Final Reflection

    I had a really great time during the ENT 3003 class. Reflecting back on all the experiences that I had along the way, I think that this class really helped me develop a new way of thinking by exposing me through a variety of different experiences through the assignments. The elevator pitch assignments, the growing your social capital assignment and the reading reflection assignments were some of the experiences that I enjoyed the most. All the assignments designed for the course have worked together in helping me develop an entrepreneurial mindset. The peer reviews have really helped in developing that entrepreneurial mindset. One fun fact that I learnt from the class is that finding an unmet need is actually more difficult that finding the solution to the problem itself. For the students who are going to take this class in the future, I would like to recommend them to treat the assignments as if you working to start your first business rather than just doing for the sake of completion of the assignment. In that way, one can be able to learn a lot of valuable aspects of entrepreneurship.

Venture Concept No.2

Opportunity:

The opportunity that my venture seeks to take advantage of is a result of unmet need of two groups of people. The first being the group of people between the age group of 18 to 21. This consists mostly of undergraduate students. Many undergraduate students, especially out-of-state and international students, do not own a car or do not have access to it due to certain reasons. As a result, they need to rely on other sources for traveling. A majority of car rental companies currently have a minimum age requirement of 21. Due to this, this particular segment of market is left out and cannot access this service as easily.

Furthermore, most car rental companies require the customers to return the back to its original position. Due to this, people who are searching for a mode of transport for one-way trips are also left out. Most common example for such scenario is for a person who travels to airports frequently. Taking a cab every time can become expensive very easily. Another example of such a scenario is when a person needs a vehicle only to reach a place and get back, but would be spending a week or more at the location but won’t be using the vehicle. Under the current terms for car rentals they would still have to pay the rent for the entire duration of their stay.

Both these segments are currently relying on cab services as a solution to the problem. The people in focus over here are currently partly satisfied with their solution in the form of cabs but are very much interested in finding a cheaper and more convenient alternative solution to this problem.

Innovation:

The idea is to create such a car rental service that would combine the current traditional car rental service features with these two new features to create a service that would be able to reach out to a way larger number of people. The proposed car rental service would allow anyone over the age of 18 and with a valid driver’s license to rent a car and would also allow customers to return the car at a different location than the original pick up location along with all the other features offered currently. In order to make one way trips possible through car rentals, the venture would set up stations across all place, from where a car can be picked or dropped. Along with the required cost, to maintain competitive prices, the venture would also earn money from sponsors by advertising on the cars. A good app with a very easy to understand interface would be a major part for interacting with the customers. The cars would be rented based on either per hour or per day cost, with a cap of 180 miles per day after which the user will be charged extra based on the number of miles travelled. There would also be an option to rent the vehicle for a longer duration of time such as weeks or months.

Venture Concept:

The customers aren’t currently quite content with their current solution. They are eagerly looking for a cheaper and more convenient alternative solution to the problem. Rental cars provide far more convenience to travelers than cabs and are also way more cheaper than cabs. Due to this, customers wouldn’t have to face much difficulty in switching to the alternative solution provided by my venture. Even though it might look as if cabs are the competitor that the venture would be facing, other car rental companies would, in my opinion, be the real competitors to face. Pricing would play a very important role in the success of the venture. Since students are a big part of the plan for the venture, maintaining competitive prices would be extremely crucial. If pricing would help in customer decision at face value, good customer experience and good customer support system would form the backbone of the venture. Starting the service from availability in a particular county and then expanding to a state, various states and then finally the entire country would help manage the number of employees required.

The minor three elements:

         1.      Venture’s Unfair Advantage:

I think that the resource that would be the most helpful for me in this venture would be that I am a part of the venture’s target market myself. This would allow me to understand the potential customers and their needs a lot better, and as a result help in providing a better quality of the service. I think that the social capital that I developed during the course of this class can also play the role of providing an unfair advantage to the venture.

