Week 15 Reading Reflection

This week's reading is Vikram's Akula "Business Basics at the Base of the Pyramid". I really enjoyed this article. I see Vikram as a hero for what she's doing: offering loans to poor Indian people, the money of which poor people would use to start their own entrepreneurial ventures in order to be able to pay back. Since these poor people live on $2 per day, all borrowers start small businesses like agricultural laborers, mom-and-pop entrepreneurs, street vendors, home-based artisans, and small-scale producers. I was surprised by her strategy to make sure her customers payed her back the loans. "If one woman couldn’t pay her small weekly installment, the rest of the women chipped in; if she refused to pay, the others pressured her into meeting her obligation." So she basically used peer pressure to her advantage to make her customers work hard and pay their duties. Another thing that caught me off guard was the reason why she chose women as her target customer. She says, "Studies have shown that women are more likely than men to reinvest profits in the household and to support others in their borrowing group." I can't imagine why men wouldn't reinvest profits in the household in comparison to women. And that is something I would ask her. 
  
Finally, the writer seems like she has her customers as her first priority, which is what is supposed to be happening. To start with, in order to help the villagers organize their finances she hires about 500 new loan officers every month. They participate in theory classes on Saturdays and practice what they’ve learned in the field during the week. She, thus, enforces money education in the poor Indian villages so that they can manage their incomes more efficiently.  Instead of asking villagers, who are often illiterate, to describe the seasonal pattern of their cash-flow needs, she and her crew had them diagram it with sticks, seeds, and coins, indirectly telling them where the poorest people lived, what kind of financial products they needed, which areas were lorded over by which loan sharks, and so on. Her crew and herself essentially have personal time with the customers which is how they figure out the actual problems and are therefore able to find the most effective solutions to them. As she mentions later on in the article, "In everything we do, we ask, “Does this work for the borrower?”—even if it means operating against our own short-term interests." If it works for the borrower, then it will bring more profit in the company eventually, as well as increase customer loyalty.

Microfinancing is still a thing that most business owners don't prefer, due to reasons like lack of access to commercial funds, the high cost of handling millions of microtransactions, and an inability to create scalable operating systems. Despite these problems, Vikram has achieved so many things with microfinancing for the shake of her customers' good financial standing. 

Elevator Pitch No.4

 This time I didn't get a lot of feedback. I made some changes, however. I tried to be coherent and enthusiastic at the same time. I noticed that when I was too enthusiastic I got easily distracted and when I wanted to say everything at once I looked stiff. I tried my best to show flow. Enjoy! :)

Venture Concept No.2

My opportunity is unsatisfied UF students, including myself, with the UF dining services and the limited healthy food options on-campus. Students that live, or just eat, on-campus between classes have this unmet need. Most restaurants on-campus provide fast-food services, which means low-quality and mostly fried food. These are also often limited to cuisines that are most popular in the US, like classic American, Asian and Tex-Mex food. Broward dining center, which is the major dining center, is also overpriced for the quality of food it serves. There are many international students that can’t find authentic cuisines on-campus because most fast food is Americanized. In addition to that, there are students that would like to add into their meal plan restaurants that are not currently on-campus. Moreover, students don’t have the time and motivation to prepare their own meals if they live off-campus, because of their heavy workload. The forces in the environment creating this opportunity is basically the cheap and fast food for busy students that live on-campus. How customers currently satisfy this need is by cooking at home, eating mostly salads and fruits or getting Krishna lunch, which is vegetarian food. These customers are pretty loyal to what they are using, since it is less costly to eat at home, but it’s time consuming for students that have classes all day long. Krishna lunch is very popular as well, but its hours are limited to lunch time. This opportunity is big because with my idea I can create a healthy student community that will appreciate different international cuisines. I will also have the opportunity to satisfy a big number of students that leave on-campus.

