Week 15: reading reflection

This week's reading can be found here, and I highly suggest you read it. I guess after all the Kuratko and theory-based reading, the biggest surprise this week was the article itself. Real-life, altruistic entrepreneurship. And it's really working. It's working for the customer, it's working for investors and it's accomplishing what it set out to, providing microloans to "the base of the pyramid."

I'm not sure I can do the article justice.

How did the author, owner of SKS Microfinance Vikram Akula get the drive to pursue so specific a business model? He's targeting women in India, mostly rural communities. How did he conduct his research? He mentions that women are more likely to reinvest, but where is that information from? And his structure of lending to a group of women whose loans are tied together...how was that prospect not terrifying? I imagine Akula has a lot of research to back up his practices.

As long as his business is functioning and serving its purpose, I can't claim Akula is doing anything "wrong." How could it be wrong when it's oh so right?!

It's the final reflection

Uh, yes, it is. International Macroeconomics is over, only a few more grades rolling in for International Business and Principles of Entrepreneurship--we're almost ready for summer. I'm ready to reflect.

Our blogs are HUGE. Not Donald Trump (or Fuccillo Kia, if you're somewhere between Cape Coral and Wesley Chapel) yuge, our blogs are full. I'm tempted to throw everything in Word and see how many words I've typed. I'm a little more wordy than most, but even if you've been doing the bare minimum, you have so much work to show for this class.

I dreaded anything involving video of myself and/or recording interviews. I wasn't sure how people would respond in the beginning, and I think that contributed to the awkwardness of interviews. You have to project confidence. That being said, trying to chase people down with my camera and/or voice recorder ended up being something I enjoyed. It became a game of picking targets and trying to execute my plans. Oh, man, let me tell you about plans. Planning is paramount to success in this course.  When I didn't plan thoroughly, I came up short. When I planned sufficiently, things went smoothly, and I didn't stress.

My first elevator pitch is what I'm most proud of. It came to me naturally, it was a little lengthy but captured the audience and kept them. As far as what brought me the most joy, it may be "My secret sauce." I had a lot of fun composing the post and giving it a little flavor.

I still don't see myself as an entrepreneur. It feels like I've taken steps in that direction, developed those tools, but I'm not committed. Still, I suppose you could say I have developed an entrepreneurial mindset. I go around recognizing problems, opportunities, and it's a new way of thinking for me. There's more of a conscious process going on now.

Dear future students,

Let go of your preconceived notions of what a class should be, how it should function and the role a professor should play. Become your own driver. Fall back on resources when you need them. Plan. Plan. Plan. And plan. Then plan again, for good measure. If you're thinking this is bs or busy work or stupid, let that ish go, or you're going to be stuck sulking on square one the whole semester. For those who open themselves up to the opportunity, and tackle at least half of the assignments, you'll notice the entrepreneurial mindset unfold. I would say it takes little effort on your part, but the reality is that we put in a ton of effort--it just didn't seem like work. Isn't that the best part?

Very truly yours,
Kelly

No more words are needed. I'll leave you with these.

                     

Venture concept no. 2

Opportunity

Florida is gifted with beautiful weather year round; we have very few cold days. However, we have a long rainy season, particularly in the Tampa Bay area where storms frequently come in over the water, and when it rains, parents lack options for indoor fun. We are either forced to create indoor activities at home, which only amuses the kids for so long, or to go to the same few crowded places (i.e. the mall, the aquarium) over and over again.

Parents want more options. There are more than 100,000 children under the age of five in the Tampa Bay area with many more tourists. It's hard to say how long the window of opportunity will be open for a facility like 1, 2, 3 Play, but as of now, there just isn't a place to support parents of young (<5) children and their play.

