30A - Final Reflection

1.  After thinking about this course throughout the semester, I have definitely learned a lot about different things.  It was fun reading different writings and looking at other students posts.  It made it interesting to see the creative ideas that people come up with so that was good to see.  I did have some bad times like when I had a lot of assignments due on the same day after a week of procrastination early on in the semester.  It taught me to plan ahead and look at the assignments ahead of time to avoid the last minute cram which I applied to this class and others.

2.  The most formative experience for me during this course was designing my idea.  It was cool to analyze and create each part of the business and I learned a lot of things about it that I did not know were possible. I am proud that I kept up with deadlines and tried to make the most of the course to learn more about how to be a successful entrepreneur.

3.  I have definitely developed a much stronger entrepreneurial mindset throughout this class because of the weekly assignments that make me work on it.  I definitely have moved closer to being a true entrepreneur and have learned a lot about what it takes to become successful.  It stressed the importance that failure is normal and that overcoming failure is what makes people successful.

4.  I would recommend that students who take this class to try to compare what is being done in the course to their everyday life because it will become easier to see ways to implement these in everyday life.  I think they should focus on completing each assignment with effort and not procrastinating.

29A - Venture Concept No. 2

Opportunity: 

My creative opportunity is designed to create a different bus lane to on the side of the road to help decrease traffic around the University of Florida campus.  People are always complaining about the horrendous traffic around campus because of the many cars, scooters, and most importantly busses.  The bus system that works with UF campus works in a way where the bus stops traffic in the lane to drop off or pick up people.  This completely disrupts the flow of traffic because everyone behind the bus has to stop and wait.  On the busier roads like Museum, 13th, and University Ave the traffic can be very bad in the afternoon.  This causes people to be late for class unexpectedly which is obviously a huge concern. My design would help the community by primarily targeting students, but also the faculty and anyone else who may be in Gainesville. 

This is a huge potential opportunity because it would solve an issue that many students are faced with, but with that being said it would need a lot of support dealing with financial and community support.  It has the ability to do that because of how helpful it would be for everyone.  The idea of introducing a third lane for busses to the right of the normal lane would provide speedy drop-off and pick up for everyone using the bus system.  This idea will be open for as long as people use buses as a method of transportation. It is safe to say that will be a long ways ahead so the time for this to be implemented does not affect the idea.  Right now customers are not doing much to solve this issue.  They have to leave much earlier than they should to get to class because of the ridiculous traffic.  The customers will be loyal to this if it becomes a reality because they will realize how much faster they can commute compared to waiting in traffic every time they try to use the roads.

Innovation:  

The big idea here is to decrease traffic by adding a third lane to the street for buses only.  This lane would be placed to the right of the normal lane and would only be used by busses so that it would remove them from the real road.  This gives cars and scooters much faster routes on the roads that allow them to move quickly.  It would get rid of the annoying instances of waiting behind a bus as people get off and then get on when you have class in 5 minutes.  The monetary side of this would be figuring out a method to universally pay for the road as it would serve the needs of everyone.  Also to make the cost to use the bus system slightly more expensive in the tuition fees because it will dramatically help the traffic.  This is a very important part of our potential success so my team has to figure this out.

Venture Concept:

This concept will lower the traffic that is seen on the roads of campus.  Customers will enjoy the concept of the idea because it is unique and has more positives than negative. Everyone will enjoy not having to leave extra early in order to arrive somewhere and now can plan their day more effectively. There are no competitors that want to do something like this, but rather the bus system themselves may try to hamper this.  On one side they could really enjoy the idea because it would help them too.  This would allow them to move people much faster and efficiently than ever before and they do not have to be bothered by other vehicles in their lane.  On the other hand, they may complain about fixing something that is not broken, but the matter of the fact is that it needs to be changed.  The price of this is still to be determined because it needs more research to find a perfect price that would capture the interests of the general public.  If it is too high then it could turn people off to the idea and we could lose our chance at success.  I would organize this business as a college traffic integration team because it would begin at UF and then possibly move onto more schools that share the same problem.  This idea has a lot of potentials and with the right pieces in place, it could be a great success.

