Work I have Completed

This past week in class, everyone has been focused about our upcoming presentation. On Monday or Tuesday we divided each slide up and we are almost done with the presentation. I am doing the third slide titles “Details of Business.” At the beginning, I was unsure about what details of the business meant, but now I understand what is meant by it. Each day in class, we have edited the power point and have been making progress.

I turned in the 360 Evaluation about my group members and was fair to everyone. When I looked back at all the work my group had done, I realized it was distributed pretty evenly and did not have any major complaints to make about anyone. I can confidently say my group was very productive together. Everyone was willing to do work and there were no slackers. In the past, I have been in groups where usually one person just does all the work. This has happened basically in every class, but I am very proud to say it did not happen in my group at all. Sure, some people did a little more work, but there was not one group member who dominated or took control completely. We have continued to make progress on the PowerPoint and plan to work together as a group to have the best presentation possible.

Working on my speech, has been a bit challenging considering my slide is a little bit more vague than others, but I am not concerned about delivering a good speech. So far, I have summarized all the other slides, and covered what we plan to spend on treats and other expenses. This way, the audience can get a good picture of our doggy day care. I also want to make sure my team seems professional. The more professional we are, the better we look to the audience. I believe my group has made a lot of progress with the doggy daycare and I am confident that our audience will see that as well.

Final Blog Post- Book

For my final blog post, I have chosen to write about a strategy that I read a few weeks ago, but it has really stood out to me. It is called, "Always Follow Up."

The author starts off with a story about a friend of his, who is a member of one of the largest and most successful angel investor organizations in the United States. This friend offers advice to Johnson about entrepreneurship and investment strategies. He shares a story with him about a company he was interested in giving a loan to, but the CEO of the company disappeared and could not be reached. Johnson did not understand how someone could ignore such an offer, but he goes on to explain why. He states, "Those who master the art of following up are more successful than those who do not, yet so many entrepreneurs overlook and underestimate this simple rule." He says the number one reason entrepreneurs are afraid to follow up is the fear of rejection. 

I can relate to being afraid of rejection, and I have been afraid of rejection in the past as well. I have learned overtime, that it does not matter what the result of a situation is. Instead, of being concerned about what may happen, it is often better to take action and wonder what will happen. A similar situation happened to me where I was afraid of rejection. Quarter one I worked with the non-profit Organization Hebrew Senior Life. Our job as a team, was to come up with an idea that could help the organization and make things easier for them. After my first meeting with them, it seemed they were a large organization and had everything under control. My team and I were able to come up with an identification system for the residents. At the beginning, I was afraid to share this idea with the staff at Hebrew Senior Life. I thought our idea was not complex enough, and I wasn’t very confident in it. I realized it did not matter. A few days after the meeting, I emailed Laura and told her about the idea my group had come up with. It’s better to follow up and go after success and get negative feedback, then to do nothing at all. In fact, Laura had a lot of positive feedback about our idea. In the end, I was relieved I took the chance and emailed Laura and sharing a rough idea. There is always room for improvement and people feedback is always helpful. We continued to email each other back and forth throughout the time I worked with her, and in the end all worked out well. 

Since this situation, I have followed up with teachers more and just been more proactive about things. I will continue to read The Entrepreneur Mind and apply these strategies to my every day life.

Work I completed 1/5-1/9

During this week, I have completed many tasks essential to our projects. My group has been focusing on extensively revising business parts 1-6. We have all been working together very effectively and have given each other constructive feedback. Each day in class, productive work was done. My group was very motivated to turn in the best work to Dave Gladstone. I know that we all wanted to look professional and legitimate as we are starting to become entrepreneurs. It has been very comforting knowing that I can rely on my team members to complete tasks. At the beginning of this project, I anticipated there would be some issues with this, but so far so good! I was also an active member in the group this week. For Storefront parts 4-6 I completed part six. I was willing to revise it, and I knew I had my group members to help me if it got challenging along the way. For example, part six was quite a challenge for me, and I did not feel that I would give a good explanation of how all the numbers made sense in relation to each other. Thankfully, Sales agreed to help me out. It is great to work together as a time. I worked with Samantha helping her revise part 5 and gave Sales feedback on his write up for part 6, and also edited it and made some finishing touches. I oversaw the group and made sure everyone handed in documents on time. However, I knew that would not be a problem.
Our Doggy daycare is coming along and we are working on generating the best type of Doggy Daycare there is. We have been coming up with ideas and ways to improve what we have come up with so far. I have been in contact with Pat Maloney, a worker at Town Hall who informed me about the different costs and things we needed to start our doggy daycare. We were in touch over email and I contacted him about the kennel application, certificacy of occupancy, and the application for holding animals. He emailed me back with all the necessary documents. Since, he emailed me on Friday I haven't had the chance to show my group members yet. This will be done first thing Monday morning.

We have also been very proactive selling socks. Jack has done a good job contacting his friends and reaching out to people who want to buy them. As of Friday we had two pairs left, and I am pushing my group to order more. I am confident that we could sell a lot more at sporting events and during lunches. However, I do think we would need to drop the price. Most people don't want to spend $12 on a pair of socks. My goal for this week, will be to push my group to order more socks. I will make sure they feel confident about the product. I am also willing to buy a pair myself to help out, and my sister even said she wanted a pair!! I am proud of the work my group has completed this week.

Another Strategy From The Entrepreneur Mind

Each week when The Entrepreneur Mind I always have a hard time choosing a strategy to elaborate on. This is mainly because they are all so essential to becoming a successful entrepreneur. However, I always end up picking a strategy that speaks to me the most. For my blog post tonight, I have chosen to reflect on the strategy, "Move On Fast From a Bad Business Idea."

From experience, I've learned it can be very challenging to move on from a bad idea that one feels they are set on. Johnson explains in this strategy, one's first idea may not always be the best idea. He goes on to say, sometimes one's first ideas/first bad idea can be a gut feeling and are usually unrealistic. I agree with Johnson's point about this. And I have noticed myself, sometimes it feels that the first idea is the only one that makes sense. Johnson also emphasizes that, one should not think this way. He says it is dangerous to be limited when coming up with ideas. I can relate to this completely considering it happened to me in our class this year. I remember at the beginning of the year we had to pitch our first product. I thought I had the most unique, authentic idea. I learned this was not the case and it turned out, there were many flaws with my so called "Kit For Success."  The Kit For Success was going to be a stick that opened up on one side with the touch of a button. When the stick opened, daily essentials would be neatly stacked inside the stick. I honestly thought I had the solution to everyone’s organizational issues with this kit. I really thought it could be successful. I hadn't taken the time to really sit down and brainstorm. Instead I jumped to conclusions and pitched the first idea that came into my head. At the time I had not been so stuck on this idea. If I had known to move on fast from a bad idea, I would have saved myself a lot of wasted time. I think not moving on from this idea, blocked me from coming up with even better ideas. I truly feel Johnson’s tip about moving on from a bad idea, is the best advice (business wise) anyone could share with an entrepreneur.

    Johnson states the fact that entrepreneurs do not settle for anything less than their intended expectations. From reading this book so far, I have discovered entrepreneurs are always searching and acquiring new information. That is why they will not settle for a bad idea. They will continue to brainstorm and attempt to research until they come up with the best idea. Johnson has reiterated this type of thinking throughout the book. This only enhances the fact that moving on from a bad business idea is essential to him. Again, I believe this strategy is the answer. This strategy taught me: it is never acceptable to settle for a bad idea; something that is not your best work.

    I am eager to write my blog post for next week! And I can’t wait to read about how Johnson operates as a successful entrepreneur.