My Exit Strategy

1. I plan to cash in and sell the business idea to a larger shoe company. This will probably be within the next 5 years.
2. The reason for this is because while I do enjoy this idea a lot, I don’t want to devote much of my life to it if I don’t need to. Also I think I can move on and come up with more concepts.
3. My exit strategy influenced how I chose my venture, and what I did with it. The reason I chose this concept is because the creation of this product is much easier than my software concept. Because of this I am able to sell this concept much easier, rather than spending time and money I don’t have into development.

Making it real

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FdNvxlJPSuG2QYtHzOt_2GNnl42puu8PNzf3xB6V_R4/edit?usp=sharing


The main skill I think I've acquired from this class is a critical/aware outlook. I am always looking for potential needs, and am constantly coming up with small solutions to these problems I run in to. I think this class was very valuable in helping me grow creatively.

Venture Concept No. 1

1. Opportunity

The unmet need consists of many different parts

• Kids feet grow at a rapid rate
• Parenets have to constantly buy new shoes to accommodate their growing feet
• These shoes could still be in good condition, and it seems wasteful to toss them after having them for only a couple of months
• The customers/demographic is families with young children
• This opportunity is big because it exists all over the country/world, and will continue to exists as long as there are kids who wear shoes

2. Innovation

-The product that accommodates this unment need is adjustable shoes

-the way they work is a lot similar to the picture below. There will be a pin/button on the side of the shoe that locks it in place to the desired size.

-the shoes will be made of an athletic material, with an excess at the “joint of the shoe”

-in the soul/foot of the shoe there will be a mechanism that allows for the shoe to slide forward or backward

-The back of the shoe will be slightly wider to allow space for the adjuster to fit between

-the shoes would be relatively cheap around 50 dollars

-the revenue drivers are the sales of each type of shoe. Different colors being (black, white, blue, and pink).

Prototype drawing

3. Venture concept

-people would buy this product because it would save money in the long run

-the shoes will look fashionable

-it is more practical than competitors

Competitors:

-all other shoe brands

-their weaknesses are that they only sell one size & are overpriced for kids shoes

-packaging, price, distribution, and customer experience are all very important to this product. However I believe the functionality of this product is what will define it.

-the business will not have of its own stores. The shoe will be sold at common shoe stores (ex. foot-locker). The energy will be spent on hiring specialist in design/engineering and manufacturing to ensure the shoe design is top quality. Another approach to my concept would be to patent the idea, create a prototype, and then sell it to an existing shoe brand & claim a portion of the profits.

Celebrating Failure

Me and my friends have recently been getting into golf. I grabbed my dad's old clubs from the garage & brought them up to gainesville with me. I found it to be very challenging at first, and was definitely not succeeding. I usually pick things up relatively quickly (especially when it comes to sports), but even so this still took some time to get the hang of. After a couple of times of playing a round or going to the range I was finally noticing a lot of improvement. In most aspects of life learning always takes place, this is prevalent with golf in that you are always critiquing and changing your swing in order to adjust how you want to hit the ball. This is similar to how we looked at our venture concept and slowly added/changed parts of it in order to improve the overall idea.

Because of other things going on in my life, there was a good amount of time (over a month) where I wasn’t able to play. When we finally did play another round, I discovered that I had lost almost all the progress I had made. That day I couldn’t hit my irons to save my life. I kept “topping” the ball. This was very discouraging, and I wasn’t really as motivated to play as I was before. Regardless I’ve gone back since and am getting better each time.

The lesson I learned through all this is that if you want something you not only have to put time and effort, but you also have to stick with it and continue to work towards it. While I don’t like to fail, I embrace it because it is an opportunity to learn and improve myself. Taking this class has only strengthened that perspective of failure, and I would say I am willing to take more risks because of it.

