Final Post

The entrepreneurial journey can be fun, fulfilling and very rewarding.  The path of entrepreneurship is loaded with difficulties challenges and some disappointments but if you have the drive and determination to overcome them you may very well find success. There are so many amazing things I learned this semester that can help any entrepreneur along this difficult and rewarding journey but there are a few that stood out to me more than the rest. I wish to share these principles with you now.

1.       Start with a plan – A business plan is what guides your business but a business plan is not enough. You should start by developing a life plan and understanding what it is you want from life and how owning your own business will help you achieve it. With your business plan be detailed and specific. Understand the market, what cost you may have and what milestones you need to reach to obtain success. Make sure your business idea is one that drives you, without that drive you will not have what it takes to get through the difficult times
2.        Work on your business, not in your business – This was a concept a did not understand before this class. Many business owners get so caught up in controlling the day to day operations that they leave little time to focus on the growth of the company and eventually lead themselves to getting burned out. To avoid this, think of your business as a franchise. Develop processes and procedures that allow other people to run the company without you overseeing every aspect of its operation. Another thing I want to add to this is treat your employees well, hire slowly and fire fast.
3.        Don’t Be Afraid to Fail – The last and final word of wisdom I want to leave with you is don’t be afraid to fail. It is in our failures that we learn the most. They may be difficult to swallow but the lessons the y teach us are invaluable. If you are too afraid to fail, you will not be able to take the risks necessary to be truly successful.        

Lesson 12

It’s crazy to me that there is only one week left in the semester. I have learned and grown so much as I have focused on the skills necessary to be a successful entrepreneur. This week was probably one of my favorites because it showed the importance of failing forward. In business and in life we all make mistakes, we all have disappointments and at times we all fail. This week we focused on learning from those mistakes, and failures and getting back up with every blow. Some of the most respected and successful people face many failures and disappointments on the road to success. The biggest difference is they learned from those failures and disappointments, got up and persisted on. This week I learned a lot more about Walt Disney. When he was young he was fired from a newspaper in Kansas City because they said he lacked imagination. He then started his own cartoon production company but ended up going bankrupt. He moved to California and started another animation company, where he created a cartoon character for Universal by the name of Oswald the Rabbit. Due to the contract Walt Disney signed he soon found out he didn’t own the rights to the cartoon he had created. Universal hired his animators out from under him and continued the cartoon without him. It was on the train ride home after learning he had basically lost his company that he created Mickey Mouse.  He faced many more blows throughout his life but he never gave up, he kept pushing forward. Many other people faced similar challenges. Michael Jordan was cut from his High School Basketball team and was told he would never be good at basketball; J.K. Rawlings was rejected by many publishers before she found one willing to publish the Harry Potter series. The one thing in common is that they didn’t give up and they learned so much along the way.

Failure has such a negative connotation in our society and people have become to see failure as a horrible thing rather than a learning experience. The one thing I really learned is that failure is not bad if you are able to learn and grow from it. I have thought back on mistakes and failures my dad and I have had with our company. Instead of seeing it as an opportunity to learn and grow I wrote it off as someone else’s fault. This is a common reaction but it stunts growth and keeps me from reaching my full potential. As I thought about failure I thought about the plan of salvation. We were sent her by God to make mistakes face disappointment and fail. That was part of his plan for us to learn and grow. Failure is such an important part of growth and if we don’t view it that way we don’t take full advantage of the opportunity to learn. This is something I needed to hear and hopefully I will be able to use these things to be a more successful business man in the future.  

Lesson 11

This week was another great week as the semester is beginning to wind down. We talked about family businesses which is something that is has been a big part of my life. My dad started our family company when I was young, so I have grown up being part of the company. The thing I found most interesting was dealing with family business issues such as succession and who will take the reins as head of the family company when the parent running it steps down, what is expected of each family member in the business, and setting boundaries for when business is discussed and when it is not.  I feel like communication is the key. In dealing with succession, a plan needs to set in place. The long term vision of the company needs to be created stating who will handle which positions and what their responsibilities will be. That way everyone understands what their role will be and you have something that can be referred to and enforced.  Another big problem with a family business is not allowing the business to take over family time and family life. Business boundaries need to be set so everyone knows when it is time to talk business and when it is time to relax and enjoy time with family.  This is something we never did growing up, it was business, business, business all the time and I feel like some of the family connections were lost amongst the midst of focusing on the business. Family businesses are great but some extra precautions need to be taken to avoid tearing the family apart.  

The other thing we focused on this week was purchasing an existing business, which is a very viable option. We read a case study that showed the importance of research and understanding what you want and expect when buying and existing business. It is very important that you have this understanding because if you don’t you risk purchasing a company that is not where you need it to be. We had the opportunity to look at businesses for sale and determine which business we would purchase and I really enjoyed this activity. It allowed me the opportunity to really think about what I want to do in the future and then look at viable options of making that happen.

