Reading reflection III

1

You read Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's by Ray Kroc.
What surprised you the most?

Ray Kroc was all about doing what the opposite of what everyone was doing, and while we'd all like to think we'd be our own people and do the same, I truly don't think I'd make all the same bold decisions as he did. Focusing on growth during tough periods, for example, is definitely something I would think not to do, yet that is exactly what he did. Clearly, I have a lot to learn.

What about the entrepreneur did you most admire?

I admired Ray Kroc's tenacity despite starting his work with McDonald's at the age of 52, which is when many people take less risks due to a perceived lack of time and security. He really believed in his vision of success, which I think is due to

What about the entrepreneur did you least admire?

I think he made for a horrible family man and let ambition cloud some of his morals, as he sort of ended up taking the McDonald brothers' business from them. Then again, you could also just argue that the brothers weren't savvy enough and deserved to have it taken from them.

Did the entrepreneur encounter adversity and failure? If so, what did they do about it?

When McDonald's had expanded to a second location, Ray Kroc had a hard time getting the french fry recipe down just right. Even after a sanitary, 'perfect' by-the-book procedure, the fries came out "like mush". While they were passable, they weren't up to his standards. First he called the McDonald brothers, and then the source of their potatoes, who figured out that the brothers had unintentionally been curing their potatoes by leaving them outside, which led to unmushy fries. I suppose the moral is to not forget about every step of your process and not be afraid of asking questions.

What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited?

I think Ray Kroc was excellent at being proactive and knowing how to spend his time. Several times throughout the book he reinforced and brought home that ultimately, he was a doer, not a planner. I know that over-analysis was also something brought up in class. Extensive planning can be problematic!

Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.

I didn't get what Ray Kroc meant when he mentioned franchises expiring. While I understood how one store being located too close to the other could mean cannibalizing sales, I'm not really sure what he means with franchises expiring, since McDonald's is still around. Is it just closing stores?

If you were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur, what would you ask? Why?

I would ask if he's always been a workaholic, as I was extremely impressed by his past, carrying two jobs with sleepless hours 7 days a week. I can't function without my 8 hours.

I would also ask how he avoided burnout. Over 30 years of sales sounds exhausting.

For fun: what do you think the entrepreneur's opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion?

I can definitely see him as one of those people who say "work smart, not hard" with an almost condescending tone, which he can pull off due to his success. However, I think if he just worked hard all the time, he'd have just burnt out, so I see the merit.

Celebrating failure

I have an easy example of continuous failure: my artwork to-do list! Like everyone reading this blog post, I'm a full-time student, so I try to be responsible and have school be my first priority. While I am taking 17 credits of marketing, stats, accounting, and entrepreneurship, I still somehow find plenty of time to waste. What I'm saying is I have an awful habit of putting things off, and as a result, I finish much less art than I'd have liked to. It hurts my soul.

I think the most bothersome part about this continuous failure is that I know other college students who are also artists and manage to be much more productive than I am. They make it that much harder for me to tell myself I'm 'too exhausted' from school and extracurriculars to draw, since I know they can pull it off, so why can't I? Honestly, that's great peer pressure.

I've learned to stop being such a perfectionist, which is in part thanks to this class. I think it has helped with its mentality of getting a concept out as soon as you can, versus spending lots of time, effort, and money on a concept that might be outdated or backfire. I believe that's a great mentality to have with art as well!

what's next

Existing Market

Regarding what would be next, I assumed consumers would want the ability to make merchandise of the art they post to my website such as stickers, prints, and charms. It's definitely something they buy on their own time, and it's a feature my competitors offer, so why wouldn't they be interested in it?

However, I was met with a more lukewarm response than anticipated. The reason was that typically, when artists want to make merchandise, they keep that in mind from the very beginning when creating a piece. I was told by one of my interviewees that they often forget art websites even offer the feature, so it makes for an ineffective afterthought with little point. I myself have never utilized it, but figured others did. In the end, what I was encouraged to continue focusing on was having an aesthetically pleasing website. These ARE artists, after all!

