30A – Final Reflection

Looking back, the most valuable experience I believe I received from these lesson is how easy it is to get started. The sheer amount of opportunities available to me and everyone else astounded me as they were mentioned here and there through the lessons. I guess what I mean, is how easy it is to reach out to local businesses or just local people and ask them for feedback/interpretation of different designs of a tentative business that I have lined up. I do currently see myself as having an entrepreneurial mindset and constantly acknowledging common problems when I run into them, and how they could be made easier.

My number one recommendation for other students that will be starting down this path in the future would be to take what you learn and apply it. Try the things you learn in class in the real world. For best performance in this course, act as if your assignments are due two days early. Saves from stressing and submitting last minute. I don't know what I'd recommend to get in that mindset, because I was usually submitting assignments barely on time, but I'm sure it feels a lot better when you have your work done early.

That about wraps things up. I definitely learned some valuable lessons in this course that I will be using in my future!

29A – Venture Concept No. 2

1. Everyday, more and more businesses try to surpass their limits in order to make it in todays economy. My opportunity stems from the fact that a lot of small and local businesses do not know how to advertise themselves online. This window of opportunity of mine should be here for a long time, as many people need advertisement for their businesses, but my main demographic is small/local businesses that want to develop their business.

The innovation aspect of my business adventure is the fact that my advertisements would all run online. Most local/small business owners don't know a reliable way to advertise online, and many don't even know about all of the potential customers that they're missing out on. With my skills in online advertisement I will be able to show them how much traction my ads receive based off of an analytical analysis, and their businesses should gain more and more customers, making everyone happy.

My secret sauce is taking a wholistic approach to the problem at hand: lack of advertisement. After this venture I want to try to sell physical products, which I will have the money to attempt after creating this business. I don't want to stop with this venture, so my exit strategy is to have this become a relatively passive income as I ads for businesses while getting paid monthly to do so.

2. I received zero feedback (meaning zero comments) on my original venture concept post. This directly correlates as to why I did not change very much.

3. Once again, I had 0 feedback, so anything I changed was not from feedback.

4.

28A – Your Exit Strategy

I do not plan on selling my business within 5 years after opening it. Well, that is if things go semi-accordingly to plan. If things end up going haywire and I take a loss but learn something from it, I'll do my best to take it in stride and use my new knowledge to my advantage next time. I want to be able to grow my business, to get larger and larger, to the point where I have executives under me that manage the business, and it acts as a passive income to me. All the while I want to be working on another business set up, which may or may not be less expendable than my first.

This exit strategy brings me the most reward and achievement that I hope for. If i work hard enough, I'm sure that I can launch this advertisement company. It might not be right now, or right after I get my degree, but I will get the experience to launch my company, and be able to being my first successful, large-scale, entrepreneur endeavor.

I think the biggest negative way that my exit strategy has influenced me, would be how I am putting a lot of work into this, and don't have the time or attention to think about what I''l be doing next. However, I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing. If I want something to work, I have to give it my all. The same goes for anyone else. I'm happy that not having a foreseeable plan for after this project allows me to give my full attention to the task at hand.

No, I don't mean that I don't have a backup plan. My backup plan consists of falling back into a regular marketing job, where I don't get to be my own boss. But even if that happens, I'll simply be saving up my mental and physical capital in order to try again. I will keep trying if I have to, and I will run my own business no matter how much I fail.

27A – Reading Reflection No. 3

For my third and final reading reflection, I decided to take a look at "Thinking, Fast and Slow," by Daniel Kahneman. The general theme of this book was how the brain is basically run by two systems that continuously fight for the control of one's behavior. Kahneman goes over how this can lead to errors in decisions, judgement memory, and what someone can do to prevent those things from happening.

This book definitely helped me to take a step back, and see when I should use what kind of thinking. I was taught that there are times where one should follow the fast feeling and ideas of insightful instinct, but there are also opportunities that are better handled once they are well thought over. This plays in very well with what I've learned in this class, and I would describe it as uncovering lessons that were taught through this class, but not extremely focused on.

An exercise I would use for this class, stemming from this book, would be making a list of predicaments/problems and having the students answer how they would react and what kind of thinking they would use to solve each individual problem.


My biggest "aha" moment while reading this book was when Kahneman explained that the two systems of behavior in everyone's mind was an instinctual "automatic" type, and then a thought out, "conscious" type of thinking. I remember learning this before, but I never really understood what it meant until Kahneman explained it throughout the book. Every decision anyone makes can be categorized into either behavioral system, and there are ways to exploit that by deciding when to use one type of thinking vs the other.

