27 A

1)

I analyzed and read the book 'How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, Scott Adams'. The argument of the book is that no matter how many times you fail at any specific task in life if you have the determination and stop thinking like everyone else, you will win big. 

2)

The book starts off with different funny stories which present the failures of the author. He had a lot of people telling him that he would never make it as a cartoonist, but Scott just never gave up. He was painting cartoons for hours until he got diagnosed with an illness that produced his little finger to make uncontrolled movements. The doctors told them that they had never seen such an illness like that and that he should immediately stop painting. Even when all the odds were against him, Scott's mentality as completely different. According to him, it is extremely important to be the first one at something so he took it as an incentive to be the first person to cure this disease. In relating this to the class, ENT 3003 prepares us for getting constant negative feedback concerning our business idea or business plan, but we should not get discouraged by it if we truly believe we can become successful with it.

3)

According to Scott, we spend too much time thinking and worrying about our goals. Instead, we should be spending this valuable time in the construction of our systems, since by having a good and well-balanced system and we have the discipline to stick to it, our goals will come by themselves. Knowing this, a good exercise in class would be that everyone should write down on paper by which system they think would increase their productivity and their overall well-being. 

4)

One important surprise moment was when I realized while reading the book that when Scott was describing the "basic" behavior of people that are not improving and literally are just loosing too much time I personally shared most of their characteristics. It instantly caught my attention and while I kept reading the book, there were just basic parts that instantly made sense and I am now trying to adapt my personal lifestyle to it. 

One example would be that I never really knew what I wanted, I liked a lot of stuff but I never really knew what I wanted. So after spending some time on deciding what that was, I made a plan to how to achieve it and that is it. No more thinking if I should or not or if I should wait for a second opinion. From now one if I really want something I just go for it.

28 A

1)
 I believe that no matter how much we evolve, we will always have a kind of issue regarding traffic since our population has not made any progress in stopping its massive increase over the years. Due to this, there will be always the need of eliminating traffic, which means that there will always be a need of my service provided. Having this in mind I came to the conclusion that I will dedicate this business idea to my life's work since even though I would not be directly involved in the construction of a tram all the time, there will always be ways to improve the previous trams in order to make them more efficient. If my children would consider taking my business over after a certain time, they would be more than welcome to do it, but I would never force them to do it, they are going to live their own lives and they should make the choices they want.
2)
I chose this particular exit strategy because only the thought of it makes me happy. Doing this a lifetime would have a positive impact on my life since it is something that I want to do.
3)
As far as I am concerned, I would say that my exit strategy has definitely influenced my growth intentions since I did not plan mine exist strategy in five years like a regular project. I planned it as my life work which makes it "my ugly baby" for the rest of my life.

26 A

1)  This is was my first semester at UF and since I transferred with a GPA of 3.9/4, I did not even worried for one minute that I would have a hard time studying or that I would struggle in anyways with my classes. But sadly when I first started studying for Business Finance after going to every single lecture, I could not understand how he came up with the solutions for his problems and I started to feel a little bit worried. After realizing that any question asked could be solved in a different way I started panicking and tried to get some help from study edge but it was too late. There were too many problems to solve to acquire more speed and practice and I ended up failing my first exam badly. I spend most of my time studying for this exam and unfortunately neglected my other classes. I had to came up with a game changer and I started every single day for hours for all my classes but Business Finance was too overwhelming. I started freaking out since I needed a B or higher in this class so I completely shut off any extracurricular activity which was not study related. For my second exam I was confident and knew that with hard work, I could pass the class but I failed again. Not as bad but I failed. I finally decided that it was better for me on my other classes and drop Business Finance in order to not mess up my GPA that much. This did not help again. I also failed my second management exam even though I had studied for it weeks before and I was positive that I knew the materials and well know I have one exam left and I need a 75% to pass the class.

2) I learned from it to never underestimate anything. I should always study as much as I can for every exam and never underestimate any class because I think I could take the whole world. Business Finance showed me that no matter how smart you are if you do not dedicate yourself completely to Business Finance and study for it, you will ner make it pass the class.

