Final Reflection

I think the most formative experiences where the elevator pitch and the venture concept. The elevator pitch taught me how to present an idea quickly, with no time for superlatives. I believe this is a very useful tool that will allow me to quickly explain business concepts in the future. The venture concept was similar but was a more in depth fleshing out of my idea, which I thought taught me a lot about the business I was trying to create.


I feel as though after this class I do see myself as someone who has an entrepreneurial mindset, but I don't yet see myself as an entrepreneur. I believe I would have to earn that title through actually starting my own business and devising a plan to make it succeed. I think one day this is something I will accomplish, but it certainly hasn't happened yet. I do think I've moved closer and developed an entrepreneurial mindset.

I would suggest they go in person to the class every week since that gives more insight into being an entrepreneur than simply doing the assignments. I'd also suggest they actually give their business proposal a try and see if it would be successful. Overall, I think this class has taught me a lot about how to overcome failure and learn from previous mistakes in order to create a successful business, and I hope I'll be able to apply these lessons in the future.

Venture Concept no.2

Name- GitFit
Opportunity- My opportunity group covers anybody who isn't currently in shape. Essentially, it provides a method for trainees to find a personal trainer that they can connect with, and that is in their budget range. There isn't currently a social media or website built to connect individuals with personal trainers. For this reason I believe it is a large opportunity. Essentially, the way the app would work is trainers would be charged a small fee every month that they use the app. This fee would be 50 dollars. This may sound expensive, however one must consider the fact that this app provides them with free advertising to a large network of clients. This helps trainers by giving them a larger network of clients. 

Innovation- The innovation of this idea is the concept of an application which makes it easy to find personal trainers. Currently, most personal trainers either work directly for gyms, or they work independently and run their own website/social media where they try to find customers. This seriously makes it easier for both the trainers and trainees logistically, and convenience wise. Since its not a large investment for trainers they likely would benefit more from the exposure than from advertising independently, and on top of that they wouldn't have to do the work anymore.

Venture Concept- As I stated early, under the status quo trainers typically work at an individual gym, or they advertise independently. This is terrible for customers, since they have very little options. Either use the trainer at your gym, or hope the personal trainer you bought independently is a good one. With the app, they can see reviews of trainers, and pick from a wide variety of independent trainers with different prices. For the trainers, this app makes their job much easier since they no longer have to worry about advertising themselves to potential clients. Additionally, I plan on offering a certification class which works through the app in order to help beginning trainers become certified. 

Three Minor Elements
1. My most important resource will be my human capital in the form of advertising. Since I have connections in the digital marketing world I think it will be very possible for me to create a large amount of exposure for my application through social media advertising. If this is possible and I can get a good base of users, natural growth should take over from there.
2. What's next is creating another fitness application which asks as a community for discussion regarding fitness related topics. The fitness community is a tight one, however there really isn't any social media connecting people in the fitness world. I believe if there was a community such as this, many individuals would join and it would achieve great success.
3. I want to help grow this venture concept until I can find someone who can grow it even better than I can. I would grow it and then let someone else run the business, while still remaining a large equity holder in the company. Afterwards I would look to either start my own business or help someone else start their business and ultimately just look for large amounts of equity in individual companies to help accumulate assets.


2. I would say a lot of the feedback I received was very positive. Most people thought it was a good concept and I had outlined it well, but suggested minor tweaks and in-app suggestions to make the user experience more friendly. 

3. The main change I made was that I added the certification course. Now, there is a class in the app which will allow individuals to get their personal trainer certificate. I believe this will make the app more accesible to most people who are into fitness and work out, since they can take the class in the actual app itself. I did this because some people were focused on the app as a part of the fitness industry and giving more people jobs, and I believe allowing trainers an easy way to get certified will do this perfectly. 


picture from https://i.ytimg.com/vi/emxEhfwori4/maxresdefault.jpg

Exit Strategy

I have an exit strategy to eventually repurpose my business into a broader network. Eventually, I'd like to turn gitfit into a more general community app for those interested in fitness. They could use this community to discuss routines, share memes, and ultimately relate to one another. Looking even further down the line, should this idea become successful, I think I would eventually look at selling the app, or at least a majority stake in the app, and using the profits to invest into other types of economic markets.

