28

Identify the exit strategy you plan to make. Do you intend to sell your business in the next 5 years for a large return? Do you intend to stay with the business for several decades and retire? Do you intend to protect the venture as a family business, and pass it down to your children?

In the next 5 years I wouldn’t plan on selling my business as I enjoy this line of work. I would most likely keep it, assuming it is profitable still down the road, until I decide to retire. I wouldn’t keep it as a family business as I’d want my kids to choose their own future and not feel pressured into a specific line of work.

27

For this reading reflection I read Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald’s by Ray Kroc. The thing I admire the most about Ray Kroc, the entrepreneur, was his motivation and drive to go from a traveling salesman barely making ends meet to a massive success and a visionary. It is hard to say what I least admired about Ray Kroc as he was not a great person and, in a way, swindled the original creators of McDonalds out of their own business/idea but his business always came first which is admirable in its own right. A core competency that Ray Kroc had, going back to his roots, was being an excellent salesman. Ray Kroc was able to sell the idea of McDonalds to millions of people, customers nationwide and the franchise owners who invested in him and his idea of what a fast food burger joint should be. I highly recommend this book and the movie The Founder if you are interested in the story of McDonalds and being an entrepreneur.

26

Over the course of the semester I have been going to the climbing gym twice a week. Climbing requires many skills and the ability to plan how to climb routes. Almost every Tuesday I’ll work on new routes that were set and continuously fail each time leaning something new about it and how to conquer the task at hand. Each time you get on that wall you improve your footwork, hand placement, grip style, the dynamic and static motions, and the overall pattern you should climb. Then Fridays I’ll go back and combine all the nuances for that specific climb and attempt to finish it. The failures on Tuesdays always hype me up to get the climbs done the next time I climb. Also, every failure results in a learning experience and you can continuously clean up and improve your technique.

Personally, I find my own failures amusing and always strive to improve and correct them. For example, freshman year I was in chm2045 and I absolutely hate chemistry and am awful at it and I’ll be honest I didn’t put much work into the class and didn’t study for the final because my calculus final was more important to me. But to get to the point here I got an E in the course, E is not exceptional but rather an F, and I honest was amused when I got that course grade and am perfectly fine telling people that. I retook the course and studied much harder and got a B. Failure is inevitable, but it is just how you deal with it and correct it.

25A?

Existing Market. 

In terms of products and services, I don’t know what’s next. Each customer has different needs and will need different hardware and or services provided.

To be honest I have no clue who to interview or where to find people to interview. I’d assume they would tell me to begin marketing myself and business to my target customers.

New Market.

Again, I don’t know what to write about. I am not an imaginative person nor am I creative. I like many things but thinking up new ideas is not for me.

23A

• Generate a list of all of the resources in your venture (produce a list of at least 10 resources that you already possess). This can include your human capital, social capital, financial capital, and capabilities. You may also discuss the organizational culture you intend to create (but, obviously, it's not a resource that you have, now.) 

  Human capital because I have the skills, knowledge, and experience in the IT field from internships and previous jobs. This is extremely value in todays business world since many people do not have very good computer hardware and software knowledge.

  Financial Capital from friends and family. Every few weeks a good friend of mine calls me and asks what ideas I have and when can he fund them. This is replicable if other people want to start this business, but they might not be able to gather funds as quickly and easily.  

  I have the necessary equipment needed to start an IT business. This is very important because you need high end computer hardware to run an IT business.

  (Insert 7 more) yeah I got nothing else 

  After conducting the VRIN analysis, determine what your top resource is. Explain why it's more important to your venture than all of the other resources.

  My top resource is readily available funds to start a business. Sometimes the most challenging part of starting a business is gathering the necessary funding to begin and absorb the startup costs without being in debt.

21A – Reading Reflection No. 2

For this assignment I read Innovation and Entrepreneurship by Peter Drucker.

• What was the general theme or argument of the book?

The book has a general theme of how innovation and entrepreneurship are fueled by failure, risk, and achievement.

• How did the book, in your opinion, connect with and enhance what you are learning in ENT 3003?

This book had many important key points that will help enhance my entrepreneur skills. This is one of the best quotes from the book, “The unexpected failure demands that you go out, look around, and listen. Failure should always be considered a symptom of an innovative opportunity, and taken seriously as such.”

• If you had to design an exercise for this class, based on the book you read, what would that exercise involve?

 

The book greatly discusses the risks associated with being an entrepreneur as well as how many entrepreneurs don’t know what it really means to be an entrepreneur. So the assignment would be to outline the risks associated with being an entrepreneur and your thoughts on how some of those can be avoided.

20A

Who they are and what their background is.

Mark – Head of IT at CUNY in NYC – Domain Expert

Matt – Possible business investor – Market Expert

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

These people are not new people like the assignment called for but they are both well connected and great sources of networking.

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

Including both of these people in my network will greatly improve my odds of starting a new business. Knowing an IT person that is very high up the chain will help teach me things that I am still new to in this field. Also, knowing someone with cash ready to invest and with thousands of local business contacts will help spread the word about my business allowing me to expand faster than many other small companies.

19A

You. Who you are. What your talents are. What your skills and experiences are. Also: what are your aspirations? Specifically, regarding your business concept, how do you see this business (if you were to start it) playing a role in your life?

Who am I? I am a person with an affinity towards tinkering and problem solving. Ever since I was a young kid I was taking things apart just to see what’s inside and why/how they work. Over the years I have taken apart and fixed boat and jetski engines among other various problems, fixed broken electronics, built pcs, and became a self-taught IT guy. All of these skills show my natural ability to problem solve and learn something new. Furthermore, these skills greatly help with my plans to start an IT business.  

What are you offering to customers? Describe the product or service (in other words, how you'll solve customers' unmet needs). 

I would offer a wide variety of services for my customers ranging from simple IT tasks to complex tasks.

Why do they care? Your solution is only valuable insofar as customers believe its valuable to them. Here, explain why customers will actually pay you money to use your product or service. 

Customers will pay for the service I will offer for a simple reason, growth. Modern information systems are more important than ever for growing a business.

What are your core competencies? What sets you apart from everyone else? Also: what do you have that nobody else has? 

One key point I believe sets me apart from others in the IT field is my natural passion for it. Another thing that sets me apart is my college degree. I am not majoring in ISOM like most other IT students. I am getting an economics and marketing degree which will help me run a successful business and help my customers. I have interned for 4 years at an IT firm to show that I am qualified for the IT field without the specific college degree.