The service I’m offering students is a new restaurant on-campus that will be hosting cooks around Gainesville and will be promoting their restaurant menus. The cooks will be cooking food from different cuisines that will cover multiple diet preferences, like vegans, vegetarians and meat lovers. I will provide fresh and healthy food to students from famous restaurants, or even new ones. There will be 1 different cook per day cooking for us lunch and dinner. More specifically, there will be 10 different cooks every 10 days. The food will be ready an hour before the restaurant opens and will be kept refrigerated so that it is fresh and safe when served. To approach more customers and make more money I will provide the menu of the day through a free app. This app will also give the chance to students to order one extra plate for half-price to go. There will also be discount coupons from supermarkets, like Lucky’s, Publix, Trader Joe’s etc. distributed to everyone that gets a meal, so that students are encouraged to buy their own groceries for cheaper. The deals will also be posted on the app as the “Save of the Day”. Students that are in a hurry can order food to go. The next new thing I’ve come up with is a fresh produce corner in which I will be selling fresh veggies, herbs and fruits produced on the backyard of the restaurant. Students can volunteer to help grow them. Therefore creating a strong-bonded community that cares about the food it produces. If students don’t want to buy any of the fresh produce they will be given fresh produce in a snack-size box before they leave, as a gift for joining us in our effort of sharing healthy food. All of these services will provide students fresh, healthy, diverse and reasonably prized food right on-campus. They will never get bored of it and they will get to enjoy food that they may have never tried before. They will also get accustomed to what there is out on the market to use in preparing their own meals. Essentially, what I’m selling is the opportunity to start eating healthy and to explore new cuisines for just $5-7 per meal.

My innovation will solve the opportunity by encouraging students to engage with fresh and healthy food, besides going only for the cheap fast-food options. By “awarding” them with fresh produce and giving out discount coupons I give them the motivation to go and take advantage of this opportunity of changing habits and start caring more of what they consume. I want to think I can provide them with the resources that are not yet available on-campus; the ones that provide students with healthier food options. And because I know students are pretty hungry I offer them the option to get one more full plate for just half price (just $2.5-3.5 extra). This opportunity will also promote the cooks’ skills and the restaurants they are working for. So it is a win-win for everyone. I don’t believe it will be very hard to get students try out my restaurant since I will be providing them with food they are accustomed to, but also the chance to try something new. I will also have a lot of “gifts” for them to develop their own loyalty to my restaurant. I believe students would actually switch to my new restaurant because of the diverse cuisines and the guaranteed vegetarian and vegan options. I know vegan and vegetarian option are limited on-campus. My competitors would have to be the fast-food restaurants on-campus that provide students quick, low-quality and cheap food. Their weaknesses are basically that they have standard menus and students get eventually bored of their food options. As I already mentioned I will be hosting 10 different cooks that will be coming every 10 days, so that if someone misses them one day, they will have the chance to come to the restaurant and enjoy the cook’s food the next week. The next month there will be 10 other different cooks coming in. The rest of the fresh food production that will be happening on the back of the restaurant will be student-managed. The cook, depending on their available time, can stay interact with the students or can leave once they’re done. In any case, there will always be culinary and other students helping them out with cleaning pantries, keeping track of the orders and keeping the food safe.

My most important resource in my business would be my passion for the wellness of the student community and the eagerness to raise awareness on how to eat healthy. All of the employers will be willing to help out and care about their customers. I am personally a very positive person and I encourage people to become better and be strong. My venture will promote exactly this. It will also bring people together through food and through sharing common worries and struggles. This caring spirit of my business would be hard for competitors to copy.

In five years, I would love to be an entrepreneur that would create projects to raise awareness of how to eat healthy. I believe my first venture will be a first step that will make a BIG difference and hopefully have a huge impact on people’s eating habits. My goal is to start here and continue spreading awareness outside of Gainesville. My projects could also be a result of my research on food products; hence my major in chemistry. I always had a passion about food and would love to do research on it to improve its quality and keep the food safe and clean for others.

There wasn't any feedback that recommended any changes in my initial venture concept. A lot of people liked my idea as it is. 

Google Gold

What were some of the activities you did for each blog post to pursue SEO? 

