Week 15 Reading Reflection

1. The biggest surprise to me in this reading would be that ten dollars a day in India is considering the lower middle class. This does not seem like much money at all, so it was surprising that so little money would be considering the middle class. I would think that that income would be under the poverty line. 
2. The emotional bias was confusing for me. I do not see how someone who owns and started up their own business could forget what their own objective was. I guess I can kind of see how views can get swayed and distorted, but it is still confusing how they can just forget.
3. What are major distinctions between the four areas of innovation? Are you going to spread out to other countries and not just India? Also, why India?
4. I did not disagree with anything that the author had to say. The Innovation Academy has done a great job at UF of instilling in us students how important and valuable innovation is, so I totally agreed with everything the author had to say. 

Final Reflection

1. For me, this course has had so many highs and lows. There have been so many different experiences. Now that I look back at all of my blog posts, it reminds me of certain assignments that I forgot I even did. The highs for me were the elevator pitches. They were my strong points. I felt that all the work I had put in and researched was coming together in each of my pitches, so they were definitely my high points. My low points were the interviewing assignments. I am not very sociable, so it was kind of hard for me to approach people that I did not know and just make conversation. 
2. The most formative experience for me was interviewing an entrepreneur. I felt that I got the most out of these interviews because I got to actually speak with someone who had been through it all before and knew what they were talking about. I will always remember the experience I had with trying to hand out dollar bills to strangers. I thought it was very interesting that nobody wanted to take my free money that I was giving away. I am most proud of myself for getting into contact with business owners in the markets that I would be dealing with once Beauty To Go started up. That took a lot of time and effort, so I am very proud of that. The most joyous experience was interviewing people that I knew and hearing all the good things that they had to say about me. It was very humbling. 
3. I would not say that I am an an actual entrepreneur now, but I do think that I am much closer to it now than I was before. I feel that throughout this course, I have acquired much needed information and knowledge to get myself on the right track. I don't think that I have it all down, but I do know now that I am capable of doing anything I want. There are so many resources all around us and so many people willing to help me if need be. This course really showed me that. 
4. For any future students taking this course, I would recommend you to take advantage of all of the opportunities you have! Your professor, fellow class members, entrepreneurs all around, etc. They are all willing to help you and are incredible resources. Don't forget that! They will totally ensure that you do well in this course. I would just have a good relationship with your professor and get to know your class mates. Doing all of this will help you to have a good mind set for this course and do the best that you possibly can. 
   

Elevator Pitch No. 4

The feedback I received was all extremely helpful in getting me to where I am with my business concept today. Many individuals asked where we would be providing these services, so I made sure to clarify that. I also added in my "What's Next?" idea because I thought that it would be a great way to bring in additional revenue. I also thought that the addition of eyebrow waxing would be very profitable, so I added that in there. I felt that after all of the feedback, I have become much more confident in my pitch and can better explain what I see in our future.