Innovation

Other businesses and nonprofits have targeted older children, but no one has gone after the Pre-K and under crowd yet. Developmentally, they have different needs. I think there is a general consensus that children under five can derive value or have fun with activities and displays created for older children whereas older children cannot engage with something designated for younger children--"that's baby stuff"--so in order to capture the most people possible, places have aimed for the elementary and older market and assumed those parents will bring their younger children along, parents of younger children have no other options so they'll test it out and possibly add it to their rotations and overall, they'll end up capturing the entire market.

There is a large enough market to focus on children under five and their caretakers. Local businesses centered around moms and babies, like stroller exercise classes, are thriving because stay at home parents have the need to get out and participate in activities with their children. If you have children, especially if you've stayed home with them for any length of time, you know you have to get out in order to stay sane. Creating routines is key to happiness. I used to go to the library for story time on Wednesday, a mommy group Tuesday mornings and strollga Fridays--there was never enough to fill our schedule. We would go to the zoo, aquarium, mall, Grandma's, play dates and I still craved a place I could safely put my baby down, let him crawl, play, socialize.

Only $5 for a day pass means it will be affordable for most people to go to 1, 2, 3 Play. You pay per child rather than per adult; I know I've been irked by paying $50 for myself and another adult then an additional $15 for my child for something only my child will get any value out of. I am tabling the idea of an annual pass right now. While I know my customers would appreciate the annual pass, I'm not yet sure how profitable the business could be with that option. It will take some time and research to determine what impact an annual pass at $125 would have.

 

Venture Concept

Parents need places to bring their littles. I want to provide a place that not only meets but exceeds their expectations. 1, 2, 3 Play is an indoor facility with over 100 exhibits. Activities cater to all the developmental needs of children under five, like a "farm" where they can harvest crops, tend to animals and drive tractors and a touch wall of different textures.

All aspects of the business have been designed with kids in mind and would be reviewed by child development professionals. There is no direct competitor. The closest businesses would be Great Explorations and the Glazer Kid's Museum, neither of which is geared toward children under five and largely lack incentives for the age group I'm focused on. In order to foster loyalty, customer experience is my top priority.

As a parent, the best experience, for me, means it isn't too crowded, there aren't a wealth of older children running my child over while he tries to play and everything is clean and SAFE. If I have to walk around patrolling my son(s) because I can't trust my surroundings, that diminishes the value of the experience for me. I would limit capacity, though I think it would take a little time to figure out how many people is too many people in the space. The biggest trouble with the crowd-limiting concept is whether to look at the number of children, the number of adults or both. A gradual roll out, rather than over-marketing, would help curb the crowds. I want word of mouth to be what brings people in. Promotions would take place during the week rather than on weekends, which would be peak times. Would some customers complain about discounts being during the week when they're working? Perhaps. But I don't foresee that being a sticking point for people, meaning I think those patrons would still come to 1, 2, 3 Play.

Hiring would be modest at first. Admissions, janitorial staff and employees to supervise play are all necessary. And of course there's my fat manager/owner's check. (I'm kidding.)  

 

And the fine details

I think 1, 2, 3 Play would be hard to replicate primarily because of a high barrier to entry. For those who lack the passion and are strictly looking at the venture from a business perspective, it doesn't look like the biggest profit margins are here, and there's not a fast turnaround. After securing a building through either purchase or lease, everything has to be outfitted and people have to be hired--there's a high set-up cost. A business-minded person would then feel it necessary to have a blow out opening with a goal of filling the place with customers. The problem with that strategy is that customer experience would suffer, leaving people with the first impression that 1, 2, 3 Play is too packed and chaotic to enjoy.

As I mentioned in my Amazon whisperer post, the next move for me would be to incorporate food service into my business model. After that, I would build out an exterior play yard, provided I had the space and financing. And then? Well, as much as I love the business, I would sell it and find my next love, the next unmet need I can help solve.

 

Feedback!

