Week 11 Reading Reflection

1. What stood out to me the most throughout the reading was when the article mentioned innovation systems and innovation stems from it. I was not aware of this process before I read the article and I found it really interesting. I had no idea that this could be part of the business proposal/ concept. 
2. One part of the reading that was confusing to me was trying to understand the innovative landscape map. I have not really seen this map/ diagram before so it was a little confusing to understand at first. 
3. Two questions I would ask the author would be: 1). Why did you choose the company Cornig and not a different one as an example? 2). Is there a time with your business where you put aside innovation to work on current problems that arise?
4.  I think that the general question of asking yourself what is something innovative that can set your business apart and help it succeed is not a waste of time. I think it is a necessary brainstorming step to take before concluding concrete strategies for executing these ideas. 

Amazon Whisperer

• Revenue Drivers
• Different ways in which my business would make money is through the sales made from the sit down and drive through sushi. At first to garner money to create the business, I would take a small business loan from a bank that decides to accept my business proposal. 
• Next Product Offering
• Thinking ahead, a possible product to be selling next could be "make it at home sushi kits." This would offer all the ingredients and instructions to make one roll of sushi in this kit that people can buy and take home if they desired too. 
• Also, another possible new product could be that this business would eventually start delivering, either through a third party delivery service or by hiring more employees to deliver.
• Eventually, if the business took off even further, Roll Through could start expanding across the state or even nation.
• These further product offerings could appeal to different services needed by customers. Delivery could garner more revenue for sushi eaters who don't want to drive anywhere for their food, even if it's a drive through. The expansion of more stores could also garner more revenue and increase the customer market size to people in different areas who are in need of my business' services. 
• Amazon doesn't sell food...  but they do sell sushi kits so here is a picture of one:

• This is not exactly one of the new products I would include, since Amazon does not offer raw fish as a part of the sushi kits. This makes sense as people would not purchase raw foods from the internet. Therefore, Amazon does not really have a competitive market in the market my business is in. 
• In the customer reviews, they found this kit very helpful and one of the best ones that they have ever invested in. 
• My product would be entirely different since it would include a variety of raw fish, rice and some other garnishes they would possibly want to include in the rolls they made at home. This product found on Amazon is just a guide, a customer would have to find their own materials to make the sushi. My product would eliminate that kind of trouble by including the elements to making their sushi roll in the kit itself.
• I think it would make a good addition to my business because it would intrigue people who enjoy doing things themselves, or are adventurous and want to make their own sushi and don't know how to. It would add a different angle to my business instead of just offering food. 

My Unfair Advantage

1. Persistence 

I am a very persistent person when I want something. Persistence is a great quality to have when opening up a business and it is hard to find people who are truly persistent in making something work when times get tough. I would run my business with great persistence and try to work through obstacles that may arise with great vigor instead of turning away or faltering.

2. Ambition

I have always been a very ambitious person. This is a rare quality, in that I would always strive to improve my business and make it more efficient and desirable than any other competition that may arise

3. Uniqueness

My business idea is extremely unique, in that through my research I have yet to find a business that is similar to mine. With this kind of originality, any other business that would try to replicate mine would not come across as "new" or "exciting," their business would just be known as the variation of mine.

4. Trust

When opening a drive through sushi place, at first there would be the issue of trust in how fresh the fish would be, and this would be something hard for a competitor to overcome since they would be new to that kind of business.

5. Convenience 

Although other restaurant serve sushi, my business would offer sushi at a much more time conserving and economical manner. At this day and age, people are much busier and take less time for themselves to even sit down and have a meal. My business idea is the first opportunity that offers fast food at a considerably healthier quality than the other drive through businesses out there.

6. Adaptability 

This kind of business that I would be opening up is not restricted or limited to one age group or specific locations. People everywhere and at any age enjoy eating sushi. So this business, if successful, is something I could open up as a possible chain throughout the U.S. and perhaps if I was even more ambitious, overseas.

7. Connections

As I have mentioned in previous assignments, I have spoken with and have known someone who has started a start up business of his own and spoke with him extensively about his experience and the process. This was a unique experience that I can use in starting a start up business of my own.

8. Experience 

In my past I have worked as a hostess for four years in this small family owned Thai Restaurant back home. After working in this restaurant for so long, I got a close and first hand experience in seeing how the owners would run the business and some small changes they would make to make the restaurant more efficient as well as methods to market more customers to come eat there.

9. Work Ethic

I have a very strong work ethic and when I am set on making something succeed I do everything in my power to make it happen. I have had a job for many years of my life, and I have always been motivated to do the best in any task that comes my way. I feel I would apply this work ethic to a future start up company I would create as well.

10. Ability to Deal with Stress

Taking so many classes in college and having both a major and minor and at times even a job, I have learned how to be calm in stressful situations, as well as deal with overwhelming amounts of stress. I think this is a very important quality, because in any start up business, there will be extremely stressful times and I feel that I would be able to adjust and work through it to succeed. 

After looking at the 10 resources I have listed, I think that the most important resource I have is the uniqueness of my business. Creating something new and innovative in the business market will make my business stick out more than others that are already established as well as any incoming ones.

Growing My Social Capital

Person #1

1. The first person I spoke to is named Charlie Soo. Charlie Soo currently owns a Thai restaurant in Palm Beach Gardens but originally worked on Wall Street before he thought of opening up a business of his own. The restaurant has been doing very well, and the skills that he learned while working on Wall Street helped him greatly in creating this business as well as making it grow. 

