28A – Your Exit Strategy

I believe I would sell the business in 5 years if it met the needs of enough customers to be marketable. I dont belive it is a specific timeline but I milestone of growth.

If it takes more than 5 years and is fairly self sufficient then I may let the business grow naturally. Then I may consider who shoild take it over later down the road.

Knowing I woukd sell the business does change how I make decisions. I would rather make a decisions now than wait a year to have the perfect plan. It is important to scale to a certain size and have other minds in the mix. Once at that size then you can accomplish much more and faster. Until then each hurdle may take forever and prevent growth.

27A – Reading Reflection No. 3

What surprised you the most?

That he was willing to fund a failing business through the worst economic time.

What about the entrepreneur did you most admire?

That he did stop at one part of an idea. He was will to branch out and build the various pieces of his puzzle for the future.

What about the entrepreneur did you least admire?

He did not balance social life and his quest to build the business.

Did the entrepreneur encounter adversity and failure? If so, what did they do about it?

He lost all of his primary investors and could not raise more money for tesla so he funded himself.

What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited? 

He doesn't let any concept or relative impossibility prevent him from moving forward.

Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.

He read 10 hours a day as a kid. I really worry about how that was viewed by his parents. I would have pushed my kid outside.

If you were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur, what would you ask? Why?

1. What do you miss most about the early years?
2. Do you have any people that you have trainied up to take over when you're gone?

What do you think the entrepreneur's opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion?

It is clear no other person has worked harder and also executed. Many others may have worked as hard but the bet result is not the same. I believe you work on the items that produce the most results. Working all day on laundry will not buy you a new car but will make you smell nice.

26A – Celebrating Failure

Failure comes daily in what I do for work. Software is bever perfect and my job is often to help find solutions to odd workflow scenarios that our customers need to improve. The hard part is if you give the customer a technically sound solution then it is viewed as too complex. Similarly if you give them too simple of a solution then it is not viewed as worth the cost. So failing is not often from your perspective but it subjective to whom is using your solution.

I enjoy findimg the sweet spot and thanks to this class have a solid picture of how to go into business for myself. It is not a crystal clear picture but I see enough to take the first big risk.

Whats next

Existing Market 

Local music and mic nights are of interest to help drive more adoption within the service. I have selected two of my brother’s musician friends and interviewed all three of them.

 They stated without social media then no one would know they are playing at the local bars or restaurants when the play. The locations often don’t advertise much other than that they have an open mic night. However, the locations see the most patrons when they offer secondary entertainment above the main drink specials or TV entertainment. As an entertainer they would love to place their schedule on the platform so that users visiting the business listings would see exactly who is planning those nights. The figured that people would visit their social media sites or YouTube channels to view/listen to their music ahead of time. The also loved the idea how it would help them find more places to play music. Win – win.

New Market

Small businesses are underrepresented in the market and have been mostly pushed out the markets with the move away from brick and mortar to the online stores and delivery services. Creating services to elevate these companies or individuals may provide a value added layer for the local searches. Instead of having a specific location in the search result the service could highlight a delivery or service zone for a flower company, handy-man, tailor, dog walker, etc. The service would need to be a nearly free service to the business and may need to facilitate preorder or bookings within the platform and charge the consumer the convenience fee.

I interviewed a small business owner who sells clothes and jewelry online and at home parties. She works from home so she can’t advertise through traditional channels because the results make it appear that her home is a store front in a neighborhood. Most neighborhoods and apartment complexes prohibit running a business out of your home if they drive traffic to your domicile. So she was excited to think there may be an app that would allow her to select her local area that she is willing to drive to conduct the at home parties and that people could book he in advance.

I interviewed a friend who is a handy-man and he has been using some of the new small job boards to get work. It is zip code based so sometimes he ends up driving 100 miles in one day to get to 2 jobs on a Saturday and spends as much in gas as he earns if it is a quick job or a no show. Offering the ability to pre-book and even pay in advance was very attractive to him. The other services make this optional too but if it existed inside of a service they already use a lot would make it more likely that the person would trust it.

The services direct to consumers for small businesses without a specific location seems very viable within the current search assistant model. I wouldn’t mind driving to a tailor with great reviews but I may like it better to have the tailor come to me if the price was the same. Honestly, I might have them fix more clothes if they were so close to my closet. It varies dramatically by the type of business but the value seems to be clear. It is hard for small businesses to market themselves in the traditional model and without a specific address it is impossible to gain business in a location based search tool. Opening the results to the service zone for these businesses may make them compete with big box stores for similar products and services and bring the local communities closer together. 

Putting it all together

Opportunity

Most consumers use some form of web based service to find local events and directions to these locations. The background of these services are based on large directories of information that is provided in part by the users or patrons and the remaining information is provided by direct stakeholders.

With the growing web services and evolving markets, new business come and other businesses close leaving the directories in flux with accurate and stale information. Consumers are in need of relevant context and up to date information about locations within a radius of their influence. Whether traveling or at home they use these services to get to where they want to go.

Mobile devices are driving the consumer’s expectations for businesses to have a wider range of information online and updated nearly in real-time. Additionally, large online retailers are changing the face of many towns and cities due to the increased competition for brick and mortar locations over online sales.

The majority of the brick and mortar locations search for through these services are restaurants, entertainment services, and bars. The common age ranges from 18 to 45 with a growing segment above 45 as this group is beginning to adopt the mobile web revolution.

There are many services like this in the market and users may be fickle with their choice as inventory changes based on which service is more popular in that geographic area.