         2.      What’s next for the venture?

Since students are a big part of the plan for the venture, adding scooters to the lineup and allowing customers to rent scooters can be a great step in expanding the venture. Rental scooters are already hugely popular in Bangalore, India.

         3.      What’s next for me?

In the next 5 years, I see myself constantly trying to make the experience even more convenient for the customers with this venture. As an entrepreneur, I would like to treat this venture as my foundation and then move on to trying to implement many other business ideas.

Most of the feedback I received was positive and so I only made a very few slight additions to the venture concept.

Reading Reflection No. 3

1) I chose to read “Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson”.
a) The most surprising part of the book for me was his trip to India. I admire Steve Jobs a lot but I never knew about his experience about his trip to India and this was surprising for me since I am from India.
b) The thing that I admire the most about him is how determined he was in life despite all the failures he faced.
c) The thing that I least admire about him is that he didn’t spend much quality time with his family.
d) He did face a lot of adversities and failures in his life. But he wasn’t afraid of failing and tried to improve himself every time.

2) I think that his biggest core competency was that he took risks and challenged his limits.

3) The book was pretty well-written, it explained everything clearly and I didn’t find any part of the book to be particularly confusing.

4) I would like to ask Steve Jobs whether he regretted any decision that he made and about how happy he is about the way Apple is performing currently. After completing the exit strategy assignment, I just got curious if Apple is performing the way Steve envisioned it to be after him.

5) Steve Jobs worked hard throughout his life and so I think he would have been completely favor of it. But he made sure that every he did was used to its maximum potential to achieve success. So, I think that he would have believed that only working hard isn’t enough but one should know how to make best out of every move.

Your Exit Strategy

1) I intend to grow my business with my initial business idea and then sell the business for a large return.

2) I would like to stay connected to a business created by me. But I think that this venture isn’t the one that I would like to continue working with for my entire life. Thus, I would like to sell this business and then start a new business out of the money I receive, a venture that I myself would enjoy contributing my entire life towards. Also, I think that after a certain time, there would be a lot of competitors who would make changes to their current model and start delivering similar services. So, I would like to sell it to one such company as it would also help them expand their service hugely and get much ahead of the competition.

3) I think that my exit strategy did influence my decisions throughout the concept to a certain extent. I mostly focused mostly on the initial set up and only some upgrades in the future but didn’t quite focus on further improving it on a long term basis.

Celebrating Failure

1) One of the failures that I faced this semester was for one of labs for the Programming Fundamentals 2 class. We are supposed to prepare a program based on the given details for each lab and we get around one week’s time for it. For one of those labs, I started working a bit later than usual because I thought that it was going to be easy. I worked on it and had it ready except for when I tried to test it, it wouldn’t work and would return compile errors. I went over the code several times but couldn’t find the mistake. Finally, I decided to rewrite the code entirely from scratch once again. Fortunately, this time it worked, and I was able to submit it successfully on time, but not without stressing my mind out. Later on, when I rechecked the old code, I found out that it was just a small typo error that had caused me this problem.

2) I learned two things from this experience. The first is that I should never procrastinate anything for any reason. The second one is that I should never underestimate anything and nothing in this world actually comes “easy”. I need to work hard and in a timely manner in order to achieve anything.

3) I think that failures are a part and parcel of life and everyone needs to accept it. On a funny side, I think that failures make for a really good success story. When it comes to dealing with failures, I like to react in two ways based on what type of failure it is. If it is that I can still convert into success somewhat like the example above, I will take it up as a challenge and not rest until I have finally found a successful solution. If it is something that can’t be changed such as bad grades on an exam, I get really stressed in such situations. Thus, I like to first calm myself down, listen to some music, watch a good movie and then finally reflect on where I went wrong and practice hard enough that I never repeat that mistake again. For the reading reflection assignment of this class, I read a book about failures and that has helped me a lot.

