Final Reflection

I really enjoyed writing posts about my venture idea. It’s something I have been thinking about and during this class I have seen the amount of potential it has to someday become a reality. Although I thought I would dread the elevator pitches, they weren’t the worst experience because I just got to talk about something I was passionate about. I am also most proud of myself for the elevator pitches because I didn’t let my worry of not doing well stop me from trying.

I do think I have developed more of an entrepreneurial mindset in that I look around the world and see problems that have potential solutions, it’s just no one has figured out what that solution is yet.  I used to not think about things that way because it wasn’t my responsibility to solve the problems so why would I try. Now I find it fun and exciting to spot these things and think of ways to solve or just improve them.

I would tell anyone taking this course in the future to really think about something they are passionate about and come up with a venture that has something to do with that. If you are doing these assignments on something you are passionate about, it will be much easier to do them and they won’t seem nearly as dreadful as they would otherwise. Passion fuels work ethic so if you care about what you are doing, it will come much more naturally than if you don’t. 

And of course: How I feel about the semester finally being over...

Venture Concept No. 2

1. Opportunity

Dog owners everywhere have the need for a place to take their pet when the weather is poor. The forces in the environment that create this opportunity are poor weather conditions and dog owners’ desire for a place to take their dogs where they can run around and socialize with other dogs. The market for this opportunity would be much higher in an area where rain is more prevalent and where there is a large number of dog owners. In terms of defining this market demographically, there is not a particular limit to the demographic that this opportunity serves, considering dog owners vary by age, race, economical status, etc. When the weather is nice, customers utilize outdoor parks, but when the weather is poor, they do not have another option, so they are forced to stay home with their dogs. The loyalty of the customers differs across the board. Some customers are extremely loyal to outdoor dog parks and attend them frequently—some more than once a week—while other customers attend them only once or twice a month. This opportunity is very BIG. There are dog owners everywhere, who would love to have a place to take their dogs all the time. The “window of opportunity” will never close because there will always be dog owners and there will always be poor weather, so the mixture of the two creates my opportunity. Dog owners + poor weather = my opportunity.

Innovation

                The innovation I have come with is an indoor dog park. There will be a large open area covered with turf that is available for the dogs to run around. This open space will include small artificial ponds, agility obstacles and some fake mulch pits for the dogs to utilize. There will be staff walking around to monitor the dogs and to clean up any messes that occur. In addition, there will be places to sit for the owners to sit outside of the dog area and a café where the humans can purchase snacks and drinks. Customers can choose between a monthly membership fee to use the facility as often as they want or a one-time fee if they do not plan on coming often. The monthly membership fee would be $50 while the one-time fee would be $15. This means that if someone comes once a week, they would save $10 per month if they purchase the monthly membership over the one-time fee. There will also be a service that will pick your pet up from your house and bring them to the park for a desired time. The price will vary based on how far you live from the park and how long you will want your dog to spend at the park. 

Venture Concept

                My innovation of an indoor dog park would address my opportunity by giving dog owners a place to bring their dogs to play when there are poor weather conditions. The transition from outdoor dog parks to indoor dog parks would be smooth enough for dog owners, so persuading them to switch would not be too difficult. I have tried to make my venture more appealing than an outdoor dog park is to better convince dog owners to choose my facility over outdoor dog parks. Business location is very important because if I am located in a place with a lot of dog owners and poor weather then I will be successful, but if I am located in a place with few dog owners and consistently nice weather then I will have a harder time succeeding. I would create this venture as a franchise opportunity so I could manage the company as a whole, but I would have help running the individual facilities.

Minor Elements

                My most important resources will be my passion for my venture and my dedication to high quality customer service. It will be hard for my competitors to copy my success because I will have so much passion and be dedicated to give my customers the best experience possible. I would like to add the opportunity of doggy daycare and dog boarding to my venture to allow me more opportunities to make money and serve my community. 10 years after I launch my venture, I would hope to have multiple franchises open around the country. 

2.  I did receive mostly positive feedback on my venture concept but Emily brought up a great point about how I would market to dog owners who don't normally take their dogs to a dog park. That specific group is not my main target audience but it would make for an added market for my venture. 

3.  I decided to add a service that will actually pick up your pet(s) from your house and bring them to the park for either a couple of hours or the whole day. This would entice those that are a bit lazier to utilize my product and because this would be very convenient for the dog owners, I will be able to charge a higher price. 

