Week 14 Reading Reflection

1)      What was the biggest surprise for you in the reading? In other words, what did you read that stood out the most as different from your expectations?

The biggest surprise of Chapter 4 was how the author describes social entrepreneurship. I was not aware of the existence of this type of entrepreneurship and all the components that make up this term. By the other hand, I was surprised by the three main components that compromise Corporate Entrepreneurship, which are strategic renewal, innovation and corporate venturing. After reading this chapters I realized how important innovation is for an entrepreneur, not only in some stages of the business, but it a continuous basis.

2)      Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.

The author describes his ideas and his knowledge in a way in which it is really hard not to understand. However, I believe that the chart titled “An Integrative Model of Corporate Entrepreneurship Strategy” on Chapter 3 is a little bit confusing

3)      If you were able to ask two questions to the author, what would you ask? Why?

I would ask the author the following two questions:

·         How should an entrepreneur take advantage from all kinds of failure?

·         What is the most common mistake that companies make when dealing with ethical conflicts?

4)      Was there anything you think the author was wrong about? Where do you disagree with what she or he said? How?

I agree with what the author describes. I found these two videos describing how entrepreneurs should see failure and how to manage ethical conflicts.

Google Gold

1)  A discussion of your general approach and strategy to search engine optimization (SEO). What were some of the activities you did for each blog post to pursue SEO?

To pursue SEO, I included a keyword of my post on each image, video or link describing the title of each blog. This really helped me in the way that once this key word was typed in any search engine, my post will appear as a result of the search.

2)  What were your keywords? How did you select those keywords? Did you change or refine your keywords through the semester?

I chose my key words based on each assignment. For example, on the assignment “Celebrating Failure” I included the word “Failure” as my keyword. Any search where the word failure was included will lead to a link to my post.

3)  How did you use social media to enhance your SEO efforts? What your surprises or general impression of using social media to improve your blog's profile? Was social media generally receptive of your blog, or did it get ignored?

I didn’t use social media to enhance my SEO efforts. But even thought I didn’t use this valuable resource, the links I provided on each comment where very useful as I received 600 views over the past 3 months.

4)  What was your most "viral" post? In other words, which post obtained the most traffic? Why do you think?

My most viral post was titled “How to Find Your Best Customers - The Twenty Percent: Boca Fiesta”, which obtained 20 views. I believe that it received that many views because I included Boca Fiesta as my Key word for this assignment and people looking for this well known bar could find a link to my post too.

5)  Finally, did you make it to the first page of Google results for your keywords? If not, what page of results did you make it to?

In most cases my post was included in the second page of google results, but it has never being on the first page.

Week 13 Reading Reflection

1)      What was the biggest surprise for you in the reading? In other words, what did you read that stood out the most as different from your expectations?

What surprised me the most in the reading was all the different resources and the checklist for analyzing a business? I was not aware of all the different options of evaluating a company, which is really helpful for any business.

2)      Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.

I was confused by the similarities that “the checklist for analyzing a business” and “the methods for venture valuation “have.  Believe that the author could provide a detailed description of these two points in order to help the reader to understand the concept in a better way

3)      If you were able to ask two questions to the author, what would you ask? Why?

I would ask the following questions:

-          When analyzing a new venture, what should be the best alternatives to use in order to have the most accurate results?

-          What are the most common mistakes that occur when evaluating a company and how can they be avoided?

-          These two questions will provide the reader a better understanding of how real life problems are solved using methods described in this chapter.

4)      Was there anything you think the author was wrong about? Where do you disagree with what she or he said? How?

I believe that this chapter was one of the most complete chapters, also explained with more detail than others. I don’t believe there is something where the author was wrong about in this chapter.

Celebrating Failure

Failure is part of our lives on everything we do. I believe that if we will be successful in everything we propose to ourselves, life will not be as challenging and beautiful as it is. This past semester was my first semester as a gator and the transition from another college to a huge University was amazing, but at the same time overwhelming.

Last semester, I failed on reaching for additional resources focused on helping students to be successful in classes, and the reason why this happened was mainly because I didn’t know about tutors and academic helpers. As I was not aware of the magnitude of difficulty of taking a test in UF, and coming from Santa Fe College where all the environment is different in all senses, I failed on my first exams.

What I learned from this experience is that we must look for resources and go out and ask for help when we need it. There are plenty of resources that can be really helpful not only for school, but for any issue we might have.

I figured out that I was really selfish and egocentric just because I thought that I didn’t needed help from others to be successful in college. 

After realizing this, I decided to change that way of thinking and then I decided to go out and look for help. This class has being a amazing for me because I learned that there is no such a thing as being a failure, and that we must know that dealing with failure is the only path to success. I am definitely more likely to take a risk now because now I know that we miss 100% of the shots we don’t take which shows that there is always a chance of success.

My Exit Strategy

Everything in our lives comes to an end. Even our own lives ends as soon as we die. Therefore, it is essential for us to plan how are we going to take the best from our lives and, if we can, in what circumstances we will be when we die. The same applies to our relationship with our business plan, but in this case, we can dictate the life of our venture even after we die.

The Exit strategy that I plan to make will be based on the results of my venture. It is really hard to make an assumption and decide to sell, close or continue with the venture when we don’t have any results we can base our decisions on. For Example, what if I say today that I plan to sell the business 5 years from now, and during these 5 years I am really successful with the business and continue working on it will be beneficial for me. Or by the other hand, what if I say that I want to keep the business and leave it as a family business, but after 5 years, I don’t see positive results from the venture, and keep trying and pushing will only cause my bankruptcy. In both of these cases, I will have to modify the type of exit that I was expecting.

However, choosing the exit strategy of our business in an early stage will help us to follow the path that we trace ourselves. This is the reason why I want to sell my business 8 years from now. This specific time will help me gain experience and also work on my full potential for my business at a relative young age. I will work hard and invest my time, money and effort on building and shaping my venture, and I expect that 8 years from now all this effort and commitment will pay off.

This exit strategy helps me to focus on obtaining positive results in the long and in the short run. But I believe that it is critical not only for me as an entrepreneur, but also for other entrepreneurs to understand that planning an exit will definitely help us shape the type of business that we want, but we must also understand that the exit strategy must be volatile and flexible if something unexpected occurs.

I found this video describing three basic exit strategies which helped me to understand the exit strategy concept in a better way.

What's Next?

Existing market

What’s Next?

After being on the market for about a year, The Gator Spotter will be focused on helping its customers to not only save time, but save money too! With this in mind, my smartphone application will send text messages and/or notifications every Monday and Friday morning regarding the sports events of all the Gators teams, big discounts on restaurants and stores in Gainesville. What will make my app unique is that it will always be focused on helping the customers manage their time while using public transportation. This being said, The Gator Spotter will also let you know how to get there (to the restaurant, stadium or bar) using the Bus!

Interviewees

What should we be doing that we aren't planning to do?

What do you think my potential customers might want next?

New Market

A market that would be completely different from the one already targeted will be people who are older than 60 years old and who are not aware of all the process of downloading and using a smartphone application.

How could my venture be able to help these people?

My venture will be able to help this people by introducing a new way of communication with them. This opens the possibilities to many different ways of helping them manage their time. In essence, my business venture will be focused on helping them manage their time.

Interviewees from the new market

The following interviewees suggested me different aspect that could add value to my business plan. They are students from high school and Santa Fe College, which makes them an untargeted market for my business.

Reflection

Having suggestions and advice from people that are not included on my targeted market helps me to focus on different ways that I can apply to in the future to build what could be next for my business.