Final Reflection

What stuck out to me as the most formative experience was writing about my failures. The creation of a small business was a great theory exercise but it wasn't as great as the internal reflection on failure. That definitely helped me grow. My most joyous experience was reading about Elon Musk and all of the wondrous things he has created with his knowledge and willpower. I believe that I can see myself as more of an entrepreneur. My friends often point out that I tend to take charge when a situation starts going astray without anyone asking because I know I can do it and do it right. I definitely believe this class has moved me closer to the entrepreneurial mindset. What I would recommend to students that take this class in the future would be to really take their time with the assignments and really try to become passionate about their products. If they are not passionate about the product then they will fail to see the point of the course, and that is to know what it is like to be an entrepreneur.

Venture Concept No. 2

Chirp

The opportunity for my product is that bikers don't have an efficient, and successful way of alerting people in front of them to move out of the way. This is especially true for pedestrians or people driving in cars. The car drivers and pedestrians usually don't look out for bikers and this can be a major hazard to those bikers. The most difficult ones to alert when you are a biker are pedestrians that have their headphones while listening to music or those that are very distracted on their phones or in conversation. Cars also fall into that list as it is difficult to hear anything going on outside of a car. A biker just cannot yell loud enough for some of the examples listed above to move out of the way or not cross the street. Many bikers also don't want to yell at the pedestrians to either not draw attention to themselves or because they feel they might be rude. There is just no discreet way of alerting these pedestrians and cars to move out of the way or at least be on the lookout for you.

The forces in the environment that created this opportunity are the ignorance of pedestrians and the more predominant use of bicycles. The market for a product like this would be areas that have a big biking population. For example, a city like Seattle is well known for having many bikers. Other areas with high biking populations are college campuses as many students cannot afford cars and opt for using a bike to get around. The demographics I am targeting are college students and young professionals that use bikes often. These potential customers are currently satisfying this need by just yelling to other all the time to get out of the way. They are not extremely loyal as all they are doing is yelling. There was never a transaction. This opportunity affects basically every single biker owner therefore, this is a major opportunity. This window of opportunity will last as long as people use a bike and there is no better way of alerting people by screaming while on a bike.

The innovation is a small device that will change biking and alerts in general forever. It is a high-frequency noise, much like a dog whistle. This noise would not be at the same frequency as a dog whistle or else no one would be able to hear it. It would be high frequency but not necessarily loud. The noise would be highly directional and only be audible if you are within a 45-degree cone in front of the device. It would be rectangular. The size would be about four inches long by 2 inches wide by half an inch thick. It would encase a small yet powerful speaker as well as a battery that is powered with micro-USB. The device on its own could be sold for about 20 dollars. For the unit as a whole with a charging cable and a quick start guide.

The product would be called Chirp and would send a quick burst of noise that can be determined by the three settings on the device. It can do a series of "Chirps", it can send a single Chirp, or it can just keep "Chirping" until you press a button to stop. People will pick up my product because it is of great benefit to their safety. It should not be difficult to get them to switch. My competitors would be bicycle bells and rings. Their weakness is that they are very annoying and loud. My goal is to integrate my device into bike lights and bicycle helmets. That way it is sure revenue and I would not need to worry about retail distribution. All I need to do is distribute it to the bike light and helmet makers.

My most important resource is the fact that my device is discreet and it is an actual need. Needs outweigh the importance of a want almost everytime. The next new product would be implementing this on a larger scale for cars. In the next five years, I see the company being a staple for bikes. I want that when people buy a bike they also buy my Chirp along with lights and a helmet. In the next decade, I hope to have sold my idea to a company and be using the money from that to fund the next great idea that I come up with down the line.

2)The feedback that I received from the industry professionals I showed it to said that my idea was fine. However, it might be better to think of my business as a business to business venture and sell it to other bike safety manufacturers. The feedback from my classmates was that my move to expand into the automobile market was a good idea

3) Because the feedback was all positive there was not too much for me to change. What I did change from the previous venture concept was to make it more cohesive and added the product name. I felt that repeating the name throughout the venture concept was crucial to make the name stick. 

28 Your Exit Strategy

My exit strategy is definitely to sell my product to another company down the line. One of my industry experts was the CEO of an LED bike light company. He said that he would love to integrate my chirp technology into the housing for the lights. So already I have a buyer. My strategy would be to first build out the actual product and essentially have a proof concept and test it in the market to show that there is demand for a couple years and then sell the business to the LED bike light company. If I were to just sell the idea to another company it would not be worth nearly as much as a fully fleshed out product with a defined and actively aware market.
My exit strategy has definitely changed how I view the product. At first, I viewed it as its own stand-alone device that I sold to consumers but now that I see the potential for integration with other bike equipment I can shift my focus to being a B to B business. This drastic change of markets is drastic but necessary as selling in bulk to businesses allows me to have a steady and assured income.

27 Reading Reflection 3

I read The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More by Chris Anderson

1) What was the general theme or argument of the book?

The general argument of the book that in order for a business to succeed in this era of rapidly advancing technology and interconnected culture a business must sell many products to a broad market. This is a stark contrast to the conventional approach of having a business start out as a niche product and then branching out towards other products and markets. An example of this is Apple. At first, they were only a computer company, then they added the iPhone and then the IPad and then started selling variations of each one along with the computers that they had always been making. 

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

To me, the book actually conflicted with much of what we have learned in class. Professor Pryor basically preaches that we must focus our efforts on one product and a very specific market. In that way, the book actually challenged what I was learning in class. 

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

The exercise would involve having the person completely flip their focused business strategy to a broad market strategy and then come up with products to fulfill those markets. 