I think this is the best strategy because it has the most potential. The community could undoubtedly be worth more than simply an app to market personal trainers. I truly think this is an idea that, given the app already has a base, could truly take off and become very popular. Should this happen, I would look to sell a majority stake in the company, and use the profits to invest in other markets. To me, once money is acquired, it should ultimately be invested to receive longer term benefits that will eventually pay off. In doing so I could retire if my investments can accrue to be a livable amount of money. This could be from buying real estate, or even starting another business.

I don't think this exit strategy has influenced other decisions much. if anything it would make me more focused on building a large userbase for the app, and in tern acquiring worth for the business. If I had a different strategy which didn't involve selling the company, I would be more focused on generating revenue rather than pure value. 

Reading Reflection No.3

How to Fail at Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life, by Scott Adams  

The general theme of this book was definitely about failure. Adams has failed at so many things in his life, but no matter what it was he kept fighting and eventually made it work. The message is to just keep trying and pursuit whatever you want too, and what you believe in.

I think this connects completely with what I've learned in Ent3003. One of the major messages throughout this course has been that failure is necessary in order to succeed in the long term. If one never fails, they likely aren't challenging themselves and truly trying to accomplish success. Entrepreneurs describe this mantra perfectly. So many successful business owners started by failing at creating their own business, and lost money. After learning from this mistakes however, they become more successful, showing that learning from mistakes is critical. 

I'd say this exercise would involve a month long project where a student must start a project/business, try their hardest to make it work, and then analyze the mistakes made at the end of the project. The objective wouldn't be to start a successful business, since doing so in a month is impossible. This project would however show what it takes to start a business and give students a much better perspective on entrepreneurship than simply reading a book would. 

One aha moment when reading this book was when Adams discussed passion. Adams alludes to a concept called personal energy. He claims that passion is something fake, and has a certain mystique too it. Personal energy however is what gets a person excited and feeling energized. He goes on to say one should do what gives them personal energy, which is a concept I completely agree with. 

Celebrating Failure

One time during this semester when I failed was when I tried to start a clothing site. My friend approached me and another mutual friend and said he wanted to start a vintage clothing store. We would look for clothes, and then post them online on instagram to try to sell them. We thought it was a good idea, came up with a name and started working. I made the website, and my friend went and found clothes and posted them. I say this was a failure because that was the last time we did any meaningful work on the project. We realized how many other brands had similar ideas, and realized without some niche or extremely high quality clothing, we were very unlikely to succeed. We still may revamp the project, but as of right now it seems like a crowded industry that is hard to stand out in without some distinct advantage,

I learned that one should always have more of a concrete plan before going headfirst into starting a business. Also, that you should do more research before starting a clothing company. Additionally, I realized that unless your all in on an idea and you really think it will be succesful, you probably shouldn't do it. If I was truly passionate about starting a clothing company, I would likely have put far more effort into making it work, but since it wasn't something I cared about I could drop it without feeling guilty. I think failure is a neccesary evil in life. It might cause us distress but it ultimately teaches us and shows us that we did something in correctly. I try to live by the motto that if you just keep showing up and doing something, no matter what it is, eventually you'll get much better at that something.

Venture Concept #1

Name- GitFit
Opportunity- My opportunity group covers anybody who isn't currently in shape. Essentially, it provides a method for trainees to find a personal trainer that they can connect with, and that is in their budget range. There isn't currently a social media or website built to connect individuals with personal trainers. For this reason I believe it is a large opportunity. Essentially, the way the app would work is trainers would be charged a small fee every month that they use the app. This fee would be somewhere between 20 and 50 dollars. This may sound expensive, however one must consider the fact that this app provides them with free advertising to a large network of clients. For this reason the app is a win win for trainers, since they will ultimately make money in the end if they make more than $50 a month from clients found on the website. This also makes it great for those looking to become trainers without a lot of experience since they can easily gain access to many clients. Additionally those purchasing trainers will be happy as well, since they get more options and can compare the different trainers and their prices directly at face value.