Elevator Pitch 3

The feedback I received in elevator pitch 2 was mainly that I could put more energy, or make it a little more entertaining. Because of this I tried to get into it, and I added a jingle for my product at the end :)

note: this is a different concept than last time
 

Amazon whisperer

After reading the "amazon whisperer" article, my main take away was the opportunities that exist by making additions/changes to a product while accommodating the consumer's wants. This made me think of my Croc-Heely combination idea. Because I have a service-based business concept for my venture, I decided I would use the Croc-Heely for this assignment.

The revenue drivers for Crocs are the sales of the shoes (coming from diff sizes and colors). This is the only way to my knowledge that they make money. Because most people who own a pair of crocs will also own a pair of heelys, it only makes sense to create a product that combines the best of both worlds. Customers would be more inclined to buy this specific product because they are getting two products for one.

The two products I found on amazon are obviously crocs and heelys. Most of the review focused around the size of the shoe, and customers not being sure what size to get. Because of this i got to thinking that a good addition to a shoe like this could be to make it adjustable in size. I think this would be a good addition to my shoe because they are geared towards young kids, who's feet are most likely growing rapidly. For most parents this means having to constantly buy new shoes for their kids, even though they might still be in perfect condition. If I were to make an adjustable shoe not only would it  last longer for kids, but it could in theory even reduce manufacturing costs because the product could be mass produced instead of having many different sizes. 

My unfair advantage

1.Knowledge of music, understanding of how a song is constructed and what the similarities between them would entail

Valuable - yes

Rare - relatively rare when considering the general population

Inimitable - anyone can learn, however it would take time

Non-substitutable - There isn’t any substitute other than actually knowing

2.College education

Valuable- yes

Rare- no

Inimitable- only way to copy is to get one yourself

Non-substitutable - knowledge through practice (self-taught skills)

3.knowledge of statistical analysis and software

This will prove useful in adding features that deal with predicting/probabilities (I haven’t thought about it too much, but if I have access to data I could do a lot with this).

Valuable- yes

Rare- no, but having advanced stats knowledge is very rare

Inimitable- difficult to copy unless you take classes

Non-substitutable- someone else that has this knowledge

4.My main motive with this product is not to make money(I obviously don’t want to lose money though), but rather to help provide a resource to musicians. This means that my prices will be very low, even though there are no other competitors.

Valuable- i guess

Rare- usually people are greedy, so I would say it is rare

Inimitable- anyone else can have this same mindset

Non-substitutable- the only other resource that would cause low prices are if the costs are low (this means low quality of product, and low employee wages. Ex. mcdonalds, walmart)

5.I know many professional musicians and they can prove to be valuable social resource

Valuable - yes

Rare- yes

Inimitable- I would say developing relationships is not easy

Non-substitutable- having knowledge of the music business or doing research

6.I will constantly be looking for feedback and ways to improve the product (will actually listen to the customers and maintain good customer relations).

Valuable- yes, lots of companies who were very successful didn’t follow the trends society was heading to and lost a lot of business because of it (black berry with smart phones). So it is important to follow what the people want.

Rare- no

Inimitable- lots of people do this

Non-substitutable- keep adding features that I think would be an improvement

7.while there will be a lot of initial costs in creating my software, there is almost no other manufacturing or shipping costs. It should be smooth sailing once it's complete.

Valuable- yes

Rare- no any app/software, gyms, movie theatres. Things that provide a service rather than the customer owning a physical product.

Inimitable- see above

Non-substitutable- like I said in a previous resource to keep prices 3

8.advertising. I already have ideas and think it would be fairly easy to get the word out there

Valuable- yes

Rare- no

Inimitable - yes

Non-substitutable- many different ways to spread awareness

9.In addition to looking nice, my software will have a self explainitory user interface. You won’t have to be computer savvy to understand how to operate the software.

Valuable- yes

Rare- no

Inimitable - yes

Non-suvtitutable- the substitute is having someone else do the process for you and give you the results

10.patience. I realize that good things take time, and I will be sure to take as much time as needed to ensure that the product is complete and functional. I wouldn’t release my product unless it is finished.