Large ISVs like Google use this need as an entry point to categorizing consumer habits and a reliable platform for marketing. Every capitalistic country markets to consumers via web services and GPS based mapping services help consumers find the fastest route from their current location to the selected business.

This opportunity will continue to evolve for the foreseeable future as it is part of a core human desire to socialize.

Innovation

Consumers need a smart service or virtual assistant that merges the various directories in an effort to serve accurate information and help the user decide between the similar choices.

The core of the service will be 2 fold. Firstly, as a learning system to study the user’s preferences and search habits in order to produce suggested results and save the user from wading through many similar options. Secondly, it will be a source verification service that enables users to contribute to the accuracy of the information and keep the service relevant.

Many existing services have a method to share information to other web applications and this service will appear similar to how the airline and insurance services find price quotes across many other sources to help consumers get the best rates. This service will help a consumer find the most relevant entertainment in their area.  

The service will be advertiser driven and free to the consumer. The simple business listing will also be free and potentially have been added by the users. $49-99/year Premium business listings will make up the bulk of the revenue and targeted marketing campaigns will offer additional products to businesses for a cost-per-click rate determined by popularity.

Venture Concept

The other services in the market are well established but have neglected to produce a smart service or virtual assistant within their product suite. Other services like Amazon Alexa are gaining popularity and have changed consumer expectations to have information catered specifically to their needs served to them versus going out and finding it themselves. Concatenating the various service inventories through their own web services will provide a deep base of information to apply smart services and search tools for the user. The millions of users within those other platforms continue to provide value to their core service and also trickles to the aggregate service through their background connection to this service.  

Wide market informational campaigns will be needed to articulate the differentiators of this service. Users will see the benefits long term through consistent use of the tools as the service continues to learn and refine its outputs based on usage.

The initial competitors will become official partners through the use of their web services designed to share their information with 3^rd parties. Their value proposition continues to exist with the aggregate service.   

The customer experience is the make or break feature of this service. The general model based on the initial demographics provided by the user will need to be actively improved to give the user the ideal experience before the learning tools gather enough information to create a truly catered experience.

This company will need many data architects and web application developers to refine the services and integrate as many services as possible. The rest of the company will be sales agents and local brand ambassadors to spread awareness in key markets.

User adoption is the most important resource to crowd source the verification of information within the service. Stale information will be the crux that will lose the user’s confidence.

Local entertainment events and elevating small businesses will be the next venture within this platform. This will help the small business find patrons against the onslaught of advertising overshadowing them in the market.

Serial entrepreneurship demands I put each of these ventures into the capable hands of the company and move on to the next idea. Retaining ownership and a board seat in these companies will secure their growth to the long term vision I set in the beginning and allow the company to grow naturally.  Succeed or fail – I will keep evolving and trying new ideas.

It is who you know

Domain expert
Alex F. Strategic Digital Engagement Expert
Alex is a long time friend and colleague that has helped grow many organizations and build out new business units. We met in 2004 and have worked to together at 2 different companies. He is an experienced developer and has vast experience in building enterprise level web products.

Aligning with him brings expert advice with technology and business architecture. Long term, if the new venture succeeds then he is a prime candidate to bring on either as a partner or board adviser.

Market expert
Julee B. Product Owner
She is user experience expert that manages groups of developers to build web campaigns and applications for fortune 1000 companies. I met her at the local technology meetups that happen every other month. These networking event have led to many new friends or associates that are all hungry to grow.

Julee has access to many freelancers and has great experience that spans multiple industries so she can potentially help frame the core engagements in the product. Her time is very limited but she would be a great adviser on the board.

Supplier
Shane B. Musician
Shane is my brother and has been playing music on or off for more than 10 years. He also has a sales background and understands the nightlife scene very well.

He has a boots on the ground perspective that is important for the product I am creating and is very interested in becoming a brand ambassador that will also help him book more gigs.

Reflection
As long as I keep reaching out to new people and earnestly taking their feedback then I think the business will succeed. It does pull me out of my comfort zone and some feedback is delivered very bluntly but I think most people want to see their friends or associates succeed. Some of the attendees of the meetups seem to be very guarded and view the events as competitive but most others are looking to learn so I sit near them. Much more rewarding when you actually speak and listen.

Reading rainbow

Innovation and Entrepreneurship by Peter Drucker

1. What was the general theme or argument of the book?
• innovation is a practiced discipline 
• entrepreneurship is the carrier of innovation
• success requires putting these to practice with sound strategies 
2. How did the book, in your opinion, connect with and enhance what you are learning in ENT 3003?
• this is written by a pillar in business but it was dryer than I expected. I envisioned mad men as a book but got a thoughtful analysis of business instead. 
• most examples were still very relevant even in the ridiculously high tech world even though he mentions many times the innovation is not always in the high tech sectors
3. If you had to design an exercise for this class, based on the book you read, what would that exercise involve?
• his glass half full analysis would be a great exercise - it could allow the class to find current biases like how seniors are often viewed as tech dinosaurs but in reality it is one of the hottest growing demographics for smart phones and apps
4. What was your biggest surprise or 'aha' moment when reading the book? In other words, what did you learn that differed most from your expectations?
• something that is very contrary to most other advice around the net... he says to not innovate for the future but innovate for today. Don't do too many things - makes sense - but also to not diversify seems to be hard to follow. As fast as technology changes we always seem to be looking to the future for answers. However, there is magic in that perspective to just do the one thing that you know users will grab a hold of and see the value. That will fund the other futuristic endeavors.