3) Before I went to UF, I never thought about failure since failing at something was never an option to me. I was most of the time angry and disappointed with myself when I could not figure out how to pass Businesses Finance, to be honest. As far as I am concerned I would say that I handle failure in a very quiet way. I do not like to talk about it and I try to recreate the scene of why it went wrong and why I did not prevent it.
After realizing through this class that failure is just a part of the process in the entrepreneurial lifestyle, I realized to embrace failure and to learn as much and as many mistakes, I have committed in my life.

25 A

Existing Market

After I talked again with my customers, I asked them what would I should be doing what I haven't planned to do and no one of the three really gave me some feedback I could work on except one and his name was Tyler. When I explained to Tyler my business idea, he said that he really was a fun about the idea that I would be helping the environment by reducing the number of cars located inside the heart of the city. But then he made the excellent point that since we were going to make a high profit, we should consider building the trains one hundred percent eco-friendly. He was thinking of powering them with solar energy.

This would make the costs much more expensive but it is definitely a point of view I have not thought of. An important number of cars have been put on the market that is hybrids and electrics and I am wondering know if we could use the same technology in the building of the trams.

Global warming gains every day more supporters and with Scandinavian countries banning fuel based cars in 2020, I believe that the use of electric trams can have a positive impact worldwide. This would definitely an improvement and today's society.

New Market

Since I have been focusing myself all the time ona B2B market, I tried to find something related to my initial business idea in the B2C market and I came up with an excellent product.
I came up with the idea of creating an app with the exact locations and schedules of the trams. I am well aware that applications with the same process already exsist, even in Gainesville most of the students use the ROTC application to look when their bus arrives. But people who use the tram regularly are most likely to use their app as well.

After talking to my two interviewers, I can conclude that the App market is extremely competitive and expensive to get a proper app. But they all said the same which is that if they would use and pay the monthly plan of the trams, they would most definitely also download the app if it is easy to use it and it tells you exactly when the tram is arriving or leaving.

As far as I am concerned, I would say that this market is attractive in order to provide the best possible experience for my customers to use the tram when going to a city and leave their cars at home. After conducting my interviews, they did make me clear that the app is an excellent side project but I should definitely focus more on the construction of trams and on their efficiency, my customers would not define my app by the fanciness of the app.

24 A

After performing extensive research about the real estate market, I concluded that living in the heart of any major city in the world is too expensive. Unfortunately, an important amount of people have to drive every single morning to the city due to the location of their offices or the locations of their children's school. This leads every day to hour-long traffic jams which cause the increase of stress level and negative energy. 

After spending weeks analyzing this problem, I found an opportunity and  I came up with a business idea that would eliminate any kind of traffic which would be the construction of trams. 

People driving to the city would leave their cars on huge parking lots outside the city and then take the trams to the key spots of the city.

This would also decrease the level of traffic inside the city and people would not have to worry anymore about arriving late to school or important meetings.

Creating this opportunity will change completely the daily life morning routine of driving every day to the city and waiting between fifteen and forty-five minutes. There will be some constructions to do but there are always constructions made in any major city. 

These days, future customers are satisfying the need of not getting stuck into traffic by avoiding rush hours. They wake up an hour earlier and driving earlier to the office. When they go home from work they stay an extra hour at their office until most of the people already home.

as far as I am concerned, I would say that this opportunity is big since it introduces positive change and it also helps the environment since fewer cars will be circulating in any city.

The window of opportunity will be as long open as no one tries to implement my business idea before me.

The service I am providing is bringing people faster to their destinations by the constructions of trams throughout the city.  I am fully aware that the construction of this would cost at least 500 million dollars but I would charge only a monthly plan of only 10$ including unlimited rides with the trams throughout the entire at any time. Using a city for an example such as Orlando, downtown Orlando has already an estimated population of 55 thousand people and the entire city has a population of 278 thousand people. If hypothetically only people already living in downtown Orlando would purchase the monthly plan of 10$ the initial investment would already be paid off and we would start already making a huge amount of profit. And this would be not even considering the number of people who drive every single day to downtown for work reasons.

