30A – Final Reflection

I think the "What's next" assignment may have been the most useful assignment because anyone can come up with one idea, but it's the follow up ideas that truly make an entrepreneur. That is how businesses stay relevant and continue to bring in revenue. I will definitely remember the experience of interviewing the experts in my field and building social capital. I learned how to network and that will be useful for years to come. The most joyous experience was seeing my idea come together, step by step. I am most proud of not giving up on certain assignments when they seemed almost impossible to get done or too much work.

I can definitely see myself as an entrepreneur because I have a better understanding of what it takes. I understand how to obtain resources and capital and how put my head down when need be. So, I am definitely closer to the proper mind set.

My main advice would be to not underestimate the work it takes to be successful. The sooner someone understands this, the easier life will be. I would also say that it's okay to let the creativity flow and to take chances. The way to perform best in this course is to much sure you manage time well. It is extremely difficult to conduct interviews in a very limited amount of time if you do not manage your time well. So, preparation is key. In order to foster this mindset, new students should understand that not all the assignments are very easy, so it is key to map out a proper schedule.

29A – Venture Concept No. 2

Through my research I have discovered that part of the workforce, mainly blue-collar workers, have a huge need. It is believed that millions of workers could potentially lose their jobs to the increasing use of artificial intelligence in the workplace. And this is all believed to happen within the next decade. So, my main market includes younger workers who are seen as easily replaceable, but I would definitely not ignore the older part of the workforce. I have also expanded my idea to cover workers that need to adapt to new career fields, whether that is because of artificial intelligence or not. My customers aren’t currently doing anything to solve this need. The only thing comparable is vocational school, but that just teaches students a particular industry. So, I believe this opportunity is huge because it is attacking a huge market and is fulfilling a need that is pretty much untouched. This window of opportunity will be open for as long as artificial intelligence poses a threat to jobs and as long as workers need to learn how to adapt to changing fields and how to diversify their skills.

My idea is to basically create a new type of higher education system that is meant to teach students to face the growing problems of being replaced in the workplace. Our goal is not to teach students about a specific industry or field, but to diversify their skills and make them even more valuable to their current industry or make it so that they can easily adapt to any new industry that they have an opportunity in. I believe this idea is incrementally innovative because we have higher education programs already, but this definitely utilizes a different model. But I do believe that my idea can be revolutionary because it will help empower the people seen as lower class and less educated. These people are seen as replaceable and I would like to change that. This service will be created after much research is done on what employers truly value and how to make humans more useful than artificial intelligence. There will be regional based schools in larger cities that students can attend on a semester basis just like university. We will also provide regional seminars to accommodate those who are still working and can not attend full class schedules. This is not to be seen as a university education. Our revenue will come from the credits that the students choose to take or what seminars they attend.

Customers will utilize my service because they will realize they are not prepared to change industries after being laid off, are not seen as valuable by their current employer, or are being replaced by artificial intelligence. It might be a bit difficult to appeal to my market because they are people that already choice not to take the path of higher education, but I believe once they are shown the need for it they will start to use my service. Then hopefully the reputation will speak for itself. The only competitor is really vocational school, but it is not the same at all. And the weaknesses that I can think of would be getting people that did not want to have higher education get higher education. Also, it will be difficult to assemble a working system and exact formula. But I plan on putting together the best and most qualified team available to combat these weaknesses. Obviously, pricing will be huge to people that probably do not make a lot of money to start with. Distribution will be equally as important because we will need to have locations that are convenient to the majority of our customers. Obviously, with it being a service, customers will need to have a great experience and enjoy coming to us. I couldn’t really say how many employees we need, but we will definitely need enough teachers to support having reasonably sizes classes. I must research the areas that will most benefit my market in order to save money and exploit the best opportunities possible.

Our most important resource will be a teaching system that successfully diversifies our students’ skills and makes them irreplaceable. This would be something that would prove to be very difficult to copy. I believe that research is another huge resource because I need to find the best locations and I need to keep my business affordable to my market. My initial plan was to combat the increasing artificial intelligence found in the workplace that is causing people to lose jobs. But then I plan on expanding to help students learn how to adapt to changing industries. After that, I hope to attack other markets and expand my regionally based seminar system. In five years I plan to be completely consumed by this venture and looking for constant improvements. I want to make my venture extremely efficient and won’t stop until I start seeing true results. After I have really established this concept, I will start to back off and let it run itself. Then hopefully I can turn my attention to looking for other ways to improve people’s lives. 