Venture Concept No 2

1. Opportunity: Beauty To Go has an opportunity with pretty much every person in society. We are offering a mobile salon business that comes to you for all of your beauty needs. Who wouldn’t want to salon to come to them? But more specifically, our target audience will be the elderly, parents, and college students. Most elderly and college students do not have transportation, so our services will make things a lot more convenient for our clients and save them money. Parents will especially benefit from our services because they will not have to bring their children to a salon where things can get hectic. Salons are always have great opportunities because everyone needs a haircut, plus women always need waxing, nails, makeup, etc. We are just adding a huge convenience factor to our company - we come to you!
               Cars are so expensive these days that most college students cannot afford their own ride. The elderly start losing their motor skills and are not able to operate a vehicle anymore, so most do not have their own transportation. Parents usually have busy schedules and crazy lives, so it makes it hard to make time to get to a salon. All of these are forces in our environment that are providing us with this opportunity. There are elderly, colleges, and parents everywhere in the world, so we have a market everywhere. There should be no shortage of clients. We have no defined geographic market because we can service people everywhere. Any race, age, ethnicity, religion, etc.
               As a woman myself, I know that women usually find a hairdresser and nail artist that they like and stick with them for a long time. I have been going to my hairstylist for ten years. People nowadays satisfy their needs by going to the salon because they have no other option. I am confident that we will be able to form a loyal customer base once we get established. People will love how convenient we are and want to keep coming back for more. This opportunity is colossal! We have such a huge client base that its unending. We may have a target audience, but we really offer to anyone. This window of opportunity will continue to be open, until somebody else comes up with this idea. That’s why Beauty To Go needs to be the first one to it. We need to get the ball rolling before this window of opportunity closes.
   Innovation: Beauty To Go’s innovation will be a mobile salon located inside of a van. Our vans will be fully equipped for all house calls. Our services will include haircuts, hair dying, hair styling, manicures, pedicures, acrylic nail application, gel nail polish application, airbrush makeup application, mineral makeup application, and eyebrow waxing. Our prices will be the same as other salons. We will be able to keep our prices low by saving money on a lease. We will have portable manicure and pedicure chairs, as well as portable hair chairs where clients can sit to get their hair done. We will still accept tips. There will be no traveling fee, as we will be saving money on a lease. But our artists will still have to pay a fee to keep their spot on our team, just as they would if they worked at a regular salon. We will charge per service, not by hour. Our services with also include complementary drinks and short massages.These services can be completed inside of our fully equipped vans or in the client's home - whichever they prefer.
   Venture Concept: Our innovation will help to provide everyone’s beauty needs and come to them. This will solve problems for the elderly and college students who usually do not have their own transportation. It will also solve problems for parents, who do not want to hassle with bringing their children into a hectic salon. We can bring our services to them, where they are comfortable in their own homes. Most customers will buy our services because of their convenience. Beauty To Go makes everyone’s lives easier and saves a lot of time.  Everyone that I have spoken with has said that they would love a salon that came to them. Convenience is very important to others. We will also be providing clients with ALL of their beauty needs, so they do not have to go from place to place to get their nails done there and their hair done there, etc. I do not think it will be hard to get people to switch to our services, mainly because of the convenience we provide.
               Our competitors are other salons, but they aren’t really much competition because they aren’t mobile. Any salon can cut your hair or do your nails, but not any salon brings all of that to you. That is what makes us different. Our only weakness at this point is that nobody knows us. So that may make people hesitant to trust us and try us out. People normally go to somewhere that they are referred to. So we just have to get our name known and then we should get clients in with no problem. Our customer experience and business location really defines our business concept. What makes us so great is we don’t have a business location – it’s located in your home! We also aim to make our customers comfortable and happy with our services so that we leave them completely satisfied with everything. We want them to feel beautiful when we’re done with them. Our business would start out small with only one artist per specialty that we provide. There would only be one hair artist, one nail artist, and one makeup artist. This way we can get on our feet and get our client base and give everyone a taste of what we’re all about.We will continue to grow and add more vans as our clientele expands.
   Our most important resource is our mobility. We can go where ever we want and where ever we are needed. This way we are always where the market is. This is something that others salons don’t have and will be hard to copy. The next opportunity that we would like to tackle is a new and unique brand of beauty products that we will use at our appointments and sell to clients. This will add to our uniqueness and generate more revenue for the company. In five years, I see Beauty To Go having many locations all over the U.S. with more than ten working vans in every city we are in. I want to keep increasing our vans so that we can service more clients. In the next decade, I see myself as the boss overseeing the company. I would have different people in charge of each location. I want to be able to pass the power down to someone else, so that I can continue my work in nursing. This venture will give me the groundwork to learn what it takes to run a company and be a great leader. 
    
   2. The main focus of the feedback I received was about whether or not the business would be located in the van or we bring the supplies inside. I wanted to clarify in this venture concept that we can do either. I intended on going inside of the homes of our clients so that they were comfortable with all of the supplies needed for the service. But in the case of say a college student who lives in a dorm with not much space- we can easily do everything in our van because it will be fully equipped with chairs, foot spas, tables, etc. It also was suggested that as the business continues to grow, we can add more and more vans. I think it is a great idea. We will continue to expand so that we can service as many individuals as possible. 
    