My innovation will eliminate any kind of traffic since because of trams circulating around the city, the use of a car will become obsolete. Everyone knows that finding a parking spot inside of the heart of any city is basically impossible unless we pay between five and twenty dollars for it. Trams will be circulating with an appropriate schedule which will give the opportunity to its customers to arrive on time to their destinations without fear of getting stuck in any kind of traffic or not finding a place where to leave their cars.  Customers will be buying my innovation since for the simple reason that it makes their life easier. Everyone loves arriving on time without having to put in consideration several factors that could avoid this from happening. Competitors would be state buses but their vulnerability is that they depend on outside traffic and on traffic lights in order to arrive at their destination on time. Customer experience plays a major role in my business idea. If my service would not work as planned and the trams would arrive of their schedule it could cause my customers to arrive late at to their appointments and the whole goal of my business plan would be put at risk. The happiness of our customers is crucial to our business concept.

I would organize the business in a way that I would need a trustworthy company for the construction of the tram, investors and the support of the Mayor of the city and lastly, I would consider myself the CEO of the entire construction of the tram. 

To conclude, I would say that first of all, my most important resource is my knowledge. I have been working on this project for a few years, and I believe that I have made the right connections to go through with this project. I have also the knowledge of multiple languages which can facilitate me the communication with potential companies that can assure me the excellent production of the trams with the least costs possible. 

Secondly, after realizing the first tram, I would go to another major city and introduce there my business idea, since as I mentioned before, there are enough cities in this world which have exactly the same issue of traffic in their major cities.

Thirdly, in five years I would want to keep introducing my business plan and help out as many cities as I can with their traffic issue.

23 A

The ability to communicate with people from the entire world in their mother language, since I am fluent in German, French, Spanish, English, and Luxembourgish.

Valuable: Extremely valuable since I do not have any communication barrier  with people in the entire world

Rare: Only 3% of the entire world population speak more than four languages

Imitable: This is a unique skill that can only be acquired as a kid.

Non-substitutable: Could technically be substitutable but since only 3% of the population has that same skill, it would be extremely hard and expensive to find an adequate substitute

 

Extensive Knowledge about the construction of trams

Valuable: I have been involved in this topic for almost five years

Rare: not many people are involved in the construction business and in the specifical construction of trams 

Imitable: If you would start studying and do extensive research on this topic, I guess you could get similar knowledge than me

Non-substitutable: It could be substitutable but not likely

Social Contacts that can help me realize my business idea

Valuable: highly since if you know these days the right people you have most definitely a competitive advantage

Rare: highly since they have been created over several years

Imitable: Not at all, everyone has different Social contacts

Non-substitutable: non substitutable

The real-life experience that a similar business idea of mine has already been successful

Valuable: highly since I already know most of the possible complications that come along the way

Rare: highly since this happened in a country that has only half a million people living in it

Imitable: experiences cannot be imitable

Non-substitutable: experiences cannot be substitutable

UF Student

Valuable: highly since I can still improve my network

Rare: not that rare since all UF students have the same access to this resource

Imitable: can be imitable by any other UF student

Non-substitutable: Once connections are made they are not substitutable

Having multiple nationalities gives me the possibility to travel all around the world for business meetings without having any barriers

Valuable: highly since most of the people always have to consider what policies the country has in which they have to travel to

Rare: Not everyone has three different nationalities

Imitable: My nationalities are American, Colombian, and Luxembourgish which allows me to travel without any issues to Europe, the U.S. and South America which can not be imitable

Non-substitutable: Definitely non-substitutable

Being an open-minded person and being extremely extroverted is a key competence for this kind of job that I have acquired through my various travels all around the world.

Valuable: It definitely is a lot of people these days are judgemental

about the belief of other religions or from different regions of the world.