My Exit Strategy

1) Initially, I would run the business as if I were planning on doing so until I was able to retire. The only thing that would change this plan is if one of my children felt very strongly about taking the business on as their own. 

2) I would go into not with the mindset of passing the business down to my children because I would never put pressure on them to do so though. I want the business to be in the hands of someone who has as much passion for it as me and if that isn't my children, I totally understand that and want them to go after their dreams and not mine. 

3) I don't really think my exit strategy had much to do with the decisions I have made regarding my business. I have made all my decisions based on what I think would be best for my customers and their dogs but would also make money. Because of this, my exit strategy doesn't really affect these decisions. 

Reading Reflection No. 3

1) The Wright Brothers

• That the brothers successfully owned and operated a printing company and then a bicycle shop before they started pursuing aviation. 

• I loved that just pure curiosity and thirst for knowledge is what drove the brothers. They weren't driven by money or power which is most cases nowadays.

• There wasn't really anything I didn't admire about the brothers. 

• The Wright brothers encountered failure many times in their quest to create the first airplane but they never gave up. They learned what not to do from every failure and just tried to make the next model even better. They also faced failures when they tried to get the US government and media to share their invention. They had to travel all the way to France to get anyone to pay attention to them.

2) Both Wilbur and Orville were extremely intelligent but each in their own ways. The book describes Wilbur the analytical minded brother while Orville knew everything there was to know about mechanics. Like I said above, they both were incredibly internally motivated by their own curiosity. 

3) I was a bit confused when they would talk specifically about the science behind their inventions but that was all. 

4) First, I would ask what it was like to do something incredible alongside your own brother because inventing something is something so rewarding, and doing it with your brother must make it even better. Second, I would ask if they ever thought a person could make it to outer space because they thought of aviation like no one else did so I wonder if they would go as far as believing something could fly all the way to another planet. 

5) I think they thought of hard work as just never giving up on something no matter how hard the journey becomes. I think they lived by this which is why their countless failures didn't stop them from making history. I do agree with this definition of handwork because if you never give up on things, you can do anything in life. 

Celebrating Failure

1) As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, I walk dogs as a side job. I usually schedule walks through an app that has a calendar and will send me alerts when I have a dog to walk that day. One of my clients, though, didn't want to use the app and preferred to just text me. This was fine by me because it meant I got to be paid in cash. He always texts me at the beginning of the week to schedule which days I would come over to walk his dog. Well, there was one day that I was walking a couple of dogs, had classes, and had a shift for my other job. It was quite a hectic day and I didn't realize I was supposed to walk this guys dog until he called me 3 hours after the time he scheduled and asked if I had been over there. I felt terrible and apologized profusely to my client and luckily he wasn't too worried about it.

2) I learned to always put my dog walks into my calendar, as well as to wake up everyday and immediately check my calendar to see what I have going on that day. It also taught me that I am my biggest critic so I will always be harder on myself than others are. I thought that this guy would never trust me to walk his dog again, but he understood that mistakes happen and I am still walking his dog for him to this day.
3) I take failure hard but I have learned how to move on and not dwell on it. I've played softball for the past 10 years or so of my life and it has taught me so much about failure. In a game like softball or baseball, you fail a lot. For example a .500 batting average is amazing and that only means you are getting a hit 50% of the time. That means you are failing the other 50% of the time. This has taught me that it's ok to fail sometimes - everybody does - and you just have to learn from it and keep trying to better yourself. 

What's Next

Existing Market

1.       As I have stated, my initial venture will be an indoor dog park with an area for owners to sit outside the dog area and a small café that the owners can buy snacks and drinks from. Eventually, I would love to add additional services to my venture including doggie daycare and dog boarding.

2.       Before telling my three interviewees what my next plans for my venture were, they all stated I should add dog boarding as a service to my venture. When I added that I would also want to add doggie daycare and all of them thought that it was also a great idea. The interviewees also agreed that allowing my venture to become a franchise opportunity was a good idea. One interviewee even brought up the idea of having a daycare as well, so a parent could come and drop off their dogs and kids for the day and not have to worry about them.