2. Charlie Soo is a domain expert since he is in the food industry, which is what my business would be. Charlie could also fit in the market expert as well, but I thought that domain expert would be a better category since his business is what my business would be minus the drive through aspect of it. 

3. I found him because my parents really enjoy eating at this restaurant and I called and asked to speak with him for one of my class assignments. 

4. I simply asked Charlie a few questions about his business- there wasn't really any 'return favor' involved. 

5. Including this person in my network could enhance my ability to exploit an opportunity by asking him advice about the steps he took in opening his own restaurant. Since a high percent of most restaurants that recently go into business go under, I would ask him how he managed to make his restaurant so successful with the other competitions around him. 

Person #2

1. I spoke to Dalton Thomas, who used to work as a bartender/ bouncer for the bars Fat Daddy's and Rowdy's at midtown. He has worked for this company for four years.

2. I chose Dalton to be the market expert for my company. Although my business would be desirable for any age group, since the food group sushi isn't classified as a certain age group preference, I want to open my business in a college town. This is very similar to the bars Dalton works at, since a bar isn't limited to a certain age group (of course those 21+), but since it is located at a college town, the business would be targeting college students. Therefore, both my business idea and the business Dalton works at targets customers of a similar age group.

3. I have some friends who know him and I have seen him at work before. So I asked my friends a way to contact him to ask him some questions of this assignment.

4. The nature of this exchange is the same as the one before. Nothing was asked in return, he simply agreed to help me in my assignment.

5. Although Dalton doesn't own this business, he has been working for this company for many years. Establishing this contact with him could give me an unique inside look to how a business operates from the inside.

Person #3

1. Garret Mano is a UF graduate who studied Food Science and currently works at Publix as he develops his own start up delivery app.

2. I am filling Garret into the supplier slot, since many restaurants get their food from Publix and not necessarily whole sale markets. 

3. Garret is currently dating my friend's roommate and I told my friend's roommate about the assignment. She invited him over and we chatted a bit for this assignment. 

4. Similarly to the other two people I spoke to, he agreed to talk to me about how his job works and the other companies Publix supplies for and there weren't any requests from him. 

5. This person can enhance my ability to exploit an opportunity because if my business would actually come to fruition, I could ask him about how I can go about Publix being the supplier for my sushi drive through business. 

Reflection

This experience differed from the assignments in the past because the requirements of people to speak to to complete this assignment were much narrower than the previous ones. I found this exercise to be harder than the other ones because it required me to put myself out there a lot more, but as always it garnered more of a reward, as I practiced my ability to speak with people I don't know and network with strangers. Overall, I found it to be a very beneficial and fruitful experience. 

Elevator Pitch No. 3

My Secret Sauce

1. I feel that there are a good amount of unique attributes I have that can contribute to an interesting collection of human capital. For starters, I think I have the ability to carry on a conversation with literally anyone. After working as a hostess of a restaurant for four years, I had to learn how to talk to many different kinds of people, even if I wasn't necessarily in the mood, and at the same time appear intrigued and interested.

Two other unique qualities that go hand in hand that I have is the ability to formulate my thoughts and present them in a concise manner very quickly. As a third year English major, I am trained almost everyday to form an argumentative thesis about something we have read or discussed and present it to the class or the professor. After doing this so many times, I find that I have masterfully honed this ability and have been able to utilize it outside of the classroom as well.

I also find that I am very compassionate for other people. Compassion is a quality that is both important in everyday life as well as in the business world. The ability to understand other people's feelings, desires, and needs, I feel, is an important part of being a successful entrepreneur.

Lastly, I find that I am also very ambitious and assertive in fulfilling my ambitions. I have always had goals that I wanted to achieve throughout my life and I have always been the kind of person to do whatever necessary to achieve them.

2.

3. I think for the most part, the interviews have shown that my friends and I share similar opinions about what are some of the strong suits I have and how it contributes to my human capital. Although maybe the adjectives I used and the ones in the interviews were not the exact same terms, I think the overall message is the same.

Week 10 Reading Reflection

1. The biggest surprise for me in this reading is how many different ways of funding there are for a company and all the processes to obtain such funding.

2. A part in the chapter I found most confusing is when the author is talking about activities being outsourced whenever possible under the heading of Internal or External Funds. In the previous sentence the author is talking about assets but then refers to activities which is confusing as to what company's activities he's talking about.

3. The two questions I would have for the author are: 1) Why would a business choose debt financing in giving up their personal assets as collateral? 2) Would a business have to be at a certain establishment to ask for a governmental grant?

4. There wasn't anything particular I thought it completely wrong with what the author said, but I might have to slightly disagree with the statement of how banks are hesitant on giving small business loans. I thought banks advocated small business loans so that they can make money off the interest of the loan, since regardless of the business' success, the lion has to be paid back.

Week 9 Reading Reflection

1. The biggest surprise for me in the reading is the part in the chapter about the transferability of interest. It made sense to me that in a sole proprietorship, the entrepreneur has the right to sell or transfer any assets in the business. But, it seemed surprising that in a limited partners can sell their interest at any time without consent of the general partners. I found that surprising since if they are in a company involving more than one partner, shouldn't the other partners have a  say before one sells interest?

2. I thought the part of the chapter concerning the liability of owners was a little confusing. I know from previous classes I have taken about the operations of businesses, the question of liability is always a tricky one. So it didn't surprise me that it would be a little confusing for me to read about it.

3. If I were able to ask two questions I would ask: 1) How are taxes attributed to different types of businesses? 2) Why must the entrepreneur's desired culture match the business strategy outlined in the business plan?

4. There didn't seem to be anything the author said that I disagreed with.