Venture Concept No. 1

Opportunity:

The opportunity that my venture seeks to take advantage of is a result of unmet need of two groups of people. The first being the group of people between the age group of 18 to 21. This consists mostly of undergraduate students. Many undergraduate students, especially out-of-state and international students, do not own a car or do not have access to it due to certain reasons. As a result, they need to rely on other sources for traveling. A majority of car rental companies currently have a minimum age requirement of 21. Due to this, this particular segment of market is left out and cannot access this service as easily.

Furthermore, most car rental companies require the customers to return the back to its original position. Due to this, people who are searching for a mode of transport for one-way trips are also left out. Most common example for such scenario is for a person who travels to airports frequently. Taking a cab every time can become expensive very easily. Another example of such a scenario is when a person needs a vehicle only to reach a place and get back, but would be spending a week or more at the location but won’t be using the vehicle. Under the current terms for car rentals they would still have to pay the rent for the entire duration of their stay.

Both these segments are currently relying on cab services as a solution to the problem. The people in focus over here are currently partly satisfied with their solution in the form of cabs but are very much interested in finding a cheaper and more convenient alternative solution to this problem.

Innovation:

The idea is to create such a car rental service that would combine the current traditional car rental service features with these two new features to create a service that would be able to reach out to a way larger number of people. The proposed car rental service would allow anyone over the age of 18 and with a valid driver’s license to rent a car and would also allow customers to return the car at a different location than the original pick up location along with all the other features offered currently. In order to make one way trips possible through car rentals, the venture would set up stations across all place, from where a car can be picked or dropped. Along with the required cost, to maintain competitive prices, the venture would also earn money from sponsors by advertising on the cars.

Venture Concept:

The customers aren’t currently quite content with their current solution. They are eagerly looking for a cheaper and more convenient alternative solution to the problem. Rental cars provide far more convenience to travelers than cabs and are also way more cheaper than cabs. Due to this, customers wouldn’t have to face much difficulty in switching to the alternative solution provided by my venture. Even though it might look as if cabs are the competitor that the venture would be facing, other car rental companies would, in my opinion, be the real competitors to face. Pricing would play a very important role in the success of the venture. Since students are a big part of the plan for the venture, maintaining competitive prices would be extremely crucial. If pricing would help in customer decision at face value, good customer experience and good customer support system would form the backbone of the venture. Starting the service from availability in a particular county and then expanding to a state, various states and finally the entire country would help manage the number of employees required.

The minor three elements:

         1.      Venture’s Unfair Advantage:

I think that the resource that would be the most helpful for me in this venture would be that I am a part of the venture’s target market myself. This would allow me to understand the potential customers and their needs a lot better, and as a result help in providing a better quality of the service. I think that the social capital that I developed during the course of this class can also play the role of providing an unfair advantage to the venture.

         2.      What’s next for the venture?

Since students are a big part of the plan for the venture, adding scooters to the lineup and allowing customers to rent scooters can be a great step in expanding the venture. Rental scooters are already hugely popular in Bangalore, India.

         3.      What’s next for me?

In the next 5 years, I see myself constantly trying to make the experience even more convenient with this venture. As an entrepreneur, I would like to treat this venture as my foundation and then move on to trying to implement many other business ideas.

What's Next?

Existing Market:

I think that one possible way to expand my venture in the existing market is to include an option for customers to be able to rent cars. I think that, since students make a big part of my target audience, scooters would be a great option for them. A lot of students prefer to travel with scooters due to ease of commuting with a scooter. Surprisingly, when I was explaining about my venture to one of my friends, he too mentioned how adding scooters could be a great option to expand it. Scooter rentals are hugely popular in Bangalore, India.

New Market:

Introducing my venture to a completely new market could be possible by allowing Uber and Snap drivers to rent cars from my company to earn money. But they would have different term and conditions and would have to pay a slightly higher price to make up for commercial use. This would allow drivers to start making money without owning a car and hence attracting customers in that market segment. I think that this market segment would also be just as exciting as the existing one.