Imitable: It is unique to the person's character

Rare: These days it has become more and more difficult to find people with open minds.

Non-substitutable: values are non-substitutable

Growing up in an entrepreneurial family gives me the right entrepreneurial mindset

Valuable: For the implementation of a business idea, having an entrepreneurial mindset is crucial

Imitable: I do not believe someone's mindset is imitable

Rare: Since there are more and more entrepreneurs out there, their mindset can be all defined as similar which is not extremely rare

Non-substitutable: A mindset cannot be substitutable since it would compromise the entire work balance 

Being single and not having any attachments to a person or a company makes it easier to travel to places anytime and working late hours

Valuable: Implementing a business idea requires an important amount of time and a huge amount of dedication. Not having any responsibility such as children or a girlfriend can be extremely valuable for the well being of the job.

Imitable: It is since every single person has the same feature when being single

Rare: It is not rare, there are a lot of single men and women these days

Non-substitutable: It is substitutable

Pursuing a bachelor's degree in Finance gives me certain skills that I will use in my everyday life as an entrepreneur

Valuable: Not everyone pursues a bachelor's degree in UF and it is not easy to earn one which gives my education a certain level of value

Imitable: Can not be imitable unless you pursue the same career as me

Rare: It is rare if you consider the small number of people graduating with a Finance degree

Non-substitutable: It is substitutable 

As far as I am concerned I would say that my top resource is my ability to know multiple languages. Excellent communication is one of the most important factors in conducting a profitable business.

22 A

2)

 The feedback I received on the second elevator pitch was more positive that the one I received on the first elevator pitch. I slowed myself down while talking and my audience did understand my business idea better.

3)

The overall statements are true for me. I am not nervous about standing in front of a camera and I do know my pitch by heart now. I just tried on this one to not move my hands that much and in the overall, I am confident about this one.

21 A

1)
 I read and analyzed the book 'The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users, by Guy Kawasaki', and the general theme of the book was to illustrate to the readers how important social media has become these days. Steps of how to increase the number of followers in one's social media profiles are also analyzed in detail.
2)
The book is all about connecting people from all around the world which is also a major factor which I am learning in ENT 3003. The assignments make me go on campus and talk to people about a business idea that I came up with at the beginning of the semester and get in contact with people that might already be working in the same area that has characteristics of my business idea. In other words, ENT 3003 believes that connectivity and networking is an important attribute in the success of one's entrepreneurial journey.
3)
The exercise would involve sharing all the social media accounts you have with all your classmates. The more, the merrier.
4)
I always knew that social media has become an important marketing factor these days, but I never thought how important social media has become for a regular college student or a person trying to look for a job. Linkedin has become an important factor in job hiring and if a person has a profile with a lot of followers and shares important posts, he will have more chances of getting a better job than a person who does not pay as much attention to their social media profile.

20A

1.
1) The expert in my industry I talked to is Alex Giorgetti. He went to school with a friend of mine and he is the son of the Luxembourgish construction company Giorgetti. They have been working in construction for several years and the company has major ties to the government which gives them all the projects of constructions of government-funded buildings.
2) I would fill the slot of the domain expert in the industry with this person since for the construction of trams, I would need an expert in construction overall.
3) I never knew the person personally but I have a friend who went to school with him and she introduced me to him.
4) I never did a favor to the person I just talked to him about a possible business plan in which he might be interested.
5) Alex is on the board of directors of Giorgetti which gives him a lot of influence into the company overall. I will need for my business idea most definitely a construction company that I can trust and I would definitely like it if this company could be in my team.
2.
1) Javier Enrique Garavito is an expert in the market. He has traveled to various cities due to his line of work and ties to several governments, he has made contacts through all around the world.
2) He would fill the slot of the domain on an expert on the market since he has ties to several governments and in order for me to construct a tram in any city, I need certifications from several cities and government workers.
3) This person is a close relative of mine and I contacted him on a family reunion.
4) Since we are family I just asked him for his opinion and if he would want to join my business project.
5) Including him in my project would be a key move since it would allow me to talk directly to the people I need the approval of constructing a tram.
3.
1) CAF industries would be an important supplier in my industry.
2) This company would fill the slot of the domain is an important supplier in my industry.
3) A few years ago a recruiter looking for internships came to my high school a couple of years ago and I still had the phone number of that person.
4) The recruiter expects from me to keep him notify about my business project since they would love to keep receiving new projects in the entire world.
5) Since I my business plan is to eliminate traffic with the construction of trams, I need a reliable company who constructs trams and after analyzing past works from this company, I would want them to include in my business idea.