26A – Celebrating Failure

ds

This past semester was a wild ride, and my first semester under the Heavener School of Business. I severely underrated how difficult the class I would be taking for my new major would be. I switched over from working on a bachelors degree of science in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at UF to a Finance degree offered by UF's business school. I was expecting a much easier schedule and workload now that I had switched out of CLAS and into something that seemed more graspable.

I shortly learned that I had a lot more to look out for than what I originally accounted for. The classes that I am taking are much harder than I expected, going from taking Genetics last semester to Microeconomics is definitely harder than I expected. I didn't really have to try that hard in high school economics and never worried about it because I expected to go into the medical field. Now that I'm in Finance, I realize that these kinds of courses can be just as hard if not harder, than the science classes I have been enrolled in.

I am not failing any classes at all, but I thought I would be able to ace my courses for this semester> Currently, it seems that I will be proven wrong. I am working as hard as I can to raise my grades to where I want them to be, all because I didn't take some classes as seriously as I should have earlier this semester. I'm sure I can reach the grades I want as long as I work hard enough by the end of April.

25A – What’s Next?

Existing Market:


1
I believe expanding to reach more customers and even finding a niche in local online advertisement could be where I want to go.

2
Due to the immediate circumstances of the world being in a pandemic, I was only able to reach out to one person that I knew uses a kind of service that I am trying to create. A friend of mine sells products online and advertises through somebody else.

3
All in all, my friend said my endeavor is more about gaining the resources that I need to fulfill my plan. He said that I need to start working on getting everything I need out of the way, because planning can only last so long before it is time to take off.


New Market

1
Rather than just looking at local and small businesses as my market, I want to look at local events and the entertainment industry for potential customers.

2
By reaching out to some bands or DJ's, I could offer my ad service free of charge (besides the actual cost of ads) the first time around. I will then show them the increase in attendance from the first show to the latest one where my advertisements were in effect.

3
One again, it is hard to reach people in this pandemic, but I was able to talk to a member of a local band in Gainesville. We talked about the entertainment industry, my plan, and both together.

4
It seems like there will be some pretty large changes in advertising for businesses to advertising for entertainment groups, but not so much that it wouldn't be possible. If I could contact groups that are planning on going to perform in areas that I am familiar with, I would be able to reach out and ask them to let me advertise for them. Once a couple of bands do this, I can get clout by word of mouth and start to build up a reputation for myself.

24A – Venture Concept No. 1

Everyday, more and more local or small businesses push their limits and try to make it in todays economy. My opportunity of business stems from the fact that many of these associations don't know the best way for them to advertise online and reap the most of what thew sow. The fact of the matter is, technology has come so far, that nobody is can be a master at all lengths of technical business skills. Many people specialize in certain areas due to the massive amount of different choices and pathways to learn new and developing online skills. This window of opportunity will be here for a while or might shift in my main demography, but for now, small business owners who have less than average skill in technology, but want to expand their businesses, are my main demography.

In this fast paced time zone of the modern world, technology has brought about countless weird and never before used metas of doing business. Everyone wants to do business online, but how does one stand out to those looking for what they have? Advertisements. Less and less advertisements are being done on television or in the papers, which is because less and less people are going to these sources for entertainment or news. Everyone lives through their smart devices these days, which is where I will help some of the many people in need in getting their name out there. I am selling my knowledge of digital advertisement and analytical review to give the best deal of ads to customers. I will charge $500 a month for a complete ad portfolio of the most trafficked sites online. I will eventually get, let's say, ten customers, and try to find a commonality between some of them in terms of their business. Once I do, I will try to specialize on a common ad-needing business type and basically sell the same funnel of advertisements to different companies.

Combining the above stated opportunity and innovation, my venture concept brings forth a solution to small/local businesses in need of advertisement. Customers desperately want their businesses to do better, but don't always have a younger relative to show them how to do a lot of technical things online. Even if they did, these younger and more adept relatives likely do not know how to deal with advertisements, run analytical statistics on them, or even how to maximize search engine optimization. Since I plan on working with small businesses, customer support/contact is very important. I want to build a bond with my customers and be able to grow towards more and more, until I have a following of enough business owners who pay for ads, to supply my salary. Right now, I would only need myself, and no other employees in my business to do what I want with it. If, in the future, this project begins to expand, I can think about hiring people one at a time as I get more and more clients.