2.  After reading the feedback from my first venture concept it helped me create this one.  I received a lot of good feedback that said they liked the idea of including a possible third bus lane.  Another said they enjoyed how I expanded on the first venture idea concept and did not cross relate anything which I thought was a good comment.  Also, I received some good feedback when someone said that my secret sauce could be the bus routes that are taken.  This was different than what I initially wrote but I like this feedback because it gives me another perspective on the idea.  I think it is good to get different ideas from people because positive feedback all the time is not good because it will help improve the business.

3.  In this second venture concept, I changed some smaller things in each to help make my idea clearer and provide the readers with a good understanding of what I am trying to accomplish.  My concept was solid from the first time around so I did not have to do a lot of concept changes which is good, but I still had to change it to make it a stronger venture concept idea.  I received some positive feedback so I wanted to keep the heart of soul of my original idea to keep the essence of the business idea.

4.  

28A- Your Exit Strategy

1. I plan on staying connected with my business for many years to come because I know colleges will still be out there and if anything is growing larger.  Transportation may even become a bigger deal so I may look at it as a business that I can pass down to my children if it proves to be a big success.

2. I have selected this strategy because it seems like the smartest one for my particular situation.  If it becomes successful it will be easy to maintain and be beneficial for my family.  It also has positive signs that other schools may be inclined to look into.

3.  I think my idea causes me to look more into the daily lives of people who walk around the campus because those are the people directly affected.  It has definitely influenced how I think of different things which is good for an idea of this sort.

27A - Reading Reflection 3

For this third reflection, I chose to read "Innovation and Entrepreneurship" by Peter Drucker.

1. The theme of this book is about how an entrepreneur uses innovation to help facilitate the big idea. He breaks down three types of innovations and explains how important they are to the process: practicing innovation, practicing entrepreneurship, and practicing strategies.  He speaks about how people have to always be ready to innovate and it takes creativity.

2.  This book definitely relates to this course because in this class our whole idea is based on innovation.  We have had several assignments that made us use innovative ideas to try to create a product or service that worked.  It took a lot of out of the book thinking that this book talks about.

3.  If I were to create an assignment regarding this book it would to be find five popular services or items and find a way to innovate them.  This would be good because it would force people to be creative and work on their innovating skills.  People can still innovate in areas that others think it cannot be done.

4.  The whole book kind of opened up my eyes to how important innovation is with everything.  It is not really talked about as much as other things but it seems to be just as important because it is the basis of everything that is a success nowadays.

26A - Celebrating Failure

1.  Last semester I was taking Statistics class and I completely underestimated how hard it was going to be.  I ended up having to use my first class drop on this course because I barely studied for the exams.  I thought it would be easy since I was good at statistics in high school.  It turns out that I needed to study much longer than I believed.

2.  I learned that I cannot be overconfident when taking a class because it can come back to bite you.  Once I studied more in advance it made me feel better about the test and helped me get the score I deserved.

3. I think failure is needed because it helps a person learn more about themselves.  It lets them build up problem-solving skills that are needed to help find success.  There is no success without failure.  This class has allowed me to better think through my steps of life and take chances on things outside of my comfort zone because I know I can learn from them.

25A - What's Next?

Existing Market:

1. I think the next step for my idea is to figure out the way that it will be funded.  This is very important because without money this idea will be useless.  This should be fulfilled, but before this, it is important to focus on the aspects that would make this a great idea.  The next step is measuring the roads and planning a test model to display where the bus lanes would be placed around campus.

2. I interviewed a sophomore male student and he believed that the next step should be talking to the bus drivers to see how they feel about this idea.  He thinks its a good idea but thinks that they need to be on board in order for it to be successful.  I also interviewed a freshman girl and she is already fed up with the traffic.  She said I should try to talk to UF to implement this as soon as possible.  She said to keep refining the idea and then go ahead to get confirmation from the school itself.  The third interview was a senior male and he said I should focus on partnering up with people in different fields rather than business so they can help me on the parts of the business that I am unfamiliar with.  I think this is a great idea.