I asked for feedback on the pricing, and you gave it. $5 for a day pass was considered a very reasonable price, and I think based on your feedback I could probably raise it, but I have a strong desire to keep 1, 2, 3 Play affordable. I would even consider incorporating scholarships or partnering with Community Health to bring in more kids who need the service. I'm still on the fence about the day pass pricing. As Analeis Bain mentioned, $125 seems like nothing when you consider the day pass is $5/day, but I think charging $200+/year is steep. My pricing is based on the model of similar businesses, the Lowry Park Zoo, MOSI, Florida Aquarium and even Busch Gardens Tampa, and I think the idea is to partly to encourage spending on other products/services. For example, if we followed our "What's Next" concept and opened a restaurant, people would mentally think "I didn't pay to get in so why not?" Convenience is clearly key to the restaurant. Maybe a gift shop is a better example. If I didn't spend $5 on entry, I would be more amenable to buying my son a book for $2 or a stuffed animal for $8. It also means 1, 2, 3 Play wouldn't be empty, which is a big plus.

I also mentioned that I *may* be falling into a booby trap by mixing my idea into the "Opportunity" section.  No more! I tailored the first section to strictly describe the opportunity (thanks, Kristine). Actually, I tried to go through my entire concept and streamline it because it seemed a little wordy to me the first time around, which is why I threw up my venture concept in GIFs. It's still totally valid so you should check it out.

Week 14: reading reflection

I'm a dork. Ethics fascinate me so I've been waiting for this reading, particularly after reading some of Farrukh Siddiqui's blog. How many of us have thought about ethical considerations, social responsibility, while developing our ventures? Dr. Pryor has framed our venture creation through the lens of problem solving, but aren't we all thinking about potential profitability?

We'll get back to that. Right now, I want to know why Kuratko used the term bootlegging. What does it mean to say you should "expect clever bootlegging of ideas?" I don't think "secretly" working on new ideas on company time (as well as personal time, as if that makes it okay) qualifies as bootlegging, nor do I think it should be expected in an innovative environment. Isn't collaboration encouraged? Anyway, I understand what he was doing there--cute, Kuratko--but bootlegging didn't have to be brought into this. Are all innovative environments to be anarchal?

And did anyone else get the sense that Chapter 3 helped form the backbone of our course? Promoting intrapreneurship through experimentation and developing collaboration between intrapreneurial participants? Check out the mission and vision figure and tell me it doesn't ring a bell.

We're still on the topic of failure. I think the section on learning from failure is a nice reminder and encouraging.

I was a little surprised by the think big start small concept (EBO rules). I think my surprise lies in my inexperience. Throughout school, we talk about big business. This is the first course that's touched on start-ups, and obviously with a start-up you start small with big dreams. Duh.

Kuratko brought up hiring the right people. I want to take the opportunity to ask Kuratko what process he would use to vet employees for a) socially responsible business and b) innovative business. It seems like all the pieces are there for him to address this unless he already did, and I'm brainfarting. All my classes are starting to blend together, which is great and awful.  

In Chapter 4 I found more support for the reading creating our class. I wonder if we were intended to be social/civic entrepreneurs or influenced in that direction.

Oh! One final note, was anyone else offput by Kuratko's ethics of caring, saying that caring was a feminine alternative to traditional masculine ethics? Why did things have to be gendered, Kuratko?

                      

The very short interview, part 2

Okay, if you didn't hit play above, you should. Mark's laugh is absolutely hilarious. He's honest and real and relatable.

For those of you who missed round one, ahem, I'm talking about Mark Bradeis, the owner of A Change for the Better Painting and Power Washing operating in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Both of our conversations have been brief, but answers came easier this time. What was different? Well, I switched methods from "random assault" to "here are some questions, you have a week to answer." He spoke more freely when recording himself, though Mark is still a straight to the point kind of guy.

I know that I'm much more comfortable speaking with people about their businesses now. I have insight and, in some cases, knowledge/theory the practicing entrepreneurs only know abstractly through their work. A lot of things become illuminated when you apply "book learning" to "real life."

You can't see me, but I'm giggling at my use of quotation marks right now.

