My Exit Strategy

If my business ends up doing well, I intend on selling it after about 10 years. At some point I want to focus on financial advising and potentially creating my own business in that industry. Continuing to focus on maintaining my curriculum and finding schools to sell it to will consume a lot of my time. I would also like to have kids at that point so juggling this business in addition to financial advising and family life would be too much.

My exit strategy has not had much of an effect on how I've laid out my business plan. I still intend to build the best curriculum possible and go all out trying to find schools to sell it to. I have just decided that I don't think this specific business plan is something I want to dedicate the majority of my life to.

Reading Reflection Number 3

I read Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Peter Drucker

1. What was the general theme or argument of the book

This book is split into three sections:
1. The Practice of Innovation- He talks about the need to be constantly innovating and looking for opportunities.
2. The Practice of Entrepreneurship- He talks about the need to have entrepreneurial leadership in order for innovations to be effective in a business
3. Entrepreneurial Strategies- He talks about strategies for introducing new innovations into your business.

2. How did the book enhance what you are learning in ENT 3003?

This book enforces the fact that entrepreneurship is the driving factor behind a successful business. Even if you have an idea for an innovation you need a leader with an entrepreneurial mindset to carry out that innovation.

3. If you had to design an exercise for this class, based on the book, what would it be?

The exercise I would create would be for each student to identify an existing business and then create an innovation that would help that business. This would help students hone their ability to identify innovations in different industries.

4. What was the biggest surprise of this book?

The biggest surprise to me was that entrepreneurship and innovation should be made the main priority in your business. While these things are clearly important to continue growing as a business, I would think daily operations would be the main priority. If your business is not fulfilling its daily responsibilities, it will not be profitable and there will be no business to innovate. However, i understand what he means and entrepreneurship is vital to long term success.

Celebrating Failure

One thing I have failed with is keeping up with assignments in this class. I have missed deadlines on multiple occasions on accident. After the first time this happened i vowed that I would never let it happen again because my grade couldn't afford it. Then my girlfriend came down to visit from New Jersey and I missed another Friday deadline. This made me feel terrible because i knew i was inadvertently hurting myself. I still can manage a B in this class but i had much higher aspirations for my grade.

I learned that I need to be much more vigilant about checking when assignments are due, especially when my life is full of distractions. I also realized that sometimes these things just happen. Not everything is going to be perfect. I became more accepting of my grade is this class, because that's life.

I struggle to deal with failure at times. I usually feel upset and angry after failing, especially when there is no opportunity to redeem myself. For example, when I inadvertently missed assignments in this class I felt terrible. I realized that there is no opportunity for me to get back up to an A and that devastated me. However when I put in my best effort and I fail, I don't feel as bad because I know I gave it my all. This class has taught me that failure is a part of success.

What's Next?

Existing Market:

My business plan is to sell my investing curriculum to highschools and colleges so that young adults can learn how to invest.

Interviews:

Nick (College Student): Nick thinks my business should focus more on colleges. He thinks highschool students will be less interested in investing and highschools will be more cautious in changing their curriculum.

Ryan (College Student): Ryan thinks I should hire representatives around the country so that they can visit schools and try to sell my curriculum. He thinks this is a more efficient way of reaching every highschool and college.

Brett (College Student): Brett thinks I should focus more on highschools because the earlier I get the these students the better. 

Reflection:

After conducting these interviews I found that these ideas could be very helpful. Two of the ideas i received involved catering my business to one of the two market segments i was planning on marketing to. Since there are valid reasons for both, i will continue to pursue selling my curriculum to highschools and colleges.

I think it would be valuable to hire a group of representatives around the country to visit schools and try to sell my product. The downside of this is that I would need to train each one on how the curriculum works and then put my trust into them. This would be expensive but I believe the increased efficiency would be worth it.

New Market

Another possibility for my business would be to create an online curriculum for individuals to purchase and learn from on their own instead of selling the curriculum to schools.

Interviews:

Max (College Student): Max likes this new idea because he thinks it may be able to reach more people and I could likely make more money if I am charging per person instead of per school.

Dalton (College Student): Dalton also thinks this is a good idea. He suggests that if I go down this route, I should make the price point reasonable because individuals would not pay nearly as much as a school would. He also thinks I would need to build a reputation first because it is unlikely that somebody would spend money to learn from some random person on the internet.