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?

My biggest surprise was that the book did challenge what we were learning in class. Of course, the book did focus mostly on much larger businesses, not small self-owned startup like what we are creating in class. I still stand strong however on my dig a mile deep not a mile wide approach to building a business. That means to focus on a niche market and product and build your identity around that and then start branching out instead of spreading yourself thin at the beginning. If there is no depth then business is sure to fail.

26 Celebrating Failure

Fortunately, I have not had any major failures this semester. The only failure I can really think of was that I had forgotten to do one of the first cupcakes. I had woken up late and went about my Monday morning routine more hurriedly than normal. I got out of bed, ate breakfast, and was out the door and on my bike heading to campus. It did not occur to me until after my noon class was over that I had forgotten to do the cupcake. I usually do it on Mondays soon after waking up. I remembered about the cupcake once I was walking to Heavner to watch Professor Pryor's lecture.

From this experience, I learned that I had to set an actual schedule for the cupcakes and get them done over the weekend. I realized that leaving it up to my groggy Monday morning brain was perhaps not the greatest idea I have had. 

Failures like those are hard because I know they could have been avoided. Luckily by learning from that failure, I am sure to not make the same mistake again. I have always been more on the cautious side so I'm not sure I am more likely to take risks than before. I still like to heavily outweigh the pros and cons of a situation before going along with it. 

25 - What's Next

Existing Market

The next step in my venture is creating more safety products for bikers.

The people I talked to were a group of students and they suggested that I make an app that integrated with Chirp device and let them turn it on from there and change the different predetermined setting so they could choose how many chirps to use. Some just wanted a steady stream feature so they could use it like a normal dog whistle for their dogs. The other person I interviewed wanted an app that uses the phone's own speakers to make the noise. I believe that my next steps based on this feedback are definitely to have some kind of smartphone integration. I really resonated with the idea that my first interview produced.

New Market

The other market that I can target is bike safety equipment manufacturers that are looking for ways to differentiate themselves from the competition. 

I can create value for them by adding another function to their product with the integration of my device. 

I talked to the people that I added to my social capital in the growing your social capital post. What surprised me the most was how on board they seemed to be. Tom Carroll, the CEO of NiteRider was telling me that they are constantly trying to find new features to their lights and how they can only upgrade the LED diode so many times. They believe that adding my device would add a great functionality that is line with the intention of the product; to provide a safe and pleasant ride for the customer. They would want to implement it to their current products as the "elite safety model" for retail customers. This market is much more attractive than selling to the consumers because these are assured sales to businesses that will be buying in bulk. There is less risk on my part and I also don't have to worry about dealing with packaging and distribution to consumers. 

Venture Concept

Chirp

The opportunity for my product is that bikers don't have an efficient, and successful way of alerting people in front of them to move out of the way. This is especially true for pedestrians or people driving in cars. The car drivers and pedestrians usually don't look out for bikers and this can be a major hazard to those bikers. The most difficult ones to alert when you are a biker are pedestrians that have their headphones while listening to music or those that are very distracted on their phones or in conversation. Cars also fall into that list as it is difficult to hear anything going on outside of a car. A biker just cannot yell loud enough for some of the examples listed above to move out of the way or not cross the street. Many bikers also don't want to yell at the pedestrians to either not draw attention to themselves or because they feel they might be rude. There is just no discreet way of alerting these pedestrians and cars to move out of the way or at least be on the lookout for you.

The forces in the environment that created this opportunity are the ignorance of pedestrians and the more predominant use of bicycles. The market for a product like this would be areas that have a big biking population. For example, a city like Seattle is well known for having many bikers. Other areas with high biking populations are college campuses as many students cannot afford cars and opt for using a bike to get around. The demographics I am targeting are college students and young professionals that use bikes often. These potential customers are currently satisfying this need by just yelling to other all the time to get out of the way. They are not extremely loyal as all they are doing is yelling. There was never a transaction. This opportunity affects basically every single biker owner therefore, this is a major opportunity. This window of opportunity will last as long as people use a bike and there is no better way of alerting people by screaming while on a bike.

The innovation is a small device that will change biking and alerts in general forever. It is a high-frequency noise, much like a dog whistle. This noise would not be at the same frequency as a dog whistle or else no one would be able to hear it. It would be high frequency but not necessarily loud. The noise would be highly directional and only be audible if you are within a 45-degree cone in front of the device. It would be rectangular. The size would be about four inches long by 2 inches wide by half an inch thick. It would encase a small yet powerful speaker as well as a battery that is powered with micro-USB. The device on its own could be sold for about 20 dollars. For the unit as a whole with a charging cable and a quick start guide.

The product would be called Chirp and would send a quick burst of noise that can be determined by the three settings on the device. It can do a series of chirps, it can send a single chirp, or it can just keep chirping until you press a button to stop. People will pick up my product because it is of great benefit to their safety. It should not be difficult to get them to switch. My competitors would be bicycle bells and rings. Their weakness is that they are very annoying and loud. My goal is to integrate my device into bike lights and bicycle helmets. That way it is sure revenue and I would not need to worry about retail distribution. All I need to do is distribute it to the bike light and helmet makers.

My most important resource is the fact that my device is discreet and it is an actual need. Needs outweigh the importance of a want almost everytime.

The next new product would be implementing this on a larger scale for cars. In the next five years, I see the company being a staple for bikes. I want that when people buy a bike they also buy my Chirp along with lights and a helmet. In the next decade, I hope to have sold my idea to a company and be using the money from that to fund the next great idea that I come up with down the line.