30

What sticks out to you as the most formative experience? The experience that you'll remember years later? What was your most joyous experience? What experience are you most proud of yourself for accomplishing?

The most formative experience was interviewing my close friends and the people that I worked close with to find out how I am different from their points of view. I found out that one of my greatest strengths is simply being organized in doing my work, and that I always reach deadlines, and I am never late to meetings. I am most proud of taking a leap of faith and being able to talk to and have meaningful conversations with strangers for the class.

3) At the beginning of the semester, I mentioned that I wanted each of you to develop an entrepreneurial mindset. Now, at the end, do you see yourself as an entrepreneur? Do you think you have moved closer to developing an entrepreneurial mindset?

I don't see myself as an entrepreneur per-say, but I do think that I have developed more entrepreneurial skills after taking the class. For example, I have learned to look for opportunities in my everyday life.

4) What is the one recommendation you would make to the students who are going to journey down this path in the future? What would you recommend they do to perform best in this course? What would you recommend they do to foster that mindset?

One recommendation for future students would be to have an open mindset and a growth mindset. Don't treat the assignments as pure homework, but have fun with the assignments as you talk to people around you.

Venture Capital 2

Opportunity:

In the Electronic Dance Music scene, there is a problem where attendees of music festivals do not know what kinds of drugs that they are ingesting. Besides the fact that some people actually ingest the drugs that they know they are ingesting, for example, MDMA is a common drug that people like to use during festivals, and is the drug of choice for a lot of people. The problem with this is oftentimes, MDMA is mixed with other drugs such as methamphetamine as a way of cutting the drugs to profit the dealer more that can pose harm to users.

I think the window of opportunity for this need is constantly open as long as there is no competitor and as long as the drug scene is ongoing. I don’t think the drug scene is going to disappear anytime soon, so the window of opportunity is probably very large. The market is geared towards those who are in their early 20’s around the United States.

Innovation:

I want to innovate by creating a service that could test these types of drugs at music festivals without any repercussions. The service would have booths throughout the festival with drug test kits tested by professionally trained testers. Drugs that contain pure MDMA, LSD, etc. would be given back to attendees, but drugs who pose a large risk that festival goers should not take under any circumstance will just be destroyed.

The potential customers would be festival attendees and the nature of the need is that everyone who ingests drugs put themselves at risk. This service will just reduce that risk.

How this work and how I would profit would be to form a contract with music festival organizers, and would just charge the organizers on each person that tests their drugs. There could be a system that scan the bands of each attendee who tests the drugs and each scan can charge say around $10 for each person who tests the drugs. The cost of the service could be included in the cost of the admissions ticket for the festival. There could be a lot of marketing on the website of the festival and signs throughout the festival to encourage people to use the service.



Venture Concept:

This venture concept will solve the opportunity that I identified because it is a way to keep people safe from the drugs that do cause a lot of harm to attendees. I don’t think there is any switching into this service because there just aren’t any competitors in the North American market with this new product, so that is something that is not to worry about. There would be some logistical concepts such as traveling with each festival. For example, Insomniac organizes music festivals throughout the entire United States, so my service will have to travel throughout to catch every festival, and the drug test kits will have to be shipped throughout the United States, but I don’t believe that that is very hard to do. The amount of employees would not be very large, so my variable costs in terms of wages will be pretty low.

However, the very risk of this business is the legal environment in which this business runs. Since this business is dealing with illicit drugs that are illegal, the business could be at risk of not being able to obtain a permit of some sort to run even if it saves lives. In addition, the statuses of drugs are constantly changing in terms of legality, so this business would be somewhat volatile.

In addition, I could expand this service to even greater than just EDM concerts, but rap and country concerts could be a large market. Especially, because rap is very popular.


Three minor elements:

My most important resource will be that I have connections in the music industry that could get me in touch with music festival organizers. I think this is the most important aspect of my social capital because without getting in touch with these organizers to pitch my idea, my service will never be able to take off. I also have great interpersonal skills that can allow me to pitch ideas to executives successfully.

