Elevator Pitch No. 1

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlyQanNxkzc

Assignment 22A- Elevator Pitch No.3

Assignment 22A- Elevator Pitch No. 3

           

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE_WeNZ4MDs

From my past pitch, I listened to the feedback I received and tried to keep the good parts like inflection and tempo the same and incorporate things I could improve on. For example, this time around I worked on memorizing my pitch more effectively so that I don’t break eye contact with the hypothetical audience at any point. From the feedback I received, I understood that this eye contact helps with a clear delivery and makes the audience feel like you’re venture seriously. People are more likely to appreciate a speech that has been memorized, rather than having to watch someone reading something off a paper. I also tried to include more specific qualities of my business concept and why it is important to purchase. By highlighting the dangers of the internet, I also hope I was more convincing this time around. Lastly, I tried to improve on my energy and hand gestures to go hand in hand with what I’m saying. 

Assignment 21A- Reading Reflection No. 2

Assignment 21A- Reading Reflection No. 2

Book: The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users, Guy Kawasaki

In today’s day and age, social media can really help propel a business and reach millions of potential customers around the world. According to Kawasaki, excelling in social media is critical in jumpstarting your business, making sure it can compete with similar business, and increasing its growth potential. In order to excel in social media, Kawasaki provides important tips in this book. These tips include treating your social media with professionalism, creating content that your audience wants to see and allowing for audience feedback and interaction. According to Kawasaki, capitalizing on these tips will allow you to exploit the opportunities social media offers. Treating your business on social media with professionalism will attract potential customers and build trust, because your audience will see that you are taking this venture seriously. This book really incorporates a lot of the concepts we learned through this class. For instance, as Kawasaki alludes to hard work and passion go hand in hand. You must put your all into marketing your business on social media because this is the best way for it to be noticed. Just like taught in this class, you must approach your business from different angles and pour your all into it if you want it to be a success.

In addition, the book states the importance of creating not for yourself, but targeting your audience. If you post things with a purpose and something that will appeal to you audience, you will boost your follower count and increase your potential revenue. In terms of keeping your audience engaged, this is also a very powerful tool on social media. People are more likely to interact with a business and purchase something if they feel like their voice is being heard. If I had to design an exercise after reading this book, I would definitely incorporate making a social media post on Instagram to promote your business. Although it doesn’t have to be real, having practice in developing a social media platform for your business and how to post about your product can really be helpful. Something I learned from this book that really differed from my expectation was that Kawasaki didn’t initially reach success off of social media. Instead, he worked to promote Macintosh in its early development through speeches, presentations and personal interactions. I believe these experiences really helped him understand what customers are looking for, and translate this knowledge onto social media.

Assignment 30A- Final Reflection

Assignment 30A- Final Reflection

Throughout this class, I’ve experienced many highs and lows. There were many times where I underestimated the amount of work it would actually take to develop a business concept. The assignments where we had to interview people that would help contribute to our potential business was definitely challenging, but so informative. Conducting market research and seeing how customers would respond to your product is integral in understanding the scope for your business. Out of all the experiences, however, I believe the most formative experiences were the different elevator pitches we recorded. I can definitely see the growth and progress I made between the first and third pitch. While it pushed me out of my comfort zone, I think being able to talk about your product and sell it a large audience is one of the most integral components of starting a business. Even though I was only in front of a mirror, I could imagine giving the same speech to a crowd of people. Although, this scared me I believe it was great practice to get me ready for a similar situation in the future should I choose to launch this type of business or another. Public speaking is never easy, but as an entrepreneur it can be a great tool to increase your customer base and future revenue. Therefore, I consider the elevator pitches the most joyous experiences and the one that caused me the most challenges. I am most proud of myself for putting myself out there and pushing myself by getting through them. After this class, I definitely think more like an entrepreneur and have developed an entrepreneur type mindset.

Although I wouldn’t go as to far as to call myself an entrepreneur because I have no product or begun to market anything, but I can see a change in how I think. I now consider elements like competition, resource availability and marketing, rather than just coming up with a product that can help people. I now go beyond, about how exactly I can reach an unmet need, tap into unexpected markets, use social connections and exploit opportunities. One recommendation I would make to students going down the same path is to be on top of time management and take the assignments seriously. These assignments are geared toward allowing you to generate a realistic business model and plan. Using these exercises will only help you in the future as an entrepreneur. Time management is also very important because some assignments require intensive research or interviewing many people, which can take a while. In order to get into the right mindset for this class, I’d recommend reading some of the books on the reading list. These books can help encourage you to take the assignments seriously and take your business model to another level.

Assignment 29A- Venture Concept No. 2

Assignment 29A- Venture Concept No. 2

As the world becomes increasingly online, with the outbreak of the corona virus, I think people now more than ever are in the market for a cybersecurity system that would provide effective protection. Banking, shopping an even school is now done online. Protecting sensitive information and private data is significantly more important in today’s day and age, just because the amount of information we put on the internet now. Although there are measures people can take, like sharing less on social media, it is inevitable that Google and other websites will save your personal information. Making sure there is a system in place to prevent this information from getting into the wrong hands could help millions of people around the world. I will use close social connections in the IT and cybersecurity field to develop a cybersecurity system that has multiple checkpoints before it can be accessed, as well as having firewall/antivirus protection. Firewall/antivirus protection will prevent hackers from getting access to people’s private data, or potentially infecting your computer so that all your data is stolen. Having multiple and specific checkpoints will mean that potential invaders will need more than just a simple password or birthday to access the system. I think the window of opportunity for this business will only expand because everything is moving online, however I think now is hot time. This is because with the coronavirus outbreak, people now more than ever are spending the majority of their time online, thereby increasing their risk if they don’t have adequate protection.