2.) Most of the feedback I received stated that I need to make sure my price point is good for my market because I am targeting the lower class. This is definitely an important point because I wouldn't want my service to be affordable to the majority of my market. Another point that was made said that I need to do thorough research on the locations that I choose.

3.) Based on the feedback, I just realize that I need to be more specific on my locations and that I need to be very conscious of my expenses in order to keep my service affordable.

  

28A – Your Exit Strategy

1.) I definitely do not plan on selling my business, at least anytime soon. My plan is to run the business and create such a strong infrastructure that I can start to back off of it after 10 plus years. At that point I will have people I trust running the business, but I will keep my baby. It would be ideal if my venture became a family business.

2.) I have selected this strategy because I don't want the foundations of my business to be watered down. I want to remain a part of it and I want to always be able to make sure things are being ran the way I envisioned.

3.) I don't know that my exit strategy has too much influence, but it definitely makes me want to build up a strong management team that can run the business the way I want them to. So, other than human capital, I don't think it has had too much influence.

27A – Reading Reflection No. 3

Thinking, Fast and Slow

1.) The general theme of this book is that marketers should focus more on appealing to people's emotions rather than their logic and reasoning. The authors view this through a psychological standpoint through the use of heuristics and biases.

2.) This book connects to this class because it is all about marketing and appealing to emotion which is a major component to running a successful business.

3.) If I had to design an exercise based on this book, I would make an exercise that has students describe a marketing strategy example based off of each type of system 1 bias. So the students would create a situation around each type in order to develop an understanding for each type of bias.

4.) The main theme of the book was pretty surprising because it is pretty common to think that you should appeal to people's logic when trying to market something. But it definitely makes sense that people often rely more on emotion when making decisions, so that is what you should appeal to.

26A – Celebrating Failure

During this semester, I joined the club golf team. I am relatively new at golf, but I'm a natural athlete and figured I could easily pick it up. But after playing and playing and playing, I have failed to get much better. Also, I have failed to qualify for any club tournaments because I keep getting beat out by my fellow club members who have been playing for years and years. So after hacking up the course time and time again, I decided that I did not want to fail any longer and that I need to change my ways.

I learned that it was pretty arrogant of me to just think I can hop into the sport and be good. So after being humbled, I have buckled down, watched tons of videos, and have really started practicing hard. I have finally started to feel like I am breaking through and I am improving, so I learned to appreciate that hard work breeds greatness and to not come into anything thinking I know it all.

Failure is humbling and embarrassing, but I don't believe you can be great without failure. I was embarrassed about being the absolute worst player on the time because I have never been even close to the worst at anything, but I have learned a new appreciation for the sport. Failure has taught me to view things in a different light and it makes me want to overcome it. I am definitely hard on myself after failure, but I believe I am pretty self aware and I know when I need to step it up. I believe that this class has taught me that failure is okay and that a lot of successes come from failures. With these thoughts in mind, I am definitely willing to take more risks because I understand that it is okay to fail.

25A – What’s Next?

Existing Market

1.) After establishing my main business and creating the best education system possible, I believe I can expand into an online type course. But I wouldn't want to make a course that is fully online because I believe this type of education system needs to be more personal. I would like to create this in a way that students aren't stuck in one place and are free to travel and work and still get their education done in a personal way.

2.) The first person that I interviewed believes that my business should consider offering courses on how to actually work with artificial intelligence instead of working to combat it. For example, how to maintenance machines and work with technology. He likes my idea of moving online because online is always more convenient.

The next person suggested that I establish a type of service that will allow my students to network with employers of new industries. Once I establish a reputation, he believes I should do something that helps my students acquire jobs. This person said that he likes that my business will move to online, but he said to make sure that it doesn't wash out what I'm trying to accomplish.

In my last interview, the person suggested that I also offer more specific type classes so that I can move into the vocational schools' market as well. He seemed to be very hesitant about my business using an online platform because he believes this type of education needs to remain very hand on.

3.) After conducting my interviews and coming up with some ideas on my own, I believe I see a path for the future that will be best with for my business. I like the idea of creating an online platform for my education service, but I will definitely listen to my market's ideas. I need to make sure the service stays very hands on and gives my students the education they deserve.

Out of the ideas that were suggested to me, I liked the one about establishing a network that assists my students in finding jobs. I believe that as a higher education service, it is my duty to help my students actually obtain a job with the education that they receive. I'd like to partner with companies that understand what my business is all about and want to be a part of it. Doing this will definitely improve my reputation with customers and bring me even more business.

New Market

1.) I am currently targeting the working class, but in order to expand my market, I can try to target the upper class.