My secret sauce is being able to step back and take a wholistic approach and see that people are more or less the same when it comes to the need of advertisement. After this venture, I want to take a stab at selling a physical product, in general, rather than another service as a bit of a side hustle. Assuming it's five years from now, I want to be making money passively through multiple side hustles online, while I make good money through my ad campaigns as well. This first venture will give me the money and experience I need to move forward.

23A – Your Venture’s Unfair Advantage

List of Resources For My Venture:

• Photoshop skills
• V- for creating ad visuals
• R- not everyone can do it
• I- there are other free softwares similar to photoshop
• N- this basic photo editing skill cannot be replaced
• Facebook/Social media advertisement fluency
• V- integral to advertising online
• R- many don't understand the online ad experience
• I- there are other places where ads can be important such as Amazon
• N- facebook ads are a huge hotspot for ad potential ad traffic
• basic finance
• V- necessary to run my own business
• R- not extremely rare
• I- inimitable
• N- non-substitutional 
• getting noticed locally
• V- a need for a local business advertiser
• R- is possible, kind of rare
• I- need basic clout from area
• N- could be from any area, and I could advertise wherever is easiest
• coding fluency
• V- no 100% necessary in advertisement
• R- many people code or learn to code
• I- nothing replaces coding
• N- nothing replaces coding
• my own website
• V-ads value to my company
• R- very common
• I- can be copied
• N- could just have social media 
• social media account
• V- ads value to company
• R- very common
• I- could be copied
• N- could just have a website
• search engine optimization
• V- extremely important for ads
• R- not everyone selling something knows how to optimize
• I- cannot be imitated
• N- cannot be replaced
• tracking and measuring web traffic ***
• V- extremely important in digital marketing
• R- very rare in terms of local business owners
• I- one of a kind sill
• N- extremely necessary in my field of business
• stylish logo
• V- important to any business
• R- a good logo is hard to make
• I- ir is imitable
• N- can be substituted

Tracking and measuring web traffic is definitely my top resource. My whole business plan revolves around my knowledge of digital analytics and the lack of this knowledge held by small business owners. Without knowing how to see which ads are doing better than others, I would be just as well off as anybody who's trying to advertise online.

22A – Elevator Pitch No. 3

Below is the link to my third elevator pitch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3HFrYsX9xU&feature=youtu.be


I actually didn't get any feedback on my last elevator pitch, so I asked my younger sister what she thought. She said she realizes that I left my dress clothes in Gainesville, but that I could at least try to appear a little bit cleaner and or dressier. So, I borrowed clothes from my brother, and also tried to use my hands a bit more out of my own self critique review.


On this third elevator pitch, I was able to pretty much remember all of my lines besides having to look at a cue card at the side at a few moments as well as a slight slip up on a single word. It's much easier to recite my pitch in front of the camera and feels much less awkward than my first attempt. I believe this is my best pitch yet, but could still stand to improve! :)

21A – Reading Reflection No. 2

I did my second reading reflection on the book "How To Fail At Almost Everything And Still Win Big" by Scott Adams.

This book was generally about how one should first learn to take care of themselves, and then take loss after loss, until they eventually end up winning big. He explains how important it is for a self imposed routine of physical exercise, eating healthy (enough,) and good sleep in order to be successful. Once you get into a system of taking care of your own body, then it becomes easier to increase your potential.

After you physical health is in balance, he went over three basic lessons that explained how he got to be the successful cartoonist he is today: 1. Build your life around systems rather than goals, 2. Look into jobs/careers that you would be most comfortable taking risks in, in order to find the best one, and 3. Use space and time to manage your energy.


This book really connected with me on the health portion of it, as well as steps 1 and 2. I really think everything becomes clearer once you have a good routine in place, full of exercise and sleep. Then with systems, he explains how systems give you room to not lose hope, as goals have an unknown end date that can last seemingly forever and they can be too specific, which can lead to disappointment. Systems allow for you to develop a way of doing things in order to increase your chances of making it big passively over time, rather than waiting day after day for a specific goal that you might not reach. With systems, you can reach potential big wins you'd have never thought of just by using goals.

An exercise I would design for this class would be to as the students to assign themselves a better weekly routine with 7+ hours of sleep, healthier eating, and some moderate exercise a few times a week, and then have them make a blog post about their before and after experience.

What I learned that differed from my expectations the most was how he explained that it didn't matter if you went to bed early and woke up early. Some people wake up early and get productive in the beginning of the day, but other people are better at really getting into gear a bit later in the day. Whatever works best for you, is what you should pursue.