New Market

For my new market, I identified my competitors as my new market. Many websites have applets and plugins available on the Google app store to help enhance them to consumer's niche needs. So, I would change my product from a website to an app that would help website users better organize the content they were seeing.

When I interviewed my intended market, I was surprised at the approval I was met with. As it turns out for one of the websites in my market, something similar has actually already been done for that websites' chatrooms by a user of the website, which made the formatting much nicer to look at as well as adding additional features for those who wanted them. However, this route seems less profitable, as I know many applet makers run on donations alone, even if it's a smaller project.

Venture Concept 1- OChacon.com

1           Opportunity

The main force creating this opportunity is probably time itself. As time goes on, technology progresses, and with coding technology this is especially true. In 10 years there can be A LOT of progress. It is why un-updated websites from the 2000s look so stale and gross now. Social communities also change regarding their priorities, humors, and wants, and it is absolutely vital for social media creators to take note of this. Due to a neglect in this area, my opportunity has arisen.

Geographically, this market can be located just about anywhere in the world, as it is online. However, I’ve noticed concentrations in the western Unites States and Canada. Demographically, it is majority women who are mostly college-educated. The age range is 18-25 with a few outliers. They are all either artist/writer hobbyists or professionals, and are interested in experiences with their friends.

Currently, I think customers are mostly satisfying their need for a modern platform to chat, write, and draw by using a cocktail of 2-3 different websites and lowering their expectations as a way of coping. Due to these lowered expectations, I’d say they’re none too loyal. In my own experience in the past, this market jumps ship to another social media website within months of a better alternative being released. Usually, the only thing keeping people’s loyalties are their followings that they’ve worked hard to build up, but even then it isn’t always enough.

This market I am targeting, while more niche, I would still comfortably say is a few thousand people big, and according to a poll I conducted, seems to be either stagnating or growing. The people in this market spend plenty of discretionary income on fandom and original merchandise, so I know a small monthly membership fee is not unrealistic.

The community doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, so I would say that the window of opportunity will last until someone else creates something. I can safely say a year or two at minimum, seeing as I’ve been in this community for years without any alternative offered. My only guess for why nothing has been created is just that most people involved are hobbyists and have schoolwork or full-time work to do, so no one’s taken the plunge in creating something.

2.                  Innovation

My service is on the more continuous or dynamically continuous levels of innovation, as it won’t require much (if any) learning at all beyond getting used to the interface. My market is a more tech-savvy one, so a new social media website should feel ideally familiar and intuitive. The most innovative part is who it’s for- all I am really doing is combining the most useful aspects of the 2-3 websites my market frequents.

To be more specific, my current market uses various combinations of these three websites: DeviantArt, Twitter, and Discord. The reason why my market cannot survive on just one of these alone goes as follows, with each website’s pros and cons:

DeviantArt

+ Capable of hosting artwork, animations, and literature

+ While ill-suited for original content, groups can be hosted here as well

- Outdated chat and social functions make it very hard to meet people

- Groups with decent HTML formatting and organization are charged $60 a year to upkeep.

Twitter

+ Artwork can be posted here, whether finished or in-progress works

+ Very easy to meet and socialize quickly with people through mutual followers and the dashboard feature

+ For professional artists and those who offer commissions and merchandise, Twitter is additionally a great place to advertise themselves.

- Picture quality is iffy, not friendly to different kinds of image formats

- Due to character limit, ‘serious’ conversation regarding roleplaying can’t really be done here- Twitter is just a place for others to keep up with their friend’s lives.

Discord

+ Easy to use and great for creating large chatrooms for roleplaying groups with many members

+ Direct messaging feature

+ 2000 character limit is pretty literature-friendly

+ New and constantly updating

+/- Very controlled audience for who sees your content

- While pictures can be uploaded here, quality is iffy

- Cannot upload animation videos

- Shared artworks are easily lost due to being buried by messages

So, my plan is to combine the positive elements of these three websites to the best of my ability, with a large focus on being art-friendly. I plan to profit by either selling advertising space or by offering premium features for members’ profiles and groups for a low rate of $3.99 a month.