Reflection:

After conducting these interviews I learned that this may actually be a feasible direction for my business to take. Instead of trying to sell schools on changing their curriculum I could sell it to individuals which would be a much easier task. The issue with this is that the market for online investing courses is pretty saturated.

I agree with Dalton that if I were to do something like this I would first need to build a reputation. I need to prove to people that my curriculum will be worth the money. 

Venture Concept No. 1

Opportunity

Many highschools and colleges fail to offer courses about investing. This leads students to be uncomfortable with the idea of investing in the stock market. This is a problem because investing money at a young age can have tremendous benefits. The highschools and colleges have a need to provide their students with more a more practical curriculum. If the students knew more about investing, it would benefit the students and the school. The students would be more comfortable with investing, which would make them more successful. This increased financial success would lead to more alumni donations to the school.

• The forces that have created this opportunity are economic forces. The potential upside of investing has made investing a very useful skill for all people.
• This market exists across the United States in high schools and colleges of all sorts.
• Customers (schools) are currently neglecting this need in favor of a more historical curriculum.
• This opportunity is very big because the majority of schools do not teach their students about investing.
• This window of opportunity will be open until schools begin teaching their students about investing, which will likely take decades.

Innovation

My plan to solve this issue is to create a curriculum that can be sold to both highschools and colleges. This curriculum would teach young adults how to invest their money through two different teaching methods. The first method is through an e-textbook. I would put together a panel of experienced investors and equity professors to create an up to date textbook outlining topics such as:

• What age you should be when you start investing
• How much capital you need to start investing
• What different applications and websites you can use to start investing
• How to find indicators for each stock
• What indicators you should take into account the most when choosing a stock to trade
• How risky you should be when making a portfolio
• When to sell a stock

The second part of my curriculum would be the use of a paper trading platform. Paper trading is a method of using fake money in the real stock market. This would allow students to get real experience with investing without taking on any of the potential risks. I will make money by charging high schools and colleges $2,000 for each semester they use my curriculum. This would give their students access to the e-textbook and paper trading platform. If I got 100 schools to adopt my curriculum for 5 years, that would result in $2,000,000 in revenue.

Venture Concept

My business plan will directly address the problem at hand. If highschools buy my curriculum, students will learn how to invest at a young age. This will give them a very valuable skill heading into adulthood. If they know how to invest they will have a much higher chance of being financially stable. In addition to this, having financially stable students/alumni will benefit the schools because it will result in more donations. Highschools and colleges will want to buy this curriculum because they care about their students and they want them to be successful. It may be difficult to get schools to switch because they have taught many of the same courses for decades. However, there are no major competitors for my business it is mostly untapped. I will not have to worry much about packaging or customer service but my price point will be important. It needs to be the perfect price so that schools will buy it and I will make a profit. The only employees i would need for my business would be those I hire to create the e-textbook. I would personally go to schools and try to sell them on the curriculum.

My biggest resource is my passion about this topic. Many others are more knowledgable than me about investing but they haven't cared enough about young adults to penetrate this market. I think I am unique in this aspect and it shows in the lack of schools that teach investing to their students.

The next project for my venture would be to create an intermediate investor course that individuals could buy online. After school's adopt my curriculum there will be a drastic increase in intermediate investors. This new course would allow them to continue their journey to becoming an advanced investor.

Assuming this plan goes well, I would continue my mission to teach others about investing through a variety of methods. I would create more courses, further develop my website, and possibly make a youtube channel. This first project would give me a reputation in the industry and would give me a good basis of knowledge on how to sell.

My Venture's Unfair Advantage

List of resources for my venture

1. I have an education from the University of Florida

• V- This is valuable because it is one of the top ranked universities in the U.S.
• R- This is rare because the acceptance rate of UF is under 40% making it hard to get into.
• I- This could be copied by others if they are intelligent enough to get into UF.
• N- This is substitutable with any other school that is ranked higher than UF. 

2. I have over 2 years of investing experience

• V- This is valuable because it means i have a basic knowledge of the stock market.
• R- This is rare among college students because many people don't invest until they are older.
• I- This can be copied by others if they are willing to invest their own money.
• N- This isn't substitutable because investing in the stock market provides a unique experience.