This week was really great and I learned a lot. As far as the $100 project goes I am just working on my final presentation. I did not make as much money as I would have liked but I was able to meet the goal and I am very grateful for the opportunity. 

Lesson 10

The focus of this week’s material was franchising. Franchising is big business in the United States and across the world. I have visited many franchises but I did not know how much goes into getting a franchise set up. I thought franchising was like a product store for businesses. You choose which one you want, you buy it and you are all set. That is not even close to the way it works. The biggest positive of purchasing a franchise is that you are purchasing a tried and true business most of the time with brand recognition and a solid following. With Franchises the Franchiser has gone through and perfected all of the processes and you do not have to go through the trial and error yourself. Along with the positive comes the negative. There are so many restrictions that come along with owning a franchise. You are limited on the decisions you can make, you are geographically bound unless you purchase more regions, and there are large costs associated. You typically have to pay the franchise fee which is just the rights to use the brand, then you have to purchase all of the fixtures and equipment and on top of that you have to pay yearly fees (typically a percentage of your annual revenue).  I learned that franchises can be a good choice for starting a business but there is a lot involved in getting them going. The biggest is research. You need to understand the market and geographic demand for the franchise you are looking to purchase. You want to make sure that the franchise is a good one and will do what they say they are going to do and are willing to give you the support you need. Just like any other business there is a lot of ground work involved. It is not just an off the shelf product like I thought it takes research and a good plan to make it successful.

For my $100 project there hasn’t really been any changes. I did get another sell that put me safely above the $100 needed. While I didn’t make $200-300 like I had hoped it was still a great experience and it taught me a lot.  It also made me realize just how hard and frustrating it is to own a business but it also taught me how exhilarating it can be. I have caught the bug for sure and cannot wait to work on my next business.  

Lesson 9

This week has been a really great week for me and I learned a lot of things. The focus of this week was process improvements. I have never paid that close of attention to process improvements or why they are important but as we began learning about it this week I realized I have been a part of many informal process improvements where I work and even a couple of very big ones that were not talked about as process improvements but that is what they are. As we learned about process improvements we looked at the story of Burt’s Bees and how it began. Several years into the business Roxanne who started Burt’s Bees realized that for her company to grow things were going to have to change. They moved to North Carolina where Roxanne realized that to be successful and grow the current processes weren’t going to work. At the time everything was made by hand and required a lot of labor which was expensive. That is when she began automating the processes of her company so that her products could be mass produced quickly, efficiently and as cost effectively as possible. This story and the other information we studied this week made me realize just how important processes are for a company.

For my $100 project business, this week was great. I went from very little in the way of sales to over $100 in profit this week. I realized this week that patience and persistence are key to meeting goals and making your company successful. I really started talking my business up and spreading my business cards around and that made a huge difference. People from work began talking about my products and I began getting more sales. One of my products completely sold out this week and I am beginning to real feel the excitement growing in my company. I am not ready to give it up, I have so many more ideas of products I could add and ways to make my company better. This has been one of my favorite classes I have taken so far and I really enjoy everything I learned while doing this project this semester.     

Lesson 8

This week we learned about hiring and firing. We learned more about the much known business quote “hire slowly, fire quickly”. Hiring should be done very carefully and methodically. The person you are hiring is a representative of your company. I really like the approach that Jet Blue took to finding high quality employees and making sure they stuck around. The first step was defining the values that guide the company. By defining the companies values you are able to hire people whose values align with those of the company. The second thing I thought was really interesting was that they customized benefit packages for each different position category. They knew that flight attendants tend to be at a more transitional point in their lives and are not long term employees because of this they offered them other benefits rather than retirement because that is something that would be less beneficial to them. This is a really interesting approach because it allows them the flexibility to give their employees what they really want. Jet Blue understands that by putting employee happiness first they will deliver better service to the customers. The flip side to hiring is firing. If someone is not working out and you have done all you can to help them, you need to let them go. This is something that can be very difficult but it is something that is very necessary. Overall I found this week very interesting and very informative.

As far as my hundred-dollar project goes, everything is going pretty well. I had a few more sales this week and I am getting closer to my goal. I talked with a family member who does website optimization and she gave me so great insight on my website and how to improve it. This project has been much harder than I expected it to be. I have done a lot more networking and marketing this week by handing out business cards and talking to people about my business and this really seems to be helping. It is forcing me to step outside of my comfort zone but it has been a great experience for me. I am just plugging away and trying to drum up more sales. I am starting to get nervous that I want reach the $100 profit but I am still hopeful that it will happen    

Lesson 7

This week was a great week to learn about leadership qualities. Not only did we study leadership in class this week but I also focused on leadership at work as part of the employee Leadership Academy. If you think about who the greatest leader of all time was most people begin to think about Jesus Christ. He was the perfect example of many things including leadership. He lead by example as shown when he said "come follow me". Nothing was below Christ, he showed this by washing his disciples feet, this simple act also showed how much he loved and cared for those who followed him. One of the things that was brought up was that Christ operated on fixed principles and because of this his leadership was consistent.

