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.

28-A Your Exit Strategy

28-A Your Exit Strategy

WOOHOOO it is exit strategy time. I plan on selling my business in less than 5 years, at a loss most likely.  In fact the sooner sold the better for me.  I selected this option because I did not enjoy my business.  I thought there was going to be good money in it, that it would be easy to sell my plans.  I found that being outside gave me skin cancer.  I found that the smell of paint is awful and stays with you all day, every day. I found that dealing with owners of parking lots, who did not care one wit about the customer that pulled into their parking lot, was no picnic and I are impervious to a good sales pitch.  

Because I was unhappy in my business, I found it hard to recognize opportunity.  It took one of my interviewees to give me the idea to find other business opportunities of painting on concrete.  I was unable to think past my parking lot issue.  I think because it was so hard to sell businesses on the idea, I felt that I was a failure at selling and thus, I would not be able to sell anything else.   I do also have to say this exercise made me think long and hard about a future, real life, business venture my husband and I were looking to take on in about 10 years.  I fear, that doing what we planned to do, would make us hate as a business what we love so much right now as a hobby.  I knew it was hard to be an entrepreneur, and now I realize it can make you hate what you love, because it is so hard to do.

26-A Celebrating Failure

26-A Celebrating Failure

Where I have failed a lot in the last two semesters is reading.  I love to read, but it turns out I do not appreciate reading non-fiction, informational overload books.  In the spring I had three classes that all required reading a textbook.  I would sit down daily and try to read, but would fall asleep every time.  I do work 40-45 hours per week in retail in a position that requires a lot of labor.  But I can read books I am interested in with no problem of ever thinking of tiredness or sleepiness.  I enjoyed the first book this semester of Steve Jobs. I had always wanted to read about him, so I got through that book easily.  But the other two books for this class, I read the first chapter and it took so many tries to get through because I was falling asleep I simply gave up.  I am so grateful there was no textbook to read for this class because I know I would have failed at that too.  

I have not really learned anything from it, other than realizing that I have an issue.  I mean, I have learned it is costly for my grades when I do not score well on tests because of not reading the textbooks.  

In my reflection of this failure, it makes me feel like I am inadequate.  I handle failure very poorly.  I blame myself and call myself stupid, or ignorant.  I take it hard; I take it personally.  I make all kinds of vows to fix it.  But if no one holds me accountable, I will continue to make the same mistake over and over again.  

This class has taught me that taking a risk may cause unhappiness.  I thought my business idea was a grand one.  Who likes small parking spaces—no one—I thought it would be easy to fix the problem.  But it was not easy.  Because the people who could fix the issue, were not the ones having the problem, thus they had no need to fix the problem and selling the idea to these people was like selling hot chocolate to people in the desert.  I would definitely NOT be one to take risks because of what I learned in this class.  I may have to work for a boss who has 100% say over what I can and cannot do, but I will not have to worry about where my next paycheck is coming from.

25-A What’s Next?

25-A What’s Next?

I am really through with this business venture, it turned out to not be something I loved.  In fact, I learned I hated being outside all the time. I want to sell.  However I will need some more money before I can travel the world so I am hoping to find some odd jobs.  I am off to interview my people.

·    Interview 1: One of my early interviewees, recommended that I look into painting the house numbers on the street curbs in my residential area.  It would be a good way to pick up a small amount of cash and would be fairly inexpensive of an investment.  

Interview 2: suggested that I needed to add specific kinds of parking spots for my lots.  Such as Electric car spots, Veteran spots, Pick-up spots, compact car, etc.  

Interview 3: suggested that I remember to put in crosswalks in the business when I am laying out their parking lot. 

I am currently looking into three different areas for a new market.  

I am most excited about partnering with local industrial/assembly/production plants and helping them plan the layout of the inside of their facilities according to 5’S Lean

I am also looking at partnering with local hospitals and making sure their helicopter landing pads are in good working order.  

I am also looking into going to office type businesses and offering my services for assigned parking.

Honestly, I was unable to interview anyone about these new ventures this week. It took me all week to come up with what else I could do with cement paint.  I have no idea if it is truly a lucrative business idea or not yet.

24-A Venture Concept No. 1

24-A Venture Concept No. 1

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 $1000 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 $7500 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 4 employees. When stripping the old parking lot striping, and then repainting the new layout striping, I figure 4 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.