Valuable- yes

Rare- yes

Inimitable- yes

Non- substitutable- I guess you can substitute patience with efficiency. Because if you get it done quick enough, you won’t need patience.

I think my most valuable resource is my knowledge of statistics. This is because it not only helps with the functions of my product, but also has many other business applications that should increase my chances of success.

Idea Napkin No. 2

1. I am a statistics major at UF. I am a musician, which was my inspiration for my software concept. My aspirations for this concept is for me to develop a rough draft, and eventually sell the rights to a company that has the funds to perfect it. Since I do not plan on becoming a songwriter, I do not think this product will play much of a role in my life.
2. I’m offering a software that reads an audio file of a song, and compares it to a large database of songs. It does this by detecting the main components of the song (how fast the song is, chord progression, the melody over top, and the lyrics). The goal of this software is to ensure one’s song is not too similar to another song currently on the market, therefore making it liable for copyright. Right now the only system that provides the same service is to show a song to your others, and they’ll let you know if it reminds them of a certain song. This system is obviously flawed, hence the unmet need.
3. The target customers are professional Singer/Songwriters, musicians, and record labels. All of these are present in the music business, and sell their musical content.
4. This is valuable because it lets the customer know for sure that their song is truly unique, and is a safety measure protecting against a potential lawsuit.
5. Because there is nothing else like this, there isn’t any competition. So… what I have that others don’t is this service.

All these elements fit together well. I have musical knowledge, so I understand the process of comparing songs. I know that a need exists (a lot of artists have been sued for this reason). And there wouldn’t be any competition assuming this product could successfully be developed.

Since the feedback in my first idea napkin didn’t offer much to change, I mainly kept the same details in this assignment that I did the last one, except I explained the product a little more.

Growing My Social Capital

Zack Scott

1) Who they are and what their background is.

University of Florida Graduate in computer science. Now works for microsoft.

2) Which 'slot' you are filling with each person (i.e., domain expert, market expert, supplier), and how the person fills the spot.

Domain expert. In the sense that he is more knowledgeable when it comes to software development

3) A description of how you found the person and contacted the person.

He was a buddy of mine, because we were both on the UF drumline together

4) The nature of the exchange you have with the person -- what favor did they do for you? What is the return expectation?

He didn’t expect anything in return, just did me a favor by answering a few questions I had about the software.

5) How will including this person in your network enhance your ability to exploit an opportunity?

He explained that it's definitely possible to create a product like my concept (youtube and google are currently working on copyright protection software), however youtube and google have almost infinite resources. When it comes to audio recognition and holding a mass database of all those songs, my best chance of success is to patent the idea and sell it to a major developer with the funds to make it.

Sheryl Paige

1) Sheryl is a songwriter/Musician from orlando. She writes and sells her own music, as well as knows a lot of people that write songs for artists.

2)

Market expert. This is because she is a part of the market

3) I used an contact list of songwriters that I found online.

4)

They provided me with information on the usefulness of my product, and what aspects of it I should focus on. The return is that she wanted me to let her know how my product turns out.

5)

I believe that I will have a direct link towards potential customers after including her in my network. She’ll be able to tell others in the songwriters association about my product.

1)I couldn’t think of a supplier that would go towards software companies, so instead I contacted a company called “savvy apps” which can be hired to help the development and sale of your app in many ways.

2) Supplier

3) found by googling

4) the return for them is that they would charge me money in return for help with creating my app

5)According to Savvy Apps the cost of making an application depends greatly on how complex it is. Mine would be on the more complex side which would cost a ridiculous amount to make.