One of the activities I did to pursue SEO is share my blog with my friends and family. This way more people would be able to give me feedback if my blog was shared to others. Another thing I did is to share my blog link to the people that participated in my assignments so that they can see how they helped out.

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

I didn't really put a lot of effort in my keywords, but my key words were closely related to my venture idea. I often used words like food, on-campus, healthier, cheaper and affordable. Those are basically my key points for my venture: to provide students with healthier and cheaper food options.

How did you use social media to enhance your SEO efforts? What were your surprises or your 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?

That's how I shared my blog to my friends, through social media. I didn't use social media extensively but I used facebook to share my blogs with all my friends outside of the country and with my classmates. I used Facebook to ask for some help for my assignments from my residence hall friends. Social media helped me in a small extent, but I surely can use it better. I believe a method I could use to pursue SEO would be to post my new blogs on my profile everytime I share them, so that my family and friends see the many interesting assignments I did.

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

The posts that obtained the most traffic are Idea Napkin No.2 and My Secret Sauce. I believe those two assignments were the two most critical in the class because this is the part you differentiate your venture with any other venture. I incorporated a lot of information in this posts, too. My Secret Sauce was one of my favorite assignments.

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?

I didn't get into the first pages because my keywords are pretty general. When I put in MultiCook on campus restaurant healthier and cheaper options, my blog appeared 4th. That's because MultiCook was included. I believe if I make Multicook famous as a restaurant then it will appear more on the google results.

Week 13 Reading Reflection

In this reading it was really interesting reading about the "roll up" technique. The book's definition about rollups is a technique used by investors to acquire and merge multiple small companies in the same market. I don't fully understand how this is possible. When the author mentions "merge in the same market" does he mean that the small companies create products/services that apply to the same customer range? Does it mean all companies address the same customer need differently? Do different small companies cooperate to create a product or nothing of the above? If companies cooperate to create a product then rollups are cost effective; companies save up money by sharing expenses and profit. On the one hand, combining companies can be a good thing because if the right match is done then more attention is given to the potential product and more consideration is taken for the customers' need. Therefore, the result is worth investing in and all companies get profit from it. On the other hand, competition is sometimes a major issue. Companies compare each other and instead of wanting to cooperate they want to get better than their competitors. Thus, they get distracted of to whom and when is the best time to sell their products As the author says they get distracted as to "who is buying whom?". Does the investor emerge with the smaller company or the reverse? Lastly, a lot of experienced entrepreneurs exit their venture and sell their companies through rollups. As a result, the employees may not be satisfied with the fact that they have to work with a company they don't really want to. The lesson from all this is, ALWAYS know what your strategy is, especially when rollups appear in your industry. Decide between a growth strategy, an exit strategy or an investment strategy. What type of relationship will you have with your combined company? That's the best way to understand the potential outcome that is best for you and your company.

Celebrating Failure

One of my failures this semester was me failing in Organic Chemistry 1. I expected Organic Chemistry would be easy if I had to just memorize the material. The reality was that I didn't manage my time efficiently, so I didn't invest enough time into studying for Organic Chemistry. In my first midterm, I finished the whole material for it just the night before. Me not having practiced enough and not being aware of what to expect on the exam, I didn't do well on my first exam. On my second exam, I did I little better, but again didn't manage my time efficiently.

I learned that next time I would have to manage my time better and get to know my limits. I should start with writing down a list of the goals I have each day, so that I am always productive and don't get disappointed of my capabilities. The way I dealt with this is not to give up. I will retake this class and give the attention needed for it to get an A. I will then know I deserve the grade I take, as long as I know I worked hard for it. I will definitely study the material in advance and try to do my best. 

Failure is hard, indeed. However, it is good in the sense that it makes you change your behavior. It helps you discover more about yourself and more about your limits. So, definitely, failure is necessary for success. This class has changed my perspective towards failure, because I know that I have to take a risk to create change. If you take a risk and then you fail, then that's also good because hadn't you taken a risk you would have never known what the outcome would be.  Something else I learnt is that if you were to take a risk you have to actually look forward to it. You have to like trying something new or like developing your own self in many different ways , even if that means you have to get outside of your comfort zone. 