Let's wrap this up. Has it only been three months? For anyone else in the business program, this course is a continuation of what you'll learn throughout your time at UF. If you can exploit this course to get comfortable speaking and interviewing, do it! The skills are invaluable. We have to market ourselves every day, which is a reality I'm only now coming to terms with, and the ability to speak off the cuff, to project confidence about a concept you aren't 100% sure of, to develop that idea in the first place...what a semester.

Google gold medal (deliberately) not won here

Hear me out, viral marketing is great, and if you don't show up at the top of the results list in Google, someone else is capturing your clients, but for the purposes of this course, I didn't want to go for Google gold.

Aren't we all a little protective of our ideas? I chose the concept I've been working on this semester over my initial idea because I knew it would be difficult for anyone to implement and highly unlikely that it would be picked up and replicated in the Tampa Bay area specifically. We're vulnerable in this situation.

That being said, I did try to use "interactive indoor playplace" and "children under five" or variations thereof weaved inconspicuously through my posts. From my past experience as a freelance content writer, I can tell you I didn't use keywords nearly enough to top Google. My employers would request a word be used at least 15 times in 90 words. Yikes. It's like they don't realize how that's going to read.

Come to Dr. Joe's pediatric dentistry for kid-friendly service. The practice made to be kid-friendly, calming and just for kids. Kid-friendly, pain-free dentistry. Did I mention dentistry or kids? Kid-friendly, kid, kid, dentistry.

That's exaggerated, but some employer requirements did have obviously keyword heavy end products. As a writer, I hate producing work like that, which suits my strategy of foregoing SEO in favour of privacy.

Not very sporting of me, is it? Let's say I were trying to get the word out about my business. My keywords would stay about the same "indoor play," "interactive," "children under five," "developmental play" and maybe "air conditioning." There would have to be something about the facility being relatively weather-proof. Parents can bring their children any time, woo!

Social media would have to play a role, but I'm guessing Facebook would be the extent of it. Snapchat could be brought in, but that's really only impactful once a following is established. I'm not a big fan of social media; I find it invasive. After much apprehension I've jumped on Instagram and, as of yesterday, Snapchat, but I deleted my Facebook account three years ago and haven't looked back. So no shameless social media self-promotion has happened so far, though every post I publish I consider sharing via Google+. Friends would come check out the blog if I asked, but I don't think they would engage.

My secret sauce is my most viral post, but Idea napkin no. 1 is a close second, only one view short of a tie. Any post with the Swedish Chef is going to be hot. 

Should I admit I couldn't find my blog in Google results? No? Okay, let's forget about that bit then. 

Week 13: reading reflection

Kuratko, bae, tell me about the valuation of entrepreneurial ventures.  

Except you kind of already have in previous chapters. Did anyone else feel like this chapter was an accumulation of other things we've read so far? We've been manipulated by semantics. Previous chapters may have touched on many of these concepts, our bias about our ventures for example, but because this chapter is specifically titled "Valuation of Entrepreneurial Ventures" we're meant to change our perceptual context to receive the information differently. I'm on to you, Kuratko.

Although this chapter was reminiscent of Chapter 8 and Chapter 9 and Chapter 10 and Chapter 11, I will say the regurgitated ideas were thrown together in a different manner, or rather, for a different purpose. I don't think Kuratko writes to surprise me. You could probably gather from what I've written so far that if there is any deviation from what I've come to expect from Kuratko it would be the Groundhog Day effect; when I set out on this Kuratko journey, I didn't peg him as the redundant type.

Kuratko, do you think there's a more efficient way to present the information in Entrepreneurship? Could the book be shorter? Is there a way to synthesize?

The text is right in so many ways that I can't say Kuratko is wrong, but as a guidebook of sorts, I think something could be done to either meaningfully expand or simplify our book. For what a student's opinion is worth. Tune in next week for our last foray into Kuratko's Entrepreneurship. Who knows what we'll find!