Week 15 Reading Reflection

For this weeks reading, I found that the whole concept of turning the microfinance business into a multimillion dollar company surprising. I am a little confused as to how you can turn these small loans into such a large profit. Such as the two hundred dollar loan for the buffalo.  My questions to this reading are 1. How did he come up with idea to s tart with micro finance? 2.  How did he push himself to make his company grow? I don’t disagree with anything that the author said. I find it all very interesting how he had to deal with a bunch of tiny investments in order to make his company grow. Also.by doing this he helped women from small towns be able to provide for their families.

Final Reflection

Looking back at all the assignments I have done, I can honestly see a little bit of improvement. At first I was unsure of talking to strangers but as the class went on, I realized that it was okay and necessary in The best experience was talking to real entrepreneurs and professionals and asking them questions that helped me not only complete the assignment but gave my ideas on ways to really improve my venture. At the end of this class, I still don’t see myself as a true entrepreneur because I didn’t fully appreciate everything that this class had to offer. However, I think this class gave me a great foundation to eventually achieve the entrepreneurial mindset. To perform best in this class, I would first make sure that you come up with a venture that you are truly compassionate about. If you don’t, then you lose interest on doing everything in this class that revolves around this one idea.

Elevator Pitch No. 4

Elevator Pitch No. 4

Company Name:

Décor Swap

Opportunity:

College students moving from dorm to apartment to house. Problem? Each space needs different accessories. The dorm needs twin size bedding and everything mini. Apartment and house need furniture and more décor. But what do you do with your old stuff? Throw it away? Sell it and pay ridiculous shipping costs? How do you buy new stuff? How do you find new stuff and transfers it hours away?

Reflection on Feedback:

For the final pitch, I improved it by using the feedback on my 3^rd pitch. This feedback was to increase the length of the pitch by adding more information about the app.

Changes:

·         Explain my product more

·         Explain how it is different from other products

·         Lengthen the pitch by adding more info

Pitch:

Week 14 Reading Reflection

Week 14 Reading Reflection

In this week’s reading, I found that the environment needed for corporate entrepreneurship to succeed to be very specific on its requirements. Also, that it needs to be a “nurturing and information-sharing.” What I found to be the most confusing was the integrative model of corporate entrepreneurship. The questions I would have are shouldn’t there be a set of steps rather than a flow chart type diagram? Also, how are you supposed to read that and model your company after that? Other than that, I didn’t find any parts of the reading to be wrong.

Google Gold

Google Gold

I really didn’t have a strategy on getting SEO I wasn’t aware we needed to do that. Because of this I never tried using keywords. Also, my blog is just my full name so if you type that in, the blog will pop up because apparently there are only two people named Courtney Rymer. The actually blog doesn’t show up but, two different post come up: week 3 reading reflection and world’s biggest problems. So I guess I did make it on the first page of google.

 

Very Short Interview No. 2

Very Short Interview No. 2

What I learned in the first interview was that generally you always need to be pushing yourself if you want to be a good entrepreneur and to take this class seriously.  From where I stand now, I realize those questions only scratch the surface of being an entrepreneur.

Interview: (I had to ask the questions via email because Paige was out of town)

1.       How many times did you fail before you reached your goal?

 

It took me a couple of years to eventually get my company out there. I wouldn’t necessarily say that I failed any times but rather ran into some speed bumps.

 

2.       How did you understand the financial part of being an entrepreneur?

 

This part took a while, I knew the basic concepts of what I needed to know but to ensure that I never went into debt or had any financial problems I was lucky enough to have an accountant as a sister who helped me learn everything.

 

3.       What was the hardest thing that you had to overcome?

 

I think the hardest part was trusting that I could reach my goal and create a company that I wanted.

 

I felt way more comfortable contacting Paige this time and asking my own personal questions. This class has taught me that you have to get past getting uncomfortable because if you want your product to grow you have to ask people what they think. I think after the first interview of me telling her that the questions came from an assignment to this interview telling her I just had questions for myself that her responses where more laid back which shows that I grew a little because she thought she was helping me personally rather than for a grade.

Celebrating Failure

A time that I failed this semester was an exam in business law. I decided not to study for it at all since I was allowed my notes and books. What I learned from this is that is lie. Don’t fall into that trap. So after my first exam, I learned that you had to read the readings and watch the lectures. I did this for my second exam and the results where a lot better. What I think about failure is that it is good occasionally because it makes you want to try harder and do your best for the next time.  When I fail at something it makes me freak out for about an hour but after that I realize that I just have to be more prepared for next time. This class has helped me realize that failure is kind of a common thing and that it isn’t always bad.

Week 13 Reading Reflection

 

The reading this week, what stood out the most was that there are so many different ways to evaluate the value of a company to ensure you get either save the most money when creating one or get the most money if you are selling your venture. One part that was confusing me where the different ratios of how to calculate the value of the venture. The questions I would ask are 1. IS there a way to explain the ratios better? 2. How can you better avoid the process of misevaluating the business? For the reading there wasn’t anything I disagree with besides how he could better explain some things.

What's next?

Existing Market. 

Step 1:

The next thing for my product is providing movers or people you can pick up deliver on the same day.

Step 2:

3 Interviews

Step 3:

Based on what the customers said, the idea of the movers are a good idea. They said they liked that idea because they don’t have to worry about how they would get the décor from one place to another. They said that this is still troublesome even though it would all be on campus.

They also said that I should venture out to not only campuses but within apartment complexes and neighborhoods. With this, the new market would include an older crowd. This new market would not include students but rather recent grads.

New Market

Step 1:

A totally different market would be people not living within a community that is known for everyone either being the same age or going through the same stage in their lives.

Step 2:

A way to create value may be to connect these people who don’t live in an area with people who are like them with people who are like them. Say a recent grad lives in the middle of nowhere in Orlando the app could connect them with a more age appropriate neighborhood that would have people who have similar tastes as they do in décor. 

Step 3:

Interviews

 

Step 4:  

What I learned about the new product is that it might actually work. The feedback I got was mostly positive. The negative comments only came from a male but, that doesn’t surprise me because it is not usually men that focus on how they are going to decorate their space.

            My expectations were correct. The feedback I got from the younger people was that the idea was good because it allowed them to connect with people who had their same interest. While the older people liked the idea of people able to connect with people who were close to them even if they lived in the middle of nowhere