2.) I believe that once I establish my future plan which involves networking and establishing relationships with employers, I will start to involve more upper class people in my business. But my plan would be to create a segment of my business that appeals to higher educated people by holding seminars that help fine tune their skills. It is likely that the more educated are not willing to take yet another form of higher education.

3.) In my first interview, the person believes that if I am able to establish a nice reputation of being able to help my students get jobs then I will be able to adapt to this new market pretty well. He just believes I will need to model my seminars around obtaining more white collar type jobs that more highly educated people are looking for.

The second person I interviewed believes that a seminar system could be useful and successful because it can give people confidence when looking for and applying for jobs. He said that an adaptation I might need to make would be to create seminars that really help people through the application and interview process and also help teach people how to actually apply the skills they learned in college.

4.) I have to admit that I am a bit surprised at how optimistic these two people were about my business. I figured this would be a difficult market to tap into because I know that I wouldn't really want to do more school after already having a form of higher education. But surprisingly, these two liked my idea and said they would consider it. So, my expectations were definitely a little off.

This market, to me, definitely does not seem as attractive as my original market considering I don't believe there is a whole lot I can do with it. But it is nice to know that I will be able to tap into it a little. But the original market will have a lot more potential especially because they are interested in doing full semester long classes rather than just seminars.

24A – Venture Concept No. 1

Through my research I have discovered that part of the workforce, mainly blue-collar workers, have a huge need. It is believed that millions of workers could potentially lose their jobs to the increasing use of artificial intelligence in the workplace. And this is all believed to happen within the next decade. So, my main market includes younger workers who are seen as easily replaceable, but I would definitely not ignore the older part of the workforce. I have also expanded my idea to cover workers that need to adapt to new career fields, whether that is because of artificial intelligence or not. My customers aren’t currently doing anything to solve this need. The only thing comparable is vocational school, but that just teaches students a particular industry. So, I believe this opportunity is huge because it is attacking a huge market and is fulfilling a need that is pretty much untouched. This window of opportunity will be open for as long as artificial intelligence poses a threat to jobs and as long as workers need to learn how to adapt to changing fields and how to diversify their skills.

My idea is to basically create a new type of higher education system that is meant to teach students to face the growing problems of being replaced in the workplace. Our goal is not to teach students about a specific industry or field, but to diversify their skills and make them even more valuable to their current industry or make it so that they can easily adapt to any new industry that they have an opportunity in. I believe this idea is incrementally innovative because we have higher education programs already, but this definitely utilizes a different model. But I do believe that my idea can be revolutionary because it will help empower the people seen as lower class and less educated. These people are seen as replaceable and I would like to change that. This service will be created after much research is done on what employers truly value and how to make humans more useful than artificial intelligence. There will be regional based schools in larger cities that students can attend on a semester basis just like university. We will also provide regional seminars to accommodate those who are still working and can not attend full class schedules. This is not to be seen as a university education. Our revenue will come from the credits that the students choose to take or what seminars they attend.

Customers will utilize my service because they will realize they are not prepared to change industries after being laid off, are not seen as valuable by their current employer, or are being replaced by artificial intelligence. It might be a bit difficult to appeal to my market because they are people that already choice not to take the path of higher education, but I believe once they are shown the need for it they will start to use my service. Then hopefully the reputation will speak for itself. The only competitor is really vocational school, but it is not the same at all. And the weaknesses that I can think of would be getting people that did not want to have higher education get higher education. Also, it will be difficult to assemble a working system and exact formula. But I plan on putting together the best and most qualified team available to combat these weaknesses. Obviously, pricing will be huge to people that probably do not make a lot of money to start with. Distribution will be equally as important because we will need to have locations that are convenient to the majority of our customers. Obviously, with it being a service, customers will need to have a great experience and enjoy coming to us. I couldn’t really say how many employees we need, but we will definitely need enough teachers to support having reasonably sizes classes.

Our most important resource will be a teaching system that successfully diversifies our students’ skills and makes them irreplaceable. This would be something that would prove to be very difficult to copy. My initial plan was to combat the increasing artificial intelligence found in the workplace that is causing people to lose jobs. But then I plan on expanding to help students learn how to adapt to changing industries. After that, I hope to attack other markets and expand my regionally based seminar system. In five years I plan to be completely consumed by this venture and looking for constant improvements. I want to make my venture extremely efficient and won’t stop until I start seeing true results. After I have really established this concept, I will start to back off and let it run itself. Then hopefully I can turn my attention to looking for other ways to improve people’s lives.