Reflection: This differed from previous networking experiences, because I usually don’t actively seek connections for a singular purpose. I normally meet people through activities or school, which leads to an unrelated connection. In this case I found myself going on google and having to find and call people to achieve more direct results. It was more work than just casually meeting people, but it did prove effective.

reading reflection no. 2

1. General theme: Put yourself in a position where even if you fail (don’t meet a goal), you still have put yourself in a better position than you were before. Maybe you gained some skills, or made connections along the way that can set you up for success in the future
2. This book discusses maintaining a positive attitude/energy usually by making good habits and building confidence. In addition he talks about not being afraid to be the first to do something. Just because nobody else has tried or succeeded with something doesn’t always mean that you can’t.
3. Assignment would be to interview people about their skills. It would consist of asking how quickly/easily it originally came to them, and what their process was/is to develop that skill. In addition ask questions to try and assess the relationship of their relative skill level with how much they enjoy whatever it is.
4. I learned that “Goals are for losers”. This surprised me, because all my life I’ve been told that's the road to success is to set goals and strive to achieve them. According to Scott Adams goals either discourage you if you don’t meet them, or they take away your desire to improve once you do meet it. The more important thing to focus on is the here and now (The Process). What are you doing every day in order to improve. In addition it is important to make daily habits of whatever your process is, other wise it's easy to decide not to do it on certain days and eventually the habit gets away from you. Other main takeaways I got from this book are

-focus on yourself and happiness (exercise, nutrition, sleep, positive attitude)

-have awareness and learn from everything that you do (recognize patterns)

-building skills will give you more opportunities for success

-Even though it might go against what we’ve been learning in this class (tenacity), sometimes it's good to know when to quit. It's important to assess yourself and what you’re good at, and sometimes part of the learning process is trying other things. Usually passion comes along with success (it's fun to be good at things).

elevator pitch 2

In my last pitch the main thing people told me was that some of the humor I was using might be offensive. Because of this I tried to be more professional. Also I was made aware that in the first video I swayed back and forth too much, so i tried to adjust.

My secret sauce

What I think makes me different is…

Enjoying life, not taking things too seriously. I try to not get angry or upset over small things. This is difficult a lot of the time, but i know in the grand scheme of things most of the day to day problems won’t mean anything. I think I for the most part have fun with things even if they aren’t traditionally fun. I’m always looking to improve and get better in all parts of my life, whether it be musical instruments, fitness, education/learning, or just being a better (mostly nicer) person in general. I reflect on who I am and what I do, and use that to try to become the best version of myself.

https://soundcloud.com/beau-britain/secretsaucesdoovinterview

I approach life in a similar way that I approach music. I know what I want a song to sound like, and I know what I want to do/ where to go with my life.

https://soundcloud.com/beau-britain/jordan

Sense of humor, talented, university of florida student, value friends, like to hang out and have a good time. I enjoy watching soccer.

https://soundcloud.com/beau-britain/ian-2

I’m weird, and have interesting thoughts. And am talented.

https://soundcloud.com/beau-britain/tanner

Tanner listed the main two things that describe me are

1.My ability to pick things up quickly

2. I don’t care what others think of me

https://soundcloud.com/beau-britain/save

My boi Curtis mainly talked about my skills drumming, sports, rapping as well as things I like. He also described me as punny, and listed my sense of humor as something that describes me.

I would agree with everything that my friends said about me. I think this assignment was difficult, because it kind of put people on the spot. They didn’t have too much to say about me, but I’m also a pretty simple guy. I would say my most defining factor is my sense of humor which almost everyone seemed to agree upon.

My customer avatar

After seeing an avatar assignment for this class I thought “oh nice! Which one, the blue people or the last airbender?” Turns out it was neither, but this is still a cool assignment.

When creating my Customer avatar for my music copyright recognition software, I included things that aren’t necessarily relevant to my product. What I did include were things that I picture my most likely customer to be (stereotypical singer/songwriter).

- Plays guitar or piano

- drives a van or SUV (to store instruments)

- listens to pop and RnB

- plays shows locally

- sells their music either online or CD in person

- likes cereal

- went to Berklee school of Music, but never graduated

- wears hipster clothing

- lives in LA or Seattle

I would say I don't have a lot in common with this avatar other than being a musician, and liking cereal. I don't think its a coincidence, because being a music lover is what drove me to think of this concept.