Reflection: As far as I am concerned I would say that this experience was challenging since I was nervous at the beginning of sharing my business idea with people I was not too familiar with and I would not have wanted from them to make fun of my project.

19A

1)
 My name is Alexandro Garavito. I am a twenty-year-old student at the University of Florida. I was born in Bogota, Colombia, but I moved to Luxembourg when I was only eight months old. I was raised in Luxembourg and finished my High School there. I learned the three official languages Luxembourg has which are French, German, and Luxembourgish. I am also fluent in Spanish since we talk Spanish at home. Later on, in High School, I learned English, which I have been practicing ever since I decided to go to the University in the United States. I first did a year and a half in a Community College in Orlando and then I transferred last semester to the University of Florida. I have had a business idea over a few years which I have been planning to pursue in the future, that would be eliminating traffic jams in major cities. I grew up in a town in Luxembourg which is called Mondorf-Les-Bains. It was a beautiful town with only a thousand residents. Sadly, when I was done with middle school, I entered High School, which was located in downtown Luxembourg. It was only a twenty minutes’ drive away but since most of the High Schools in Luxembourg are located in downtown, the bus I had to take would sometimes take about an hour to arrive due to traffic jams. I was stressed since I came late to exams or class. A few years ago, Luxembourg decided to construct the LuxTram in order to decrease the level traffic jams and it has been a success.
By the time I finished High School, the LuxTram was still under construction, but I believe that there are still other countries who are suffering the same traffic jam problems as Luxembourg did over years.
2)
My business idea is to eliminate any form of traffic in major cities by the construction of trams that would bring people to the hotspots of the city while they can leave their cars outside the city in parking buildings. I believe that the famous quote of "time is money" is true, and I know for a fact that people perform on their jobs or on their studies better if they arrive on time without having dealt with some sort of traffic jam stress in the morning.
3)
I am offering this service to all the people who live in any major city and to the people who live between fifteen and forty-five minutes away from a major city. People that already live in a major city could just take the tram to go to their work, schools, supermarket, or social places. People who not live in downtown but have to drive there every morning since their office is there or because their children go there to school could just leave their cars in the parking houses outside the city and the take the corresponding tram to their destinations.
4)
As far as I am concerned, I believe that customers care since this service would be able to get them to places as fast as possible. They could sleep an hour longer and they would be able to get every day to their destination without getting stressed out in the morning or on their way home.
5)

I would say that since I experienced the traffic jam issue for seven years of my life and I also experienced how this issue was solved, this would make me an expert for finding a solution in other major cities. My knowledge of various languages is also an important factor when choosing an adequate company to build the Tram. I believe that the company chosen for such a project can be a multinational company and with the advantages of the languages I know and with relations in Europe and the United States, I believe that I could find the right company for the job.

Finally, I would say that all my elements do fit together. My personal experiences including my human capital should be enough characteristics to make my business plan successful.

Feedback Memo:
To be completely honest, I only received one feedback in my last assignment which was that my classmate would consider New York City as an excellent customer for the construction of a tram since the prices in the heart of downtown New York are extremely high and most people can not afford living there. The people who would live outside the city could take the tram and arrive faster to their offices. Sadly I must admit that New York City already has an excellent subway system which would make the construction of a tram irrelevant. I did not use the feedback in my response since the feedback was not really relevant to my business idea.