Week 13 Reading Reflection

Valuation of Entrepreneurial Ventures

1. I was pretty surprised about the level of detail on the Checklist of Analyzing a Business! But probably because I am used to thinking about things in terms of the U.S. where I'm sure everywhere here we have air conditioned facilities and adequate electric, heat, gas, water, and sanitary services...but I was still shocked to see that.
2. Reading the "Analyzing the Business" section, it says two of the main shortcoming are undercapitalization and divergent goals (between entrepreneur and investors) which seems to contradict to me because the idea of undercapitalization refers to the lack of equity investment.
3. Question 1: Why would classify the discounted earnings method a better way to value a company to sell than the adjusted tangible book value? It seems like the discounted earnings method requires more estimation. Question 2: How do you handle the control factor when in the process of buying a business?
4. In all of my accounting classes, we have never discussed the price/earnings ration as a way of valuing the business to sell, and with all of the drawback listed, I don't think it is a great way to determine a selling price.

My Exit Strategy

ProgramPlanner2.0 Plans for a Close:

To begin, a short description of my idea: ProgramPlanner2.0 is a search tools that will allow RAs to search for previously successful programs that others have hosted based on qualifications such as planning time, program time, program type, type of residents, program cost, and the option to connect links to outside resources and upload documents.

After I leave UF, I won't have much connection to the RA life anymore, so I plan to sell it once it gets off the ground and is operating successfully. Do I think I will make a large return? Of course not. I don't really even plan to make money from the implementation of this website for UF's housing, only if I could expand it to other universities do I think I would make money.

I selected this exit strategy because I won't be interested in pursuing this after I leave UF and no longer work for the Department of Housing and Residence Education. And also because I think it will make close to no money...and pursuing my accounting career will be much more lucrative. I'm not super invested in this, and if you read my previous posts, especially the half way reflection, you can tell I don't aspire to be an entrepreneur. 

I think I did a great job identifying an opportunity and it just so happens that it coincides with the "here and now" of my life and simply won't later. As for growth and acquiring resources, I have kept almost everything in-house. I haven't ventured outside of UF housing to get feedback because ultimately I have done a great job identifying my target market and stuck with it when I discovered this website peaked the interest of others in the department. So my exit strategy reflects those because I don't plan to expand this down the road and so kept everything directed to the target market.

So I looked up "cash out" images and this rapper I had never heard of popped up with
"IN HOUSE" on the photo. I figured this matched great with what my blog post described !

Venture Concept No. 1

To begin, a short description of my idea: ProgramPlanner2.0 is a search tools that will allow RAs to search for previously successful programs that others have hosted based on qualifications such as planning time, program time, program type, type of residents, program cost, and the option to connect links to outside resources and upload documents.

Opportunity
The forces that allow ProgramPlanner2.0 to be an opportunity is the constant demand  for RAs to host programs and the lack of current resources to help plan these programs. Of just the RAs at UF, we are required to host a minimum of six per year and many have trouble coming up with creative, fun, and easily implemented ideas. This market is pretty uniquely defined: RAs. But also it would include the RAs supervisors as well as students that serve in the area government that also hosts programs for the area. As of now, I have narrowed my market to UF RAs, but if this is successful it would be cool to introduce it at other campuses.
Right now many RAs use Pinterest or ask other RAs for program ideas. The problem is that Pinterest provides ideas for mostly creative and crafty programs that not all residents are interested in. And asking the other RAs on their staff tends to result in the same programs being hosted over and over again. Most are pretty loyal, but everyone I have talked to attempts to use other resources as well.
I would say this is kind of a small opportunity. My current target market is small, could be expanded, but even then wouldn't be large. As far as how long the opportunity is open, I would say until someone comes up with my same idea to implement for UF Housing--but because of the high turnover rate with the RA job, it isn't likely that others would invest in this idea unless I took it to a higher up myself.

Innovation
So this is definitely just incrementally innovative. It's a search tool. Search tools are nothing new, I am just using it differently. It's being used to search for programs that meet the qualifications of each individual RA. It will be a website that is collaborated with the current website we use to submit activity assessments. We are already required to submit a summary of our program, so I will just implement another page on this assessment that allows RAs to check boxes that appropriately describe their program. Then from there, other RAs can search based on that criteria.
As far as making money...this is where I will have trouble. I started this idea just to help the community of RAs, I didn't have the idea of making money in mind. So I guess I will offer this to UF for free and then, based on the success, offer it to other universities with a fee for implementation and subsequent fees for updates, additions, changes, etc.

