lot will be about $5000 over 4 days of work and 1.5 days of planning.  

Venture Concept: What are the reasons customers will buy my product is because they realize that they need their customers to return to their stores.  It will be pretty hard to get customers to buy my service.  Most businesses do not feel, or even give the parking lot a second glance so it will be tough to sell them on this idea.  I could not find any competitors that redesigned parking lots, but I found a couple of parking lot painters.  Their weakness is they are not addressing the real issue, the safety issue of the kind of parking spaces that are in the lot. Price points will be important to get a customer on board.  Because most businesses do not care about the parking lot it will take a great deal to sell them, so a good fair price might make a difference between a sale and no sale. I figure I will need 3 employees. When stripping the old parking lot striping, and then repainting the new layout striping, I figure 3 people will be needed to do this in the allotted four-day period. 

My most important resource will be using my ability to sell a chicken an egg.  

I have no plans to stay in this business long enough to create or do any other kind of product.  

Plans for me are to retire and travel the world.  I started this venture to save money to travel the world.  When I get enough money, I will try to sell the business off and begin my trek to travel the world.

What I changed: Feedback for me was that my price may have been too high.  I reevaluated how many employees I would need and went from 4 to 3 which brought the price down to $5000.  Even after looking at new ideas, I realize that I truly do not love this business and all the effort it requires and I am definitely selling it to someone.