So, yes, celebrate every time you fail! There's always a next time!

My exit strategy

My exit strategy for my venture would be to reach a point where my venture would be in a stable financial state and then sell my venture to a person/colleague that I trust has same values and skills as I do. I could sell it after 5-10 years so that I find out what I want to do after this venture.

I've selected this particular strategy because I believe this venture's value is going to stay stable. Even if students are satisfied with all the other restaurants on-campus, mine would be different in the same that it hosts and promotes restaurants that people don't know about. I, thus, don't want to stop operating my restaurant, but instead I could constantly improve it and eventually to transform it into something else.

My exit strategy has influenced me on how I have identified opportunities, since I am planning on seizing any opportunities that come in the future. My goal for now is to raise awareness on how to eat healthy by providing the appropriate resources to students. In the future, however, I would like to contribute into the food industry and maybe use some of the profits from my business to research that I'm planning on conducting.

What's Next

EXISTING market

What's NEXT? On my Amazon Whisperer post, I tried to expand my business with adding a fresh food stand in my restaurant that will demonstrate all the veggies, fruits and herbs used in the menu of the day. As an extension of that customers can either purchase as much as produce they want from the stand. Alternative they will be given a snack box of the fresh produce once they are done with their meal as a gift. These strategies can help increase customers' trust in my business and make my business/innovation more approachable. Another idea of what's next that I already mentioned could be to create a new type of student community that will work on growing fruits and vegetables on the back of the restaurant. This could become a big thing in Gainesville, if it doesn't exist already and it will be completely voluntary. I believe this will bring students closer and will create a community that cares about its food.

NEW market

My new market is a more specific market than just students that live on-campus. This market is closely related to the health industry and it's ATHLETES. I know that a lot of athletes, whatever kind, care about their health, or they should at least. They majority of athletes follow a diet plan, but once they live on-campus they don't have a lot of food options to choose from health-wise. My restaurant will provide them with healthy food. Another new market that is also specific are only vegan and vegetarian people, which is a more difficult range of students that you can find. However, I believe vegan and vegetarian dishes are added to the restaurant's menu as a mean to provide more options to students instead of limiting their options.

Week 12 Reading Reflection

In this week's reading we talked about planning within an organization and why formal planning is important for a company's success. Starting companies may chose to start with informal planning because it suits the start-up company's structure better. Formal planning on the other hand can help companies understand better their mission, their advantages/disadvantages, their opportunities/threats, their competitors, and organize their goals accordingly. With this tool the company can grow in a more coherent way.

Formal company has obviously a lot of benefits to offer a company. But why are so many entrepreneurs lacking this type of planning? They say it is time consuming and time is scarce in their every day operating schedules, I believe that it is essential to set a specific time in the day or in the week for all the compartments of a company to meet and discuss their progress and their goals just so that every compartment is aware of what is going on in the other parts of the company. In other words, for all the sections to be on the same page. Appropriate time distribution to every task is essential. If you spend more time in a task that has minimal value for the company then you don't understand the company's goals.

Lack of expertise is also mentioned as a reason why entrepreneurs avoid formal planning. I didn't know that you have to be an expert to do formal planning. Lack of experience it may be, but it is something that you need to practice to know well, which also takes time. The author also says that entrepreneurs are typically generalists which I also don't understand.

Many of these entrepreneurs are also insecure that if they make a plan about their companies that involves the participation/decisions of others in the company besides themselves it will not go well. They only trust their own decisions and they are afraid of having others be in charge. I would guess these kind of entrepreneurs don't even take risks for their own ventures. I believe that in order to have a successful venture, you actually decide to sacrifice piece of your creation to others that know better about things you have little knowledge about.

Lastly, many entrepreneurs think that it is costly to invest into planning. I don't agree that that is a problem. I think in order not to lose business, you can have something that will make your business stronger and that will eventually bring you more money than you expected. Planning is my opinion may be costly but is also profitable and worth the try.