Venture Concept
So my idea fits this opportunity because it will make the jobs of RAs a lot easier! RAs will have a much easier time planning programs, and might actually just creative ones if they are already provided with the resources. Other universities would spend money on this to help make on campus living more attractive. If they don't currently have a system that is used university wide, it will be easy to get them to switch. If they do, then I would have to offer lower prices, higher level of service, or extra features to get them to switch.
A top competitor is Pinterest. It's free and is widely used. But, it hasn't targeted this particular market like ProgramPlanner2.0 could do.
Customer support, pricing, and aligning my search tool with current programs that each university uses are the most important parts of this venture. Right now UF doesn't pay for a service like this, they expect their RAs to be creative and use outside resources.
I don't need too many people. To start, I would just need two. Myself with the idea and talking with customers and a tech person that could actually create this simple search tool and align it with the current software we use.

Other
My top competitive advantage is my connection to UF housing, which includes my experience planning programs, the knowledge of our system, and the relationships I have with other RAs and supervisors.
What's next is expanding it to other universities.
I would want to sell this. After leaving UF, I won't be very connected to the RA life. I would take the experience I have gotten and do something else that relates to the next stage in my life-accounting.

Week 11 Reading Reflection

You Need an Innovation Strategy

1. I was surprised to hear that all of Corning's R&D was centralized. I understand the want of collaboration, but with so many people I would be surprised if group think hasn't had any effects. With technology these days it is possible to collaborate across the world.
2. Even if you have an innovation strategy, I would think that different parts of the organization would pursue different priorities. I guess it depends on how the different parts are measured for success, but if they aren't measured based on innovation, I would think they would lean towards financial/sometimes short run goals.
3. Question 1: So copying someone else's innovation strategy won't necessarily work for your business, but if they are within the same industry do you have a better chance of successfully copying someone's strategy? Question 2: How often do disruptive innovations or radical innovations fail? Are they likely to meet resistance from upper management because they don't align with competitors' practices or their own?
4. I agree that creating complementary products can be a benefit, like apple iPhone and iPad collaborating with each other so that iPhone users are more likely to buy and iPad, but sometimes the limitation companies create for their products that won't allow them to sync with competitors can be an issue and cause people not to buy their product to begin with.

Amazon Whisperer

So this assignment really highlights the fact the my idea is very different from the typical create and sell a product business or even create a service and sell it to others.
My idea is a website called ProgramPlanner2.0 that will be a search engine for RAs to use to look for a previously successful program that meets requirements they desire for the program they are hosting. Searchable factors include time of program, planning time, funds spent, type of residents that attended, if it meets educational requirements, and also will include links to outside resources and the option to upload documents.

Currently, I just want to create this website to benefit the other RAs on the University of Florida campus. I am not really interested in making money off of my idea, but as an RA myself and possibly being an RA supervisor within the next two years, this would really be beneficial to all those in housing--the supervisors, the RAs, and their residents.
In the future, if this has success, I could see me reaching out to other universities to offer their department of housing the same type of search tool and possibly even collaborate across universities. There would be an upfront and fixed price for creating the original website, another fixed price for collaborating their system with other universities, and then different charges based on upgrades and maintenance.

I don't really believe there is any complementary product offering that my customers would expect or need next. So for the sake of the assignment, I will pick a completely different product. Many people have come up with some kind of healthy food restarant/delivery/on-campus service, so if this was my business idea the next thing I think my customers would want is a very good reusable container to use with their healthy meals.
It would enhance the existing service because there is nothing worse than storing good food in poor containers that change the taste of the food, or that the food gets stuck on the side of container and ruins the container (like cheese can do sometimes), or that allows the food to go stale, etc. It would simply improve the customer experience.


Here is a Dutis product: Microwave and Dishwasher Safe Plastic Food Storage Containers
They are designed to be spillproof  and have watertight and airtight locking lids. They are also BPA free. And are safe to put in the freezer.

 

This product has 4.8/5 stars! And 90% gave them all five. The customers really like this product because they are a thick plastic and durable, when they are dropped the containers stay together and protect the food. They also keep fruits and vegetables fresh longer. Many people said these did very well in the microwave.

One complaint was that older and newer versions don't stack well together. Only one person said that when used in the microwave they were scarred.

This product seems amazing, so the only thing I would change is making my product so that all versions nestled together for easy storage.

If my business was one of the healthy foods ones, I think this would be great to offer as a bonus because then customers could store their healthy meals without worrying that they will become stale and wouldn't be worried about reheating and either damanging the plastic or hurting the food.