3. I have my own website about investing

• V- This is valuable because it adds to my investing knowledge and ability to build social capital.
• R- This is rare because not many people own and manage their own website.
• I- This can be copied by anyone if they put in the effort to create their own website.
• N- This isn't substitutable because having a website grants unique benefits.

4. I had a short internship at BlackRock

• V- This is valuable because BlackRock is the largest Asset manager in the world so I learned a lot about finance and made great connections.
• R- This is very rare because only a select amount of people have had a similar opportunity.
• I- This is very difficult to copy because it is a hard opportunity to land.
• N- This is not substitutable because there is no better company to learn from in the asset management field.

5. I have many connections in two different states (NJ and FL)

• V- This is valuable because I have a strong network in two very different geographic locations.
• R- This is somewhat rare because it only applies to out of state students.
• I- This can be copied by anybody who chooses to attend school in a different state from where they grew up.
• N- This could be substituted by a very strong network in one location.

6.  I have a passion for investing

• V- This is valuable because it means I will love my work if it is related to investing.
• R- This is not very rare since a ton of people are passionate about this.
• I- This can be copied by anyone who has a love for investing.
• N- This cannot be substituted because passion plays a big factor in success and happiness.

7. I was a member of the Florida Wealth Management Association

• V- This is valuable because it taught me a lot about wealth management.
• R- This is rare because there were only 30 members in the FWMA.
• I- This can be copied by anybody who has an interest in joining the club.
• N- This can be substituted with any other club that teaches you about wealth management.

8. My Dad works in banking

• V- This is valuable because banking is closely related to the field I am interested in and my Dad has a lot of connections.
• R- This is somewhat rare because not the majority of people do not have an immediate family member that works in banking.
• I- This can be copied by anybody that has a parent that works in banking.
• N- This is not substitutable because a career in banking gives you unique skills and connections.

9. I live less than an hour away from New York City

• V- This is valuable because I am very close to the financial capital of the world, which has allowed me to witness and connect to people in the finance industry.
• R- This is rare because only a small portion of the U.S population lives near New York City.
• I- This can be copied by anybody willing to move to the NYC area.
• N- This can be substituted to a lesser extent by living near other large cities.

10. I care about the mission behind my business not just the money

• V- This is valuable because it means I will do whats best for the students not only what makes me the most money.
• R- This is rare because many people put money as their top priority.
• I- This can be copied by anybody who has a genuine care for their business.
• N- This is not substitutable because if you don't care about the people receiving your product, they will not be as satisfied with the product. 

I think my most important resource is my short internship at BlackRock. Not only did a learn a ton about asset management, but i made great connections that will come in handy in the future. I found that this resource was the most valuable after conducting a VRIN analysis on all 10 of my resources. It seems to be the hardest to copy or substitute.

Elevator Pitch Number 3

https://youtu.be/hphQ98RS6n0

I got mostly positive feedback from my last elevator pitch. The feedback that stood out to me was the fact that i need to project more and put more passion into some of my words.

I tried to be louder and a little less monotone in this pitch however I don't think there is a drastic difference. This is something i struggle with during presentations and I will continue to work on it in the future. I also think my hand placement/movement was a bit better in this pitch than the last one.

Reading Reflection Number 2

I read The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users, by Guy Kawasaki.

1. What was the general theme or argument of this book?
Guy Kawasaki has been a social media guru for decades. He invested into many social media platforms early on and has mastered how to utilize these platforms. The three main lessons from the book include

• Treating your social media like a business
• Make content that your followers want to see, not only content that you want to make
• Let your many accounts talk to each other for cross-platform promotion

2. How did the book enhance what you've learned in ENT 3003?

Learning about social media relates back to what we have learned about building social capital in this class. Building an account on social media is a great way to broaden your network and make new connections. The larger your audience becomes, the greater your social capital becomes. On top of this it can increase your knowledge. For example if you have a social media account about investing, you will be forced to research in order to create relevant posts for your social media account

3. If you had to design an activity for this class after reading this book what would it be?

I would design an activity where everybody in the class has to create a social media account about something they are passionate about. In today's world, social media is an amazing tool for building your network. Many students would continue to build this account after the class and the ones that don't would still learn valuable lessons along the way.

4. What was the biggest surprise in this book?

One tip that really stood out to me was treating your social media like a business. Many people will treat it like a hobby which will decrease your chance of success. By treating it like a job, you will be more likely to continue working on it and improving it. This seemed like a very valuable tip.