23-A Your Venture's Unfair Advantage

1. Excellent customer service skills.

            Valuable: Yes.  This is not something everyone can do.  

            Rare: No.  While not everyone can do it, it can be taught easily.

            Inimitable: Yes.  Again, many can mimic excellent customer service.

            Non-substitutable: No.  You can never substitute excellent customer service.

2. Good salesperson.

            Valuable: Yes.  A good salesman is hard to come by.

            Rare: Yes.  A good salesman is hard to come by.

            Inimitable: Yes. It can be taught, so theoretically others can do it, but it is not easy.

            Non-substitutable: No.  A salesman is needed to get those customers to purchase.

3. 401(k) to use for startup.

            Valuable: sort of.  It gives me the ability to get started quickly and not have to save.

            Rare: no.  anyone can use their 401(k)

            Inimitable: Yes, anyone can use their 401(k)

            Non-substitutable: Yes, one can start up with other funds, or no funds even.

4. Very little products needed to get started

            Valuable: yes, less money to have to spend to get started

            Rare: no.

            Inimitable: yes

            Non-substitutable: yes

5. College degree in business

            Valuable: yes, gives me an edge that others do not have

            Rare: sort of.  A lot of entrepreneurs do not have one

            Inimitable: yes, anyone can get one

            Non-substitutable: yes, one does not need a degree to start up a business

6. Family support

            Valuable: yes, having that support will help me during tough times

            Rare: yes, not everyone has a family’s support

            Inimitable: yes most do have families that support

            Non-substitutable: yes one does not need ones family support to do this.

7. A large metroplex area to serve

            Valuable: Yes, it gives me more opportunities to make a sale.

            Rare: not really, there are a lot of big metroplexes.

            Inimitable: yes

            Non-substitutable: one could do this without a large metroplex, but it may be hard.

8. 18 years in retail. I know people with bad parking lots.

            Valuable: yes, I have inside people that will be able to connect with me and know me

            Rare: yes, not everyone has inside people in retail

            Inimitable: no.  My network is my own

            Non-substitutable: no, I will need it in the start-up process to get those early people.

9. I am a mom

            Valuable: yes, it gives me the ability to show my customer the mom concerns

            Rare: no, many a mom have concerns in their business ventures

            Inimitable: yes, others in my field can bring in a mom to express safety concerns

            Non-substitutable: yes, any parent or grandparent will have same effect.

10. passion and undying drive to get it done.

            Valuable: not really, it might help stay the distance

            Rare: no, most entrepreneurs have this same passion and drive

            Inimitable: yes, everyone can have this drive

            Non-substitutable: yes, you can still start a company with no drive.

My most valuable resource is being a great salesperson.  This is going to be the most important thing that will need to be done for the business, selling that parking lot change!!

22-A Elevator Pitch No. 3

the pitch

reflection: I was told to bring my pitch inside and get out of the wind.  Because I had to come inside I cannot be dynamic because of lack of space.  I assure you though I am standing :)

what did I change:  I came inside and redid the pitch with the same wording.

19-A Second Shot at Idea Napkin No. 2

I am Shae.  I am a 46-year-old wife of 28 years to my high school sweetheart. We had 5 fabulous kids that are all grown and raised now.  I am now fulfilling a dream of getting my college degree, thanks to my company paying for it 100%.  I have people skills that are out of this world.  My years of retail have helped me hone my people/customer service skills to perfection. I am a leader who likes to lead, not boss people around.  I would rather be working alongside my associates than telling them what to do and sitting on my butt watching them.  My hobbies include a love of quilting and reading a good book snuggled underneath a cozy quilt. My aspirations in life is to become wealthy so I can travel the world and see different cultures and landscapes.  This crazy business idea would make a great side job to get the savings going so I can achieve that world travel goal.

I am offering my customers a way to get customers back into their parking lots, literally.  I want to make parking spaces easier to navigate into and out of, and around in.  I will come in survey the entire parking lot and make a plan to use the maximum amount of space to give the maximum amount of parking spots in the safest way possible. I will remove old paint and restripe the entire lot appropriately.

My customers are businesses who have lost customers because of unsafe parking spots.  I will focus on customers that are within a 25-mile radius of my home which includes roughly 25 different cities.  I am mostly looking for older parking lots that need my customers will easily agree to update to appeal to their customers.

My customers will buy my services to get customers back into their store so they can make money.  