3. I think getting different partners on my development team would be important because they can provide the technical insight of construction or the road system that I do not know.  I could provide the business aspect because I am a finance major so it would be a perfect combination.  Getting a strong core is key as it will be set the base for the entire operation so that is why I believe this is the most important aspect that I would need to do in the near future.

New Market:

1.  Considering I am a B2C company right now if I were to radically switch to a B2B I would then try to work with the school.  It would contain the University of Florida and then my idea that would be doing business together.

2.  The ways I see this benefiting UF is that it would help the faculty move to work much quicker which I am sure they would enjoy.  It would also have them get good reviews as people would be much happier overall.

3. My first interview was a worker at Southwest gym and she said that we should potentially create an idea that would combine the bus system with the gym and only shuttle people going to and from the gym.  This could be interesting and actually be useful.  My second interview was a worker at the infirmary and she said potentially shuttling people who are sick.  This is a creative idea that would work as a service for certain things.

4. I think the next step would be to start to talk to the faculty of UF and get more insight into how I should go about the business.  It could be beneficial to find a way to do business with the schools and I think if this idea grows it could work at a lot of schools.

24A - Venture Concept No. 1

Opportunity: 

My opportunity is designed to create an alternative bus lane to decrease traffic around the University of Florida campus.  People often complain about the horrendous traffic around campus because of the many cars, scooters, and most importantly busses.  The bus system on and around campus works in a way where the bus stops traffic in the lane to drop off or pick up people.  This completely destroys the flow of traffic because everyone behind the bus has to stop.  On the busier roads like Museum, 13th, and University Ave the traffic can be very bad in the afternoon.  This causes people to be late for class unexpectedly which is obviously a huge concern. My design would help the community by primarily targeting students, but also the faculty and anyone else who may be in Gainesville. 

This is a big opportunity because it would solve a problem that many people face, but with that said it would need a lot of financial and community support.  It has the ability to do that because of how helpful it would be for everyone.  The idea of introducing a third lane for busses to the right of the normal lane would provide speedy drop-off and pick up for everyone using the bus system.  This idea will be open for as long as people use buses as a method of transportation. It is safe to say that will be a long ways ahead so the time for this to be implemented does not affect the idea.  Right now customers are not doing much to solve this issue.  They have to leave much earlier than they should to get to class because of the ridiculous traffic.  The customers will be loyal to this if it becomes a reality because they will realize how much faster they can commute compared to waiting in traffic every time they try to use the roads.

Innovation:  

The big idea here is to create a lane strictly for the bus system.  This lane would be placed to the right of the normal lane and would only be used by busses so that it would remove them from the real road.  This would give cars and scooters more freedom and a better flow of traffic on the roads.  It would get rid of the annoying instances of waiting behind a bus as people get off and then get on when you have class in 5 minutes.  The monetary side of this would be finding a way to get people to universally pay for the road as it would serve the needs of everyone.  Also to make the cost to use the bus system slightly more expensive in the tuition fees because it will dramatically help the traffic.  This is the part where I need to figure out the details on how it would be financially backed.

Venture Concept:

This concept will decrease the traffic on the roads near campus.  Customers will definitely switch to this idea because it only has benefits.  Everyone will enjoy not having to leave extra early in order to arrive somewhere and now can plan their day more effectively. There are no competitors that want to do something like this, but rather the bus system themselves may try to hamper this.  On one hand, they could enjoy this idea because it would allow them to move faster.  This would allow them to commute people much faster and efficiently and do not have to be bothered by other vehicles in their lane.  On the other hand, they may complain about fixing something that is not broken, but the matter of the fact is that it needs to be changed.  The price point would have to be investigated because that will change the views of the people who will be funding it.  If it is too high then they will dislike it so it has to be the perfect price point.  I would organize this business as a school traffic maintenance team because it would start at UF and then potentially move to other schools that may face this problem.  It could be a huge business that is at more than just one school.

My secret sauce would be attending the University of Florida because I am exposed to the traffic on a first hand basis.  It helps being able to see the problem every day because it will allow me and other people affected to create a great product.  It is good to be close to something that you work with so in this case it works well because I am near the roads which I intend to improve.