My product would initially be sold for less than typical cybersecurity systems that cost thousands of dollars. I would be willing to sell it for around $700 and have a discounted cost of $500 for students and those in low-income markets. This will allow me to tap into markets that also want to protect their online security, but don’t necessarily have the funds to afford a cybersecurity program. These markets can help grow my business and bring in more revenue for the future. Customers will be more inclined to purchase my product because it will offer effective protection at nearly half the cost as most cybersecurity systems. My most important resource in making this venture a reality will be the close family connections I have in the cybersecurity and IT field. Not only can they help develop my product and make adjustments as technology improves, but they also have access to thousands of computers and systems that can be used to test the product before it hits the market. The next step in my venture will be to develop the product and test it on these computers and large systems to make sure it is effective.

The feedback that I got from my previous venture concept was very important because I learned I needed to get more specific for my next venture concept. Therefore, I tried to incorporate specific elements of my venture concept, like exactly how much it would cost, how it would work and why it would be appealing to customers compared to other similar products. While, I highlighted the benefits of having an effective cybersecurity system in my last venture concept, I didn’t get into details as to how I would go about in achieving this. So, in this venture concept, I made sure to address the social connections I look forward to using in order to develop and test this product. By incorporating how the firewall/antivirus system with multiple checkpoints may help providing effective security, I hope I provided a better picture for what I hope to accomplish.

Assignment 28A- Your Exit Strategy

Assignment 28A- Your Exit Strategy

Since the world is becoming increasingly cyber, and my business involves developing a cybersecurity system that can protect private data, I think it will be a product in demand for a long time. Obviously, as new technology emerges, the software and programming of the system will have to adapt to reflect these changes. Since I project this product potentially helping millions of people for a long time, I intend to stay with the business for several decades and then retire. Despite this, I definitely plan on hiring different people that can take over different sectors of the operation so that I don’t have to concentrate on every little aspect. Having people that I can trust and are from the cybersecurity field are going to be critical in the success of this product. Since I have so many people in my family that are part of the IT and cybersecurity field, I plan to delegate the operations side to them. I would primarily focus on marketing and selling the product to different types of consumers. Once I retire, I plan on giving this responsibility to someone who is just as passionate, if not more, in the venture as me. I plan on staying with the business for decades because I am really interested in helping people protect their sensitive information. As someone who has experienced being hacked, I am aware of the dangers and uncertainties that can exist online. I’ve also had my credit card number stolen, which is actually becoming common with a lot of people. I want to help other people like me, and those who have experienced event worse intrusions.

Since everything is moving online, I believe the market for an effective cybersecurity program will only expand. I hope to make my product a success and help people for decades to come. My exit strategy has definitely influenced my growth projections and use of resources. Since I am dealing with social connections that I am very close with in my own family, and they have resources to get this business started, I don’t initially plan on investing on new resources. Obviously, once my product is launched I will have to invest in additional resources to support the growing business. In addition, as a result of staying with the business a long time I expect a higher growth rate than if I passed the business to someone after 5 years. This is because there won’t be an intermediary transition phase in which someone else has to be trained to fill my position. With this transition, another individual may have trouble familiarizing themselves with the operations, or relating to other members of the team. So I definitely think if I stay on the project for a longer time, it will help growth projections. From my experience, I’ll also know what works and doesn’t and can implement various changes to make the business more successful.

Assignment 27A- Reading Reflection No. 3

Assignment 27A- Reading Reflection No. 3

Biography: Coco Chanel, Lisa Chaney

           

After reading about Coco Chanel I was surprised to learn that she came from poverty. As such an iconic and prominent fashion designer and trend setter in the 20^th century, I would’ve thought that she had connections in the industry or came from an affluent family. However, as the book alludes to, her humble beginnings is probably why so many people were able to relate with her and connect with her style. I was also surprised to learn about her many affairs with prominent figures of the time, as well as with a possible German spy. I liked how Chanel pushed boundaries and didn’t let preconceived notions about how women should dress stop her from innovating and creating new styles. In addition, I admired how Chanel pushed for progression of women through her clothing. Although Chanel experienced backlash for designing clothes that were considered not appropriate for women at the time, she stuck with her convictions and didn’t let conservatives stop her from creating. Instead, through this adversity she continued to push for progression and even rebelled against typical standards. Similar to how she overcame poverty, Chanel was able to escape from convention through her passion.

Throughout the book some competencies Chanel exhibited were resilience, hard work and networking. Chanel was conscious of her humble background, coming from an orphanage and working as a seamstress. Whenever she would face struggles later in her life and as she started expanded her business, she would rely on how she overcame hard times in the past to help her get through these struggles. The resilience she showed proved to be key as she became a cultural and fashion icon in Paris and throughout Europe. Another aspect that really helped Chanel was how she networked with prominent men of her time to achieve status and connections to help her grow her business. Whether she took them as lovers or friends, many of them Arthur Capel helped her to launch her “little business.” One part of the reading that confused me was the rumor that she potentially had a German Nazi spy as a lover late in her life. I don’t know if this was a fact or something that was circulated to discredit her and her work. From the reading, I gathered that there were many people who weren’t a fan of Chanel’s progressive attitude, so I can see why they would start this rumor. If I could ask Chanel two questions it would be how did your early life impact your designs and ideals in fashion later on? I would also be curious to know how her business was able to grow during a time when the world faced two world wars. From everything I know about Chanel through her biography, I definitely think Chanel viewed hard work was a tool to exploit. I agree with this because although many people big dreams, not everyone puts in the blood, sweat and tears required to make it a reality. Even with people that work hard, they are often required to go above and beyond to achieve their dreams.