Final Reflection

After looking over several of my blogs along this semester, I would say that what sticks out to me as the most formative experience was the elevator pitch. I will definitely remember the interviews that I did on my unique abilities and strengths, years later, and I would also consider that to be my most joyous experience. I think that the experience that I am most proud of accomplishing, would be the interview that I conducted with an entrepreneur. Looking back at the entrepreneurial mantra that I repeated, I would now say that I do consider myself to be moving closer to having an entrepreneurial mindset. I would recommend for the students that are going to journey down this path in the future, to just have an open mind and be able to try new things. They should not be afraid to try things outside of their comfort zone, I would say to perform the best in this course.

Week 15 Reading Reflection

   For this week's reading reflection, on Vikram Akula, I would say that the biggest surprise for me in the reading, was the impact that religion had on business, here. One part of the reading that was confusing to me was the idea of extortion and how that was relevant to the business that was being discussed. If I were able to ask the author two questions, I would ask him about why extortions and the fatwa was present, in his business ventures, because I was curious as to how that became relevant. I would also ask him what he thinks is the best part about business, as he did not talk much about it. I do not think, however, that Akula said anything wrong in this article, though.

Elevator Pitch No. 4

This time, I did try to move around more and not sound as nervous, by taking a little more time in saying all of the information. I added in some information on the app that will now also be a part of my venture concept. I also changed my jacket to something more formal to look the part.

Venture Concept No. 2

1. Many people nowadays have gotten in to the trend of eating healthy and eating purely made foods, that are not filled with unknown chemicals and ingredients. People do not want to succumb to an unhealthy lifestyle and also do not want their children to fall down that same path. This is because of so many problems relating to fast foods and badly produced foods and meats. However, when it comes to attaining purely made, organic foods, it is not as easy due to high prices and less distribution of it. That is where my company, "Pure Ag", comes in to play. Pure Ag satisfies both of these customer issues, in that it delivers low priced organically produced foods in many supermarkets, as well as online. Pure Ag is the only company that delivers food which is not extremely unhealthy for you, or very fattening. In addition to that, Pure Ag has an app that monitors ones calorie intake and adds suggestions based on people's tastes.
2. In terms of the kind of feedback that I received, it was very helpful with so many good points. The majority of it was based on the pricing as well as the app. I definitely do agree that the prices will be lower than other organic food prices, and I also do understand that people would want food suggestions, which I will definitely include as well. This will therefor, save a shopper's reference.
3. I changed my venture concept based on this feedback, in that I made my app include product suggestions for customers, and therefore also deleted the professional helper on the app, because it would cost money for them to constantly be in contact with the customers, as written in the feedback.

Week 14 Reading Reflection

For this week's reading, I would say that the biggest surprise I encountered was the conversation on the global marketplace. I did not know how ethics and morality played in to this topic to such a high extent. I think that an aspect of this reading which confused me would probably be the area where our ecosystem plays such a huge part in businesses and entrepreneurship. I would ask the author to explain more on why this is so, as the two topics aren't always mentioned together. Another part of the reading that I would ask the author about would be about how ethical entrepreneurship viewpoint and corporate entrepreneurship viewpoint differ. There isn't any part of the reading where I necessarily disagree with the author on.

Google Gold

-Some of the activities that I did for each blog post to pursue SEO were speaking of my background and my college major, since that related to my business concept and why I chose it.
- The keywords included were largely surrounded around animals, since my company aims to pursue humanely raising and treating farm animals when used in food production.
- I actually did not really use my social media to enhance SEO efforts, but I would guess that that would've been a major game changer in how my results would have played out.
-My most viral post was probably my elevator pitch, because it showed me physically explaining what my business was all about, in a very short, and detailed form.
- I did not make it to the first page of Google results for my keywords, but I did make it to the third page.

Very Short Interview, Part 2

Based on where I stand now, my impression of the initial interview with the entrepreneur I had chosen was that it was very basic and simple. I feel that my questions were not very specific and lacked a certain amount of depth. For the three questions this time, I made sure to make them more deep and interesting.

1. How has entrepreneurship been difficult for you? It was extremely hard in the beginning, building up a company from scratch and gathering people to successfully nourish it over the years.
2. How would you say entrepreneurship has affected you as a person? I am more capable of dealing with challenges and taking risks in life because of entrepreneurship. My sense of creativity has also significantly increased.
3. What would you recommend to someone pursuing entrepreneurship in their life? I would ask them to never give up, to take risks, and to be as innovative, passionate, and creative as their mind allows them.

I definitely think that I am now a lot more comfortable and knowledgeable, when it comes to talking about entrepreneurship in this interview. The entrepreneur that I revisited, Faisal Naseem, also agreed that my new questions were a lot more thought provoking and interesting than my previous ones, and he had though that I had progressed in the subject.

Week 13 Reading Reflection

For this week's assigned reading, my biggest surprise was the concept on emotional bias. I think that a part of the reading that was confusing to me was the term, adjusted tangible book value. I would probably ask the author to further explain this term, so I would be able to understand this concept and the chapter as a whole, better. I would also ask the author about what he/she thinks is the difference between price/earnings ratio method, and discounted earnings method, because these are two ideas that are very interesting to me. There was nothing that I think the author was wrong about, in this chapter, though.

Celebrating Failure

When it comes to failure, I have experienced it a couple of times in my harder classes of chemistry and calculus. I have not performed as well as I would've thought on exams in this class, even when I thought I had known the material, and had confidence on the concepts. I definitely learned that complacency is something that one should stay away from. Even when you are entirely confident about something, you still have to put in effort at all times. I think that failure is what makes us human, and humbles us to great levels. Those are the kinds of emotions that I take in to consideration, when it comes to handling failure. I think that this class has changed my perspective on failure, in that it made me more open to trying out things I am not so comfortable with trying, even if I do not know what the outcome will be. This class has definitely made me more able to take risks, compared to four months ago.

My Exit Strategy

 When it comes to my exit strategy, I intend to protect the venture as a family business, and pass it down to my children. I have selected this particular strategy because this allows for businesses to grow and prosper over a long period of time. I think that my exit strategy has influenced the other decisions I have made in my concept because I have always looked for ways to grow my business.

Week 12 Reading Reflection

For this week's reading reflection, I would say that the biggest surprise I encountered was the section on fatal visions in strategic planning. One part of the reading that was confusing to me was the chart on entrepreneurial actions and strategic actions. I would ask the author how those two differ, as they seem pretty similar to me. I would also ask the author how he/she came up with the list of fatal visions, as I would want to know how they were thought of and put it in to this list. I do not think the author was particularly wrong about anything in this reading