   3. For this post, I tried to clarify the versatility of Beauty To Go a little better, so that the readers were able to understand that we are able to complete our services inside of our vans or outside in the client's home. I also added that we will be planning on adding more vans as time goes on so that we can service more people in our area and around the Florida area. 

Very Short Interview, Part 2

Now that I have looked back on the past interview that I did with Molly, it has really showed me how little I knew about entrepreneurship and what goes into starting a business. I asked her such vague questions like "What does it mean to be an entrepreneur?" and "What do you think that I should learn in this course?" It makes me laugh to know that I had access to someone with real experience and I asked questions like that. I am no expert now, but I know that I would ask much more detailed questions. I know that what I asked was what we were told to ask, but I should have asked more than just what was required.

Unfortunately, Molly was out of town this week, so I had to communicate with her through email. She was kind enough to answer my questions for me. Here are the three questions I asked:

1. What do you think of a mobile beauty salon in the Gainesville area?
That sounds awesome! I would definitely use this! I travel so much and a lot of time, I am in a hotel in a city that I don't know places to get my nails or hair done. But if the salon came to me? That would be totally awesome! There are so many tourists in the Gainesville area because of the college, so I think it would be really awesome for that reason. And most people don't have their own cars there because of the little parking, so you guys coming to them is totally convenient. I think its a great idea!

2. Do you think that it could be profitable?
Totally. When people are on vacation, they want to get pampered. And when they are visiting their kids in town, they usually spoil them. So I think you would get a lot of business just from people out of town. But also from all of the college students that don't have cars. This would be very popular in Gainesville. As long as it isn't too expensive. We all know that people will pay for convenience. 

3. What would you suggest to include in my business concept?
I would say maybe include massaging as one of your services. If you want it to be a well rounded salon that offers all of the ways to pamper yourself, then you should definitely include massages. That is one of my favorite things to do. It will bring in more customers. I would also say offer a line of products, just like other salons. That will bring in more money for the company. Also, its a good marketing strategy. It will help get your name out there.

This time around, I was much more comfortable talking with Molly. Before, I did not even know how to approach the situation. But throughout the course, I have spoken with so many people about my business concept and it has made me much more confident. I know exactly what I want from this concept. This time around, I knew that I wanted to talk about my concept specifically. I am really confident in Beauty To Go and I truly believe that it could be very successful in Gainesville, so that makes it a lot easier to talk about. She told me that she could definitely tell that I have grown very much and was glad that I have been able to develop my own idea and learn so much about entrepreneurship.

Week 13 Reading Reflection

1. I was surprised by due diligence evaluation. 
2. I was confused when the author started talking about adjustable tangible book value. I have never heard of it before and all of the different parts to it made it confusing to understand. 
3. Which of the factors that influences a business's value is most important? Where do you get your knowledge and expertise from? Have you ever dealt with bias before?
4. There was nothing that I did not agree with. The author is the expert and I am not. I learned a lot from this chapter. 

Celebrating Failure

1. This semester I failed one of my Microbiology exam. It was a huge exam and worth a big portion of my grade. I knew about it well ahead of time. I just procrastinated for way too long and did not start studying until the day before the exam was scheduled. Long story short - my attempts at studying were not enough and I failed the exam. 
2. I learned that procrastinating is not worth it! My bad judgement led to me not doing well on my exam and now my grade has suffered. I have learned that I need to do things ahead of time and just get things done. My failure has made me more proactive for the remainder of this semester. I am not glad that I failed, but it has made me a better student. 
3. In my opinion, failure is a necessary evil. It is not fun and it is not pretty, but it is sometimes necessary to make ourselves stronger and smarter. We learn from the consequences of our mistakes. I do not handle failure well at all because I am not used to failing. I have always done well in school and been pretty smart, so when I failed my exam, I was very upset. But I overcame my problem and it made me a better student. I learned from it. So in a way, our failures can sometimes be the best thing for us. That is what this course has taught me. To embrace my failures.