Entrepreneurship Blog

Having read the book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck, I have made a few observations and reflected on them. These conclusions are outlined below. The general theme/argument of the book is that one's perspective directly relates to one's success. Everything is relative, so, a bad outcome could be seen as ruining an entire day or it could not. It could be seen as just a bad moment within the day. It all depends on one's perspective. There is always a choice regarding how one reacts to situations in life and those reactions, that perspective, can lead to growth or stagnation in life. So, everything depends on one's point of view. This book, in my opinion, connected with and enhanced what I'm learning in ENT 3003, as it teaches the tenacious mindset, in a way. It explores how one should push through obstacles, embracing challenges and learning from them. One should not simply quit in the face of adversity, but instead learn from those experiences...

In terms of my exit strategy, I intend to stay with the business for a few years, possibly the next five years or more or less, and then sell it for a large return. I have selected this particular exit strategy because, even though I am passionate about the mission of my business concept, I don’t intend on working on it for the rest of my life until retirement. I don’t think it will last that long. I believe it has an expiration date, so, I should get out while I can and when I can still turn a hefty profit. I have larger goals in life and sticking around with my business will not allow me to achieve those goals. With all this in mind, I plan to sell because it is what's right for me. I think my exit strategy has influenced the other decisions I have made in my concept, as it has made me think ahead toward the end. It has influenced how I identified the opportunity, as I identified an opportunity that I know would not be something that I would have to stay with forever. I knew it w...

An Instance of Failure This past semester, I haven't encountered a large amount of failure. I didn't encounter many or any failures in this class or outside of this class. The first thing that I was able to recall failing at this semester was boiling eggs. I forgot about the eggs and completely ruined them. They were boiling for maybe a few hours and were no longer salvageable. That, however, is not the kind of failure I believe I was supposed to address. So, I thought some more. When did I fail? Generally, I don't think of actions as successes or failures. For the sake of this assignment, however, I will consider my last exam score a failure. It was a 73%, which in my book, is a failure. I have always done well academically; so, this was a hard hit. It may not seem like a failure to others, but it was to me. What I learned With regards to the eggs, which were a complete failure, I should have just payed attention. Those weren't salvageable, but also weren't that im...

Existing Market In terms of the services for my venture, I think a greater formulation of what I plan to do is required. In other words, I would have to start testing my concept. I must begin to put the services into place, testing how to work with customers and the logistics of it all. After interviewing three customers of the market that I have already identified, the market of younger to middle aged adults of a middle income (not particularly low or high), they have provided some insight as to what I should do regarding my business concept and the ideas of what my customers might want next. From what they told me, I gathered that I need to focus on teaching the cooking of both affordable and convenient meals. They emphasized the need for meal prep, as people don’t want to have to worry about cooking their meals every single day. They also expressed that my ideas regarding how customers might want to learn about what to do when they're at the end of the week with, basically, ...

Illuminate: Food Literacy With regards to my opportunity, there are both a segment of people who have a need and a specific nature to that need. There is a need for teaching, or more so learning, food literacy. The segment of people who has this need is from the younger and middle generations who wish to improve their health. In other words, these people are young adults and middle-aged people who are seeking healthier eating. This ranges from college, or even high school, students to adults in their thirties and forties. The nature of this need is that the health of the U.S. population is looking worse and worse as the years go by. Obesity is incredibly high, at nearly forty percent among U.S. adults. People have become increasingly aware of the importance of their health, which includes healthy eating. In fact, proper eating is the central factor in play in the health of people, aside from exercising regularly. The cultural practices, here, in the United States have created an envi...

Resources in My Venture  1. Analytical skills Valuable – Yes; analytical skills are valuable to the continued functioning of a business, allowing for growth and continued customer satisfaction. Rare – No Inimitable – No Non-substitutable – No 2. Communication skills Valuable – Yes; communication skills are incredibly useful for working with customers and within the business itself, as open communication allows for a flow of ideas that generate innovation and satisfaction among people. Rare – No Inimitable – No Non-substitutable – Yes; communication skills are a necessity and, therefore, can't be merely replaced by some other resource. 3. Customer Management Valuable – Yes; retaining and gaining new customers is essential to the lifeline of a business. Rare – No Inimitable – No Non-substitutable – Yes; this goes along with communication skills, as no other resource is so directly targeted at business success as that of the customer focus. 4. Financial knowledge V...

https://youtu.be/yz8VvYf1RdQ Having received some feedback from my last pitch, I found that feedback based on required peer reviews ultimately leads to primarily positive results. They basically consisted of expressing that if I were to effectively execute what I propose, it would be a good idea and that my explanation of my concept in my elevator pitch was good. Due to the nature of this feedback, which I myself may be guilty of providing at times, the feedback was neither surprising, outright wrong, silly, amazing, or insightful. Like last time, I did not change anything based on the feedback; however, I did make changes. I was thinking about my business concept and I just didn’t like it in its entirety. While I like the philanthropic approach with the emphasis on improving people’s physical health, I am not particularly passionate about that combination of concepts. Instead, I aim to focus on food education, teaching people how and what to eat, including the cooking involved in maki...