28A Your Exit Strategy

I would take 5 to 10 years to build my business venture. Once my venture reaches a high enough valuation, I would partner with a brand that shares my vision for the company and sell greater than 50% of the company to that brand. This would help me further grow my brand. It would also give me less responsibility and more time to do other things.

With my exit strategy, I’m in it for the long-haul. I chose a business venture that will take me years to develop. This is because it has a high start-up cost and requires multiple stakeholders including software designers, hardware designers, and fitness instructors. I'm dedicated to taking the time to build my business until it's established. Once it's established, I want to sell more than half of it so that I can have less responsibility but still be a part of the decision making process. Because of this, I've put thought into future R and D and infiltrating new market segments. 

27A Reading Reflection 3

Makers: The New Industrial Revolution, Chris Anderson

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

This book argues that we are now entering the third Industrial Revolution where entrepreneurs use open source designs and 3D printing to manufacture prototypes on their desktop. This new type of manufacturing technology is inexpensive. It reduces the role of the manufacturer and gives everyone the power to invent and create.

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

Entrepreneurs need to design and make prototypes of their new products. This book enhanced my understanding of what this process looks like for the modern entrepreneur. Instead of creating prototypes with physical manufactured parts and relying on manufacturers the modern entrepreneur is using software to quickly create digital designs and using 3D printing.

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

I would have students choose one open source manufacturing software and describe how they could use it to support their entrepreneurial venture.

4.     What was your biggest surprise or ‘aha’ moment when reading this book? In other words, what did you learn that differed most from your expectations?

I’m most surprised that every single part of a business is becoming digitalized and can be done in our own homes, even the manufacturing process.

26A Celebrating Failrue

I currently work part time for Event Options, an events platform that lets users source multiple local suppliers for the best products and services for their events. My main job is to draft and upload a supplier’s products and services to this platform. In the beginning of the semester, I my boss and I discussed the upload process in person, and I thought I understood it well. I was going through a particular supplier’s inventory and noticed he had a bunch of trivial items. I wasn’t sure whether or not to add these items to the upload and decided to add them anyways. It turns out my boss didn’t want these items. Overall, I wasted hours of work adding then removing these items from the platform. Through this experience I learned that if I’m not sure about something it’s better to clarify before starting then to waste my time doing a task over and over again.

Failure is very hard. The way I handle failure is I try to frame it as a learning experience. I try and reflect on why I failed and what I would do differently next time. I also share my failure with my support network and ask for feedback. This class has really emphasized that failure is necessary because it teaches you what not to do.