My secret sauce is my ability to win over the customer with my knowledge of what customers want through my years of customer service.  

These elements fit together and if I can convince the customer that their customers are leaving their businesses going elsewhere because they do not have time to waste having to park further away to avoid possible car damage.  

Feedback Memo:  I took away the fact that many of my comments continually complain that it is a waste of time to have poorly designed car lots for them.  They have to park further out to avoid damage. Or the miss out on a spot because someone in a bigger vehicle made the spot un-parkable because they parked incorrectly in the already narrow space.

18-A Create a Customer Avatar

My prototypical customer is an upper management 50-55-year-old man.  He is twice divorced and has two kids from each marriage. His kids ages range from 20 down to 5.   He recently married his third wife who is only 30 years old.  He has a college degree from the state university where he partied hard and got just average grades.  He drives the lowest priced Mercedes c250, those child support payments keep him from his dream car, a Porsche 911.  He plays golf every Friday at 2pm with his fellow club members.  He is an avid ESPN sports center watcher.  He is a die-hard republican and voted wholeheartedly for Trump.  He reads self-improvement books hoping to find a way to get better at what he does.  

My prototypical customer and I have only a love of sports in common.  My customer and I will never see eye to eye on anything and will not be able to have a very good conversation aside from the business at hand.  I feel this customer cares more about making money than he does about the safety of the cars in his parking lot.  

17-A Elevator Pitch No. 2

Last time I was told that my hook was good.  I was not really satisfied with how well it would hook someone in so I changed it up a bit, but kept the idea the same.

I was asked how the customers would know that the business had changed their parking lot layouts o I added that my business would provide signage so customers could see that things were changing.

P.S. I apologize for the wind and the loud noise outside.  I had no where else to be go that was not a web cam.  I also had no way of putting up prompts to be able to not have to show I was reading my note cards, because the wind was kind of strong today.

16-A What’s Your Secret Sauce

16-A What’s Your Secret Sauce

Describe five ways in which you think you have human capital that is truly unique:

My experiences: 

Motherhood.  I raised 5 kids.  

Stayed in my retail job for 18 years.  I have perfected customer service skills to a tee.  

Marriage for 28 years. I have learned how to work well with someone else for a long period of time.  

My skills:

Sewing.  I can sew and make beautiful quilts.  I know how to teach to others this skill. 

Craftiness.  I am good at being creative.

Leader.  I am not afraid to be the one to lead a group. I take control frequently when leadership lacks.

My emotions:

Passionate.  When I am involved in something, I show strong feelings for it and care a great deal

Obsessive.  When I am involved in something, I become obsessed with it because I want it to be perfect.

Anger: When something goes wrong I am usually quick to anger because I will feel like I did not give it my all, or that someone else did not care as much as I did about it.

I interviewed 4 of my kids, the fifth does not live at home and I do not know how to record via the phone.  I also interviewed my husband.

My youngest daughter Rayven told me that I taught people by my wording of things, and how patient I am.  https://vocaroo.com/i/s15fVCbM5rW4

My youngest son Dakota surprised me with my ability to detect someones emotional state of mind even before they know of their state of mind.  And at the very end he mentioned my acceptance of people.  https://vocaroo.com/i/s0AOP7awYH7o

My oldest daughter Kiyah reminded me that I have a strong sense of putting other people's needs first and being sure they are at their best. https://vocaroo.com/i/s1czRtkRCLcF

My oldest son Michael described me as the Momma I am and how I have this ability to bring people close to me because I display momma like qualities. https://vocaroo.com/i/s1k7CnKGCSTN

My husband of 28 years Scott said I had a tenacious drive to get things done right and a moral center that the rest of the world is lacking. https://vocaroo.com/i/s0yewZbFQuvf

I found it interesting that the kids all noted how motherly I was and how my husband noted how I worked hard to make things perfect.  I think they pretty much nailed how I felt about myself.

15-A Figuring out Buyer Behavior No. 2

15-A Figuring out Buyer Behavior No. 2

My customers want good quality service for a good price.  They felt both were important for them to purchase.  One said that if he had to choose between price or quality, he felt that he would choose price, because a paint job is a paint job and so whoever could do it cheapest would earn his business.  

My customers would choose to pay via financing.  My pricing for removing old painted parking spaces and repainting new ones, as well as the survey will reach upwards of $7500 so my three interviewees said that was definitely a financing purchase.