The next opportunity that I want to tackle with my current innovation is a way to separate the bad parts of a drug from the parts that is desirable. For example, if there is a way to separate the compounds of methamphetamine from MDMA, then I would capitalize on that opportunity.

Assuming this would launch, I would just watch this venture come to fruition and grow it from Insomniac, a music festival organizer, to other large festival organizers. I would travel the world to see my idea come to fruition and see the lives I have saved for this service.


2) My feedback is overwhelmingly positive in this concept because I was able to identify extra markets for this service such as rap and concert music festivals. I don't have to just stick with the Electronic Music market. In addition, it came to my attention that my service has a risk of not being able to run because of legal issues with the prevalence of drugs.

3) I changed the venture concept so that I could take into account the legal aspect of the service, and I would encourage expanding to other markets such as other music genres of festivals.

28A - Your Exit Strategy

1. I intend to sell the business in the next 5 years.

2.  I want to sell the business because the business is very risky with the constant changing legal environment. Since it is dealing with a lot of illegal drugs, many may find it to be harmful, and the music industry is also constantly changing through the years that I think would be better to sell my business.

3. My exit strategy influenced the other decisions because I have never thought about the long-term goals of this business. All my decisions seem to be short-term, and so the long-term growth of the business could be held back.

27A: Reading Reflection 3

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

The general theme of How to fail at almost everything and still win big is to teach readers that failure is okay, and that many people who eventually succeed have failed many times in their lives. Failure is a very common occurrence, and as long as one is able to bounce back from their failures and setbacks, then they can get somewhere in life eventually. People should not set goals, but rather systems, so that they can adjust to whatever happens in lives, because life is very dynamic and sometimes things would not work out the way one wants it to work.

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


This book enhances what we are learning in ENT 3003 because Pryor really emphasizes that successful people have often failed in the past. Those who are motivated are undeterred by failure, and would keep going and bounce back from setbacks to get where they want to go. Young people often rush to get successful, but success does not come for everyone very easily.


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


I would design an exercise that is just like a system mentioned in this book. The exercise would be dynamic and have changing parts that would set the person in the exercise back in ways that would be unpredictable so the person could learn to adjust to changes in their environment and be adaptable. The exercise may even end in a different way that the person would have thought.


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?
What differed from my expectations the most is the fact that the book looks down upon goal-setting when goal setting is something that a lot of people do to make sure that they are on track towards the path of success. Goal-setting has always been a big deal to me and something that I have always implemented in my life, but I think with my mentality, I can follow the advice of this book and make changes.

26A: Celebrating Failure

This past semester, I have failed many times. I have attempted to obtain an internship for the summer of 2020 through Career Showcase and emailing a lot of recruiters and just networking in general. I received many interview offers from firms, but even though I prepped a lot for these interviews, I tend to always fall short of the job offer, unfortunately. One particular position that I wanted to take was a position in Virginia with Capital One, and after failing their interviews even though I took two days of my time to attend their interviews at the office, I felt very sad and defeated. However, I learned a lot through those interviews such as how professional interviews worked and what interviewers look for in interviewees.

I agree that failure is hard, and that when one fails, they will always learn from their mistakes or else it was just a waste of time. I handle failure by grieving about the fact for about a couple days before I bounce back and analyze my mistakes or weaknesses. I don't think that this class has changed my perspective on failure, but rather my life experience did.

25A

What I think is next:

                I think what I would consider moving forward with the service would be to expand the service into other avenues of music festivals. This product is currently focused on the electronic dance music scene while there are so many other types of music festivals out there such as Bonnaroo and even arts and music festivals. With all the other types of music festivals, there are opportunities for other demographics.

New Market interviews:

1.       Interview with a rock concert fan named Aidan: Aidan have seen people on drugs at rock concerts, and believes that there is a market for this service. The service could be downscaled because rock concerts are smaller in nature, but he believes that it could be used.

2.       Interview with a rap concert enthusiast named Simon: Simon believes that a lot of drugs are consumed especially at Rolling Loud where anything goes. This would ensure the safety of its attendees.