3.                   Venture Concept

As stated prior, I believe it will be customer’s dissatisfaction with what is currently offered that will bring them to my website. I expect switching to take a few months, so the first few months of being up and running will be quite the hustle. All of my established competitors have specific focuses to their websites just like I do, but my main advantage is that my target audience isn’t really interested in them.

When members purchase a membership, I’d like to send a nice thank-you card to them as a tangible representation of good customer service. The purchase process will be automated through a 3^rd party like paypal and my team and I will be available for emails for questions. My team will ideally consist of me, a coder, a graphic designer, and 1-2 others to help moderate. We will mainly keep in contact through online medias, though if the website becomes profitable enough I would love to consider a small office.

4.                   Three Minor Elements

1.                  My important resource is being part of my own market.

2.                  Perhaps partner with a merchandise-making company to give people the option to turn their art into prints and charms.

3.                  I would like to be able to grow this venture enough so it becomes sustainable in the next 5 years. In the next 10, I’d like to move on to my own artistic endeavors. This will be useful business experience.

unfair advantage

1. Connections to coders

Valuable: Coding a website is the most important material for my website.
Rare: It's only really rare among people who don't know anyone in the computer science crowd. Online, this isn't really rare.
Inimitable: Pretty tough, as coding websites takes considerable experience.
Non-substitutable: Could substitute coding lessons.

2. An audience

Valuable: They'll help spread the word about my website when it goes up.
Rare: Building a following while being well-liked and reputable isn't as easy as it seems!
Inimitable: Very few could.
Non-substitutable: No one else in my market is trying to make something like this, so no.

3. Connections to artists

Valuable: Graphic design know-how is imperative to a nice-looking website that people will want to use.
Rare: Most people aren't artists, so pretty rare.
Inimitable: Art takes years to learn and finesse.
Non-substitutable: I have my own art skills I could use instead.

4. My own artistic skills

Valuable: Using my own skills may not save time, but it will save some money.
Rare: Again, most people aren't artists so fairly rare.
Inimitable: I have my own style and aesthetic, so I'll say yes.
Non-substitutable: There are other artists out there.

5. Being a part of my own market

Valuable: I have years of knowledge and experience that you just can't buy. A fantastic advantage against outsiders thinking of entering.
Rare: It's a niche community, so yes.
Inimitable: Anyone else in this community has similar experiences.
Non-substitutable: Most people in this community are artists or in STEM, so I'm sort of alone as a business major.

6. Accounting knowledge

Valuable: Essential to maintaining a business
Rare: Most artists probably haven't taken an accounting class.
Inimitable: However, anyone can.
Non-substitutable: Could hire an accountant.

7. Bright future $$$

Valuable: Money is vital to starting a business.
Rare: It's a very common scholarship in Florida.
Inimitable: There are many others with the same level of BF as me.
Non-substitutable: And there are many other scholarships and ways to make money.

8. Being a UF student

Valuable: We're a top 10 public university, and the best in Florida, which gives me a pretty good education.
Rare: 50,000 students go here, but I wouldn't say we're common.
Inimitable: The quality makes my degree on the more difficult side to imitate
Non-substitutable: 

9. My empathy

Valuable: Vital for making sales, networking, and maintaining a good corporate culture.
Rare: Not everyone has it, but not rare.
Inimitable: I've been told I'm extremely empathetic and relatable, so if it sticks out to people then I must be above average.
Non-substitutable: Can't substitute ingenuity! 

10. My energy

Valuable: Being motivated is the easiest way to get things done.
Rare: Not really.
Inimitable: Being genuine and energetic is pretty hard to fake.
Non-substitutable: Can substitute with a strong work ethic and self-discipline at the cost of some fun.