The post purchase evaluation was a bit tough to nail down in my interviewees.  One said as long as he had customers coming in, he would deem it a good choice.  The other said he would not really like having to redo his parking lot, so he would never really feel good about the purchase.  The final interviewee said he felt he could not really give me a good answer. 

I think it is important to make sure that I do a great job of meeting their needs to ensure that post purchase evaluation comes back positive.  I think the most important impact on a customer is this after purchase evaluation.

14-A Halfway Reflection

14-A Halfway Reflection

1 Tenaciousness is a competency:  This class has me struggling horribly.  I work full time and have another class this summer.  The sheer magnitude of the amount of work due every week makes me have to budget my time down to the nth degree.  I spend more time “schooling” with this one class than I have with any other class I have taken.  I work, come home and work on the assignments, watch the lectures and then try to find more time to read the future reading requirement, and plot out where I am going to go to interview people for the particular assignment due. 

2. Tenaciousness is also about attitude:I have hated this course since about week three. The big giving up moment was on assignment 9-A.  Some kind of glitch made my assignment not go through and I lost all the points for that assignment.  When I asked for help to fix it, I was sent to the help desk who refused to do anything. When I went back to the TA, she refused to look into anything to see what glitch could have happened.  No one cared that something went wrong, and I lost out.  I wanted to throw my hands up and walk away.  The only thing that pulls me through is that I know that no matter what I have to take this class, and there will never be a time I can take it and make it while working full time.  So, I just power through week by week.  To know that this is the half way point makes me smile.  My strong work ethic is what contributes to this attitude.  If I just keep on trucking, eventually it will end. I may not get a good grade, but at this point I just want to pass it and never have to look at it again.

3. Three tips: 

Fostering:

     1)  You will need your people skills to get those good interviews to be able to do the assignments

     2)  you will need your time management skills to be able to do everything required

     3)  find your perseverance skills and cherish them because you will need them to make it through the 12 weeks. 

  

Developing:

     1)  Dig your heels in and grit your teeth and just start counting the days.  

     2) Quite literally take it one assignment at a time.  

     3)  Also, be tenacious about taking pictures when you submit an assignment so you will have proof it was submitted. 

13-A Reading Reflection No. 1

13-A Reading Reflection No. 1

I read “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson

What surprised you the most?  Steve Jobs was an asshole.  I had no idea.  I guess I did not become aware of him until the iPhone came out and he was all in my face, because my son, who was 10 at the time, watched everything he could about the iPhone.  I thought he was such a wonderful person, but he was really a cruel, ruthless asshole

What about the entrepreneur did you most admire? His attention to detail and insane desire to make sure it was perfect.  I think, and Walter implies it frequently in the book, Jobs’ attention to detail is what made him successful. 

What about the entrepreneur did you least admire?  What he did to people who he felt were inferior to him.  He was a ruthless man.  Even people who helped him in times of great need, who gave him money when he needed, support when he needed it, he would cut them out of stock options, bonuses.  He was just a man that seemed to not care how he hurt anyone in his way.

Did the entrepreneur encounter adversity and failure?  Oh yes, he did.  He was essentially voted out of his first company, Apple, because of his horrible people skills, his constant berating of people and his inability to lead properly.  He was so angry that he went out and created a new company, NeXT, which 11 years later Apple bought NeXT because the failed at a software system upgrade and needed something quickly and Steve Jobs made them think he had it.

What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited? Jobs was really good at being able to see the value of something and then be able to market it to people.  When he marketed Woz’s Blue Box free long-distance phone call product, I was amazed.

Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you:  I did not understand why Job’s left Kottle out of stock shares.  Daniel Kottle was there with him from the get-go and helped him out in so many ways.  It was confusing and I felt like something was missing on why he denied Kottle those shares.

If you were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur, what would you ask? Why?

1.  You want to leave a legacy where people are motivated to make great products, everything else being secondary, including profits.  I want to know if you feel after your death the company will continue with this legacy or if they will lose it quickly?

2.  Are you are of your reality distortion field?  If so did you intentionally use it to be hurtful or set someone up for failure? 

For Fun: What do you think the entrepreneur’s opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion? Jobs truly believed in hard work.  He was never afraid to get in and work hard to get things done.  In fact, in the book, he talks about to build a company you had to do the hardest work ever.  I share his opinion.  IF you want something to succeed you have to work your butt off for it.