3.       The two biggest growth steps that my business would incur would be adding services of dog boarding and doggie daycare and then becoming a franchise business. The first step would definitely be so add the additional services to my venture. I would have to either add additional space or allocate space to be used later up front to make room for dogs to sleep at night. I would also have to have additional staff there to supervise the dogs overnight. I would have a crate-free boarding program which meant rather than the dogs sleeping in cages, we would have cots and mattresses for them to sleep on. After I had these services added and knew that my venture was a success and profitable, I would allow other entrepreneurs in different locations to open franchises of my venture. This way, I could be in charge of the overall company and my original park, but have other locations around the country. It would also save me up front costs when opening new facilities because the people choosing to franchise them would cover those costs.

New Market

1.       I am currently targeting the lower economic classes with my venture so the radically different market I could target would be high economic classes.

2.       I think my product would still create value in this market basically the same way. Rich people still own dogs and still like to treat their dogs well.

3.       The two people I interviewed from this market both agreed that they would still find a use for my venture. One interviewee stated that I would need to have nicer amenities, especially those tailored to the humans because that is what higher classes are used to. My other interviewee stated that possibly adding a service where their dogs could be picked up and brought to the park would be nice. Because higher classes have the means to pay for it, they often like things to be done for them. This could either be because they are extremely busy or they just would rather not do it themselves.

4.       The idea of having someone pick up dogs and bring them to the park was not something I had thought of but it does seem like a good idea. It would be like an Uber for dogs. In my opinion, it would be harder to break through this market than my original market which is why I think I will stick to targeting lower economic classes for my venture.

Venture Concept No. 1 for Griff's Indoor Dog Park

Opportunity

Dog owners everywhere have the need for a place to take their pet when the weather is poor. The forces in the environment that create this opportunity are poor weather conditions and dog owners’ desire for a place to take their dogs where they can run around and socialize with other dogs. The market for this opportunity would be much higher in an area where rain is more prevalent and where there is a large number of dog owners. In terms of defining this market demographically, there is not a particular limit to the demographic that this opportunity serves, considering dog owners vary by age, race, economical status, etc. When the weather is nice, customers utilize outdoor parks, but when the weather is poor, they do not have another option, so they are forced to stay home with their dogs. The loyalty of the customers differs across the board. Some customers are extremely loyal to outdoor dog parks and attend them frequently—some more than once a week—while other customers attend them only once or twice a month. This opportunity is very BIG. There are dog owners everywhere, who would love to have a place to take their dogs all the time. The “window of opportunity” will never close because there will always be dog owners and there will always be poor weather, so the mixture of the two creates my opportunity. Dog owners + poor weather = my opportunity.

Innovation

                The innovation I have come with is an indoor dog park. There will be a large open area covered with turf that is available for the dogs to run around. This open space will include small artificial ponds, agility obstacles and some fake mulch pits for the dogs to utilize. There will be staff walking around to monitor the dogs and to clean up any messes that occur. In addition, there will be places to sit for the owners to sit outside of the dog area and a café where the humans can purchase snacks and drinks. Customers can choose between a monthly membership fee to use the facility as often as they want or a one-time fee if they do not plan on coming often. The monthly membership fee would be $50 while the one-time fee would be $15. This means that if someone comes once a week, they would save $10 per month if they purchase the monthly membership over the one-time fee.

Venture Concept

                My innovation of an indoor dog park would address my opportunity by giving dog owners a place to bring their dogs to play when there are poor weather conditions. The transition from outdoor dog parks to indoor dog parks would be smooth enough for dog owners, so persuading them to switch would not be too difficult. I have tried to make my venture more appealing than an outdoor dog park is to better convince dog owners to choose my facility over outdoor dog parks. Business location is very important because if I am located in a place with a lot of dog owners and poor weather then I will be successful, but if I am located in a place with few dog owners and consistently nice weather then I will have a harder time succeeding. I would create this venture as a franchise opportunity so I could manage the company as a whole, but I would have help running the individual facilities.

Minor Elements

                My most important resources will be my passion for my venture and my dedication to high quality customer service. It will be hard for my competitors to copy my success because I will have so much passion and be dedicated to give my customers the best experience possible. I would like to add the opportunity of doggy daycare and dog boarding to my venture to allow me more opportunities to make money and serve my community. 10 years after I launch my venture, I would hope to have multiple franchises open around the country.