I'd say my most valuable resource is #5, being a part of my own market. It's got the best VRIN analysis out of all of these, as it's the hardest to imitate and really can't be substituted. People could be interviewed, but I think it's hard to grasp some things without experiencing them for yourself (like college).

the final pitch

The feedback that stood out to me most last time was positive reception on my updated hook, so I kept that in there! Otherwise, besides shortening my pitch for the sake of timing, for this elevator pitch I focused on presentation. I noticed in my past pitches that I moved around a lot and constantly had my eyebrows stuck in this weird surprised state, and while the assignment encourages you to be energetic, that probably doesn't coincide with being obnoxious. This third time around I was a lot comfier in front of the camera, and I think it shows.

Reading reflection II

I chose to read Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Dr. Carol S. Dweck.

1) What was the general theme or argument of the book?

In each chapter, Dr. Dweck compares two mindsets: Growth and fixed. At first, I thought it was going to be 8 chapters of her preaching how the growth mindset was better because being open-minded and learning from you failures is vital to success and all that jazz, but I was wrong. She realistically explains how each can lead to both success and failure in their own right, though inevitably growth mindsets are the way to go.

2) How did the book, in your opinion, connect with and enhance what you are learning in ENT 3003?

In chapter 4, the author talks about what makes the mindset of a 'champion'. It's in a sports context, but it heavily reminded me of entrepreneurship. It's all about how those with growth mindsets find success in doing their best and find setbacks motivating. Entrepreneurship is all about coming up with hundreds, if not thousands of ideas that will ultimately fail, but not letting that deter you.

3) If you had to design an exercise for this class, based on the book you read, what would that exercise involve?

It would involve enforcing a growth mindset by both reflecting on past failures or setbacks that you moved on from as well as anticipating any possible failures in the future. It's grim, but important to prepare for the worst.

4) What was your biggest surprise or 'aha' moment when reading the book? In other words, what did you learn that differed most from your expectations?

The most eye-opening thing I read was about how we are conditioned in school to believe we are 'smart' in subjects we pick up quickly and 'dumb' in subjects that take longer to learn. Praising children's intelligence harms their motivation and performance. They'll associate victory with being smart and failure with being dumb, which could ultimately make failing a much more traumatic process than it needs to be. Growing up as a perfectionist, it's almost sad how true this is! I'm still trying to unlearn my association between failure and being seen as a fool.

Growing your social capital

1. Domain Expert: François Chollet

Chollet is the creator of Wysp, an art community that focuses on practice improvement. She is my domain expert since I also want to create an art website with strong community features, albeit with a different focus. I found Wysp via a blog post, and found Chollet's contact info on Wysp's FAQ page. Since Chollet appears to be a normal young person just like you and me, in my email I basically asked about things I was worried about concerning my own project- getting the word out, unexpected challenges, and how she created the website. Additionally, I noticed there are no ads on Wysp, and there doesn't seem to be a paid membership system, so I was curious about where Wysp created revenue. Having her in my network will add a nice sense of camaraderie as well as a possible mentor- small website moderators have to stick together!

2. Market Expert: Silvia Barnett

Silvia is a digital artist who's been in the artist roleplaying community for over five years, so she's representative of my market. Since I'm in the same community, we met through there and have been friends for a few years now. I chose to contact her through a freeware application, Discord, since that's where we usually chat to keep things casual.

In my message to Silvia, I asked her mostly about her views on how big my market is and what kind of features should be free versus premium on my website. Having her in my network will be helpful since she is deeply rooted within it and has a large reach of her own. She could help me spread the word about my website.

3. Important Supplier: Allison Zhao

Zhao is a freelance coder who works with clients in building websites and small video games. When your service is a website, coding and technical help are the most important supplies. I found Zhao through a tweet advertising her coding commission services. When I contacted her through Twitter, I basically described my website idea to her in hopes of getting suggestions and a quote. The more you know! Having this person in my network is vital for my website's creation due to her expertise.

Reflection

I can see that networking is super vital, as I've been told since I was a freshman at UF. They give you the info and boosts that classes and money can't buy, and I wouldn't doubt if they were the gap between some businesses succeeding and failing.