Innovation- The innovation of this idea is the concept of an application which makes it easy to find personal trainers. Currently, most personal trainers either work directly for gyms, or they work independently and run their own website/social media where they try to find customers. This seriously makes it easier for both the trainers and trainees logistically, and convenience wise. Since its not a large investment for trainers they likely would benefit more from the exposure than from advertising independently, and on top of that they wouldn't have to do the work anymore.

Venture Concept- As I stated early, under the status quo trainers typically work at an individual gym, or they advertise independently. This is terrible for customers, since they have very little options. Either use the trainer at your gym, or hope the personal trainer you bought independently is a good one. With the app, they can see reviews of trainers, and pick from a wide variety of independent trainers with different prices. For the trainers, this app makes their job much easier since they no longer have to worry about advertising themselves to potential clients. With the introduction of this app, we take on that responsibility, and they simply have to pay a smaller fee every single month.

Three Minor Elements
1. My most important resource will be my human capital in the form of advertising. Since I have connections in the digital marketing world I think it will be very possible for me to create a large amount of exposure for my application through social media advertising. If this is possible and I can get a good base of users, natural growth should take over from there.
2. What's next is creating another fitness application which asks as a community for discussion regarding fitness related topics. The fitness community is a tight one, however there really isn't any social media connecting people in the fitness world. I believe if there was a community such as this, many individuals would join and it would achieve great success.
3. I want to help grow this venture concept until I can find someone who can grow it even better than I can. I would grow it and then let someone else run the business, while still remaining a large equity holder in the company. Afterwards I would look to either start my own business or help someone else start their business and ultimately just look for large amounts of equity in individual companies to help accumulate assets.

What's Next?

Existing Market. 

     I think what's next in the fitness industry is some sort of app which can connect people who share fitness backgrounds into a broader community. This app could be used for a lot of different things, but just some sort of community app connecting people in the industry.

     With all that being said, after interviewing a few people I think I learned more about the type of application I'm trying to create. Yes, my application should have the underlying idea of making sure that personal trainers are on the app to find clients, and clients looking for personal trainers. However, in doing so I should make sure that the app has a feel of community and discussion to it. You should be able to feel connected to other people when using the app, and should always feel like you're learning.

     This can be achieved in a number of ways. I could have trainers post longer discussions about the method behind their training, and then allow clients to chat with a trainer before deciding if they will actually utilize them. I could also allow a feature that would let individuals connect with one another to find gym partners or group sessions in local gyms near them. Regardless, its clear that I should focus on making it a community app rather than something purely financial for trainers and clients. 

New Market.

Another market that my app doesn't currently apply to is pre workout supplements. This is a type of product prevalent in the fitness industry that continues to gain popularity. While some people continue to not use it, other people find it very useful to use and give you energy before a workout. 

I believe my venture concept could create value for people involved in this market. If my application can be successful at creating a community within this industry, it would be very valuable. Pre-workout and even other type of supplement companies could use my website as a huge marketing asset. They could provide ads for their products on my website, which would likely be very similar to their market as well. 

I believe I learned a lot from looking into this market. I expected that there were a variety of different products, and only a few products would be successful companies. I was somewhat wrong. While this is no shortage of companies, it appears that there were more successful and popular companies and products on the market. It is a competitive market, and unless your product is high quality it will get destroyed from poor reviews.

I don't think this market is nearly as attractive as mine. There are already so many different companies that unless your product is clearly a level above the rest of the products, it will not be given the time of day by consumers. As a result, I think achieving large amounts of success in this industry would be very difficult and take a large amount of effort. 

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