Halfway Reflection

1.     The behaviors that I have used to keep up with the requirements for this course are time management and hard work. I am not taking this course just to get the grade. I really wanted to learn what entrepreneurship was all about, so I definitely take this course seriously. I am very thorough on all of the assignments because I want to get everything out of it that I can. If you want to take this course and not just get the grade, you need good time management because some of the interview assignments can be lengthy.

2.     One of the moments when I felt like giving up in the course was one of the interview assignments. It was honestly a lot of work and I just thought it was pointless. But the more I thought about it, if I want to start a business someday, I am going to need to be doing this exact stuff. So, it really wasn’t pointless. That is what got me through that situation. I would say that I’ve developed a tenacious attitude over the past 2 months. I would say all of the hard work has contributed to it.

3.     3 tips for next semester’s student would be to plan ahead when you are going to complete assignments. Some assignments are pretty short, but some are pretty long. When I started to plan out when I was going to do the assignments, I started to get excited about them so that definitely helped when it came to developing that tenacious mindset. The next tip would be to go to the lectures. I definitely find the lectures more entertaining in person because sometimes we do some interactive exercises that don’t help the people watching at home. Those activities would get me excited about entrepreneurship. The last tip would be to take those challenging assignments and turn them into opportunities.

Reading Reflection No. 1

The book that I chose to read was Shoe Dog, by Phil Knight. I decided to pick this book because what I had previously learned about Phil Knight. When the Gator Basketball Team played in the PK80 tournament a few years ago, the announcers interviewed Phil Knight and I really admired his story. What surprised me the most was how he had, what I think of as the typical entrepreneurship story. I guess I thought that he had this one of a kind start to his entrepreneurship story. He had hard beginnings but worked through it. He first sold track shoes out of the back of his car. Obviously, that doesn’t sound like an extremely successful business. I most admire his hard work. He really had to grind through the tough times. What I least admire is that he started off alone. I understand that he may not have had a choice, but I wish he would have gotten his coach to start off with him rather than wait until he started the business to get his track coach to be his business partner. He did face adversity but not really failure. He was constantly begging the banks for more money to be able to import shoes from Japan. Obviously, his beginning of selling shoes out of the back of his car was adversity too.

Some competencies that I noticed was that he surrounded himself with a good group of people. He had a solid team around him with different viewpoints to keep the business running. I personally believe that if you don’t have people with different mindsets, your business will fail. I also think that he had the intuition to pick good athletes to wear Nike shoes. Michael Jordan being the big one.

One thing that I found confusing was the business always being strapped for cash. I understand that they couldn’t really invest much because they had to keep reordering shoes, but I guess I would have thought they would have made more profit.

If I were able to ask Phil Knight two questions, I would ask him:

If Blue Ribbon failed and there ended up being no Nike, would you have gone back and done it again? Did you enjoy the process?

If someone has an idea that they don’t think will be successful but are passionate about it, do you think they should they still pursue it?

I think Phil Knight definitely enjoyed the hard work. He was definitely one to pursue his passion so if he didn’t like the hard work, I think he would have done something else. I certainly share that opinion. I like the hard work and the grind.

Figuring out Buyer Behavior No. 1

What I learned:

The segment that I decide to pick were men over the age of 65. I went to a local gun shop and talk to 3 gentlemen (ages 67,68, and 71). The three gentlemen that I talked to all said that they have this need. One of the gentlemen carries a handgun on his person but leaves it in his vehicle at night. If he were to buy the lock, he would just use it at night since it in on his person during the day. The other 2 gentleman leave their handguns in their car at all times. They would have the need for this lock 24/7.

The very first thing that these gentlemen did when they became aware of this need was look online for vehicle gun locks. One of them currently uses the little safe that is cable locked to the driver’s seat. He doesn’t love it and would find something like my lock more useful. The second gentleman looked around at gun shops for other ways to lock his gun in his vehicle but wasn’t successful finding anything that he liked. The third one just looked on the internet and not anywhere else. I don’t think that this segment is the savviest for looking around on the internet for finding a product, but I think they do a decent job finding their way around.

How I would describe this segment:

I would describe this segment as a big potential user of this product. I believe that a lot of people in this segment would buy this product. I think that men over 65 years old would be the biggest user of this lock.