Reflection:

I was so focused on developing this service for my own music tastes that I forgot that there are many other different music tastes that also have the same problem at their live events. Even though rap, rock, and other miscellaneous musical acts have a considerably smaller number of people who use drugs, the service could be down-scaled to reduce costs, but also have a presence at these events. 

My interviews with these individuals really broadened my perspectives with other musical tastes and types because I did not know that they would also have the same issues, and so this new market would open a large amount of consumers for this service.

Existing Market:

I think that at times, people are distrustful of other people when it comes to handling drugs, so there could be an incentive in getting their drugs tested such as a free piece of food item or snack when they bring their drugs to the booths to entice people to utilize the service.

Existing Market Interviews:

1.       Interview with Aidan: Aidan stated that the food item would not be enough for people to trust other people when it comes to handling drugs.

2.       Interview with Jenny: Jenny said she would not trust other people to handle her drugs just because she could get free food for the risk of getting arrested or some sort of punishment.

3.       Interview with Kaden: Kaden would use the service for its safety, but not just because he would get a food item as an incentive.

Reflection: There is a consensus that people would not approach the booths just because they would get free food, but they would approach it to get their drugs tested for free instead. I think the new idea would fail, but there is always that intrinsic willingness to get their drugs tested.

24A: Venture Capital No. 1

Opportunity:

In the Electronic Dance Music scene, there is a problem where attendees of music festivals do not know what kinds of drugs that they are ingesting. Besides the fact that some people actually ingest the drugs that they know they are ingesting, for example, MDMA is a common drug that people like to use during festivals, and is the drug of choice for a lot of people. The problem with this is oftentimes, MDMA is mixed with other drugs such as methamphetamine as a way of cutting the drugs to profit the dealer more that can pose harm to users.

I think the window of opportunity for this need is constantly open as long as there is no competitor and as long as the drug scene is ongoing. I don’t think the drug scene is going to disappear anytime soon, so the window of opportunity is probably very large. The market is geared towards those who are in their early 20’s around the United States.

Innovation:

I want to innovate by creating a service that could test these types of drugs at music festivals without any repercussions. The service would have booths throughout the festival with drug test kits tested by professionally trained testers. Drugs that contain pure MDMA, LSD, etc. would be given back to attendees, but drugs who pose a large risk that festival goers should not take under any circumstance will just be destroyed.

The potential customers would be festival attendees and the nature of the need is that everyone who ingests drugs put themselves at risk. This service will just reduce that risk.

How this work and how I would profit would be to form a contract with music festival organizers, and would just charge the organizers on each person that tests their drugs. There could be a system that scan the bands of each attendee who tests the drugs and each scan can charge say around $10 for each person who tests the drugs. The cost of the service could be included in the cost of the admissions ticket for the festival. There could be a lot of marketing on the website of the festival and signs throughout the festival to encourage people to use the service.



Venture Concept:

This venture concept will solve the opportunity that I identified because it is a way to keep people safe from the drugs that do cause a lot of harm to attendees. I don’t think there is any switching into this service because there just aren’t any competitors in the North American market with this new product, so that is something that is not to worry about. There would be some logistical concepts such as traveling with each festival. For example, Insomniac organizes music festivals throughout the entire United States, so my service will have to travel throughout to catch every festival, and the drug test kits will have to be shipped throughout the United States, but I don’t believe that that is very hard to do. The amount of employees would not be very large, so my variable costs in terms of wages will be pretty low.



Three minor elements:

My most important resource will be that I have connections in the music industry that could get me in touch with music festival organizers. I think this is the most important aspect of my social capital because without getting in touch with these organizers to pitch my idea, my service will never be able to take off. I also have great interpersonal skills that can allow me to pitch ideas to executives successfully.

The next opportunity that I want to tackle with my current innovation is a way to separate the bad parts of a drug from the parts that is desirable. For example, if there is a way to separate the compounds of methamphetamine from MDMA, then I would capitalize on that opportunity.

Assuming this would launch, I would just watch this venture come to fruition and grow it from Insomniac, a music festival organizer, to other large festival organizers. I would travel the world to see my idea come to fruition and see the lives I have saved for this service.