As leaders we need to be willing to put our pride to the side and be willing to help our employees and those we lead to really grow and get an opportunity to learn. We also need to be willing to listen to them and show them that we value and trust their opinions. Employees more than anything want to be heard and they want to feel valued. Leadership is how this happens. Through showing love and respect for those we lead we help them grow and develop and this allows are company to grow as well. I really enjoyed learning about leadership this week.

While I really enjoyed learning about leadership I really struggled with my $100 project this week. I launched my website, Facebook page and marketing campaign this week and nothing happened. I was sure that I would get a huge influx of people wanting to buy my product but that is not what happened, I had a ton of people visit my website and I only had 1 purchase. It is really frustrating because I feel like I have a great product to offer but it is not being viewed that way. I have asked a couple of people for suggestions on how to make my website better and I have shifted my focus from social media marketing (which I will continue to do) to talking to everyone I know about my business. I am printing business cards to hand out and I hope by networking and talking to people that I will be able to generate more sales.  

Lesson 6

This week I had the opportunity to learn more about customer service and developing and philosophy that drives your company.  We had the opportunity to learn about Zappos who has developed a culture or philosophy of customer service. When an employee is hired they are put through training and on the first day of training they are offered $2000 dollars to quit.  They use this as a way to eliminate those employees that are only there for a paycheck instead of serving the customers. Each employee spends for weeks of call center/customer service training followed by 2 weeks working in the call center. It doesn’t matter if they are an accountant or an IT manager, there philosophy is customer service and each employee is trained to work with and understand the importance of customer service.

I also found it really interesting to learn about different customer growth focuses. There are 2 ways to grow your customer base, the first is through marketing to gain new employees and the second is to focus on the customers you have and design offerings that meet their needs so you will gain more money from each customer. The second option is the most efficient and cost effective method and that is why customer service is so important. My dad and I were talking about this today. He works for a company that does not value their employees and does not give them the proper tools to offer great customer service. The company has been losing customers because the employees are unhappy and are not offering the customer service needed to maintain customer relations. The success of any company lies in their ability to provide service that keeps customers coming back, if you don’t treat your customers right another company will.

For my $100-dollar project I am not as far along as I wanted to be. I do not have my website completed but I did get professional pictures of all of my products. I have all of my samples done and I picked up the last of the materials I need to produce the products for sell. This weekend I will have my website completed and I will have it linked to a Facebook page I created for my company. While I have not been able to get as much done as I hoped I am happy with what I have done so far and I am excited to start selling my products next week.  

Lesson 5

This week I learned a lot about marketing.  This week I had a lot of time to think about marketing as I start up my own company and as my dad is asking for some advice on the brand we are launching as part of our family business.  The ting I enjoyed most this week was the article about the purple cow. It really showed me that the point behind any successful business is finding a need to fulfill or finding a new way to fulfill a need that is not already being done. The point of the purple cow is standing out and not doing the same boring things that everyone else is doing. It really made me look at my $100 project business. It is not a new revolutionary but there are aspects of it that are. My products are not processed in a huge factory; they are repurposed materials that give new life to wood that would have otherwise rotted away. That does make me stand out a little bit but I will need to come up with something more revolutionary as I prepare to market my product. I also had the opportunity to talk to my dad this week about a new addition we are bringing into our family entertainment company. We are adding a photo booth and as we talked we both realize that it is not something new or revolutionary, it is something that has been around for a while but it is different than any other photo booth in our area.  We talked about how we can turn this opportunity into a purple cow and the thing that popped into my head from the article was, if you could pick any client to market too who would it be. Most companies are focusing on weddings which is big money but that market is pretty saturated. We talked about focusing on corporate clients and focusing on the aspect that we can attach their logo and get client printout reports at the end of the event. By focusing on aspects that no one else is focusing on we can create a purple cow opportunity.

I really enjoyed learning about marketing this week and applying what I am learning, but I also enjoyed working on my $100 product company. This week I got all of my samples together and took pictures to put on my website. This weekend I will finish my website and begin marketing my product. Everything is going well so far. I plan on using a website to sell my product. I will see how much revenue I am able to generate from that and social media. I may end up creating an ebay store as well like other members of the class are doing. 

Lesson 4

This week was another very interesting and beneficial week learning about entrepreneurial business. We focused primarily on funding and fundraising. I went into this week after completing my one page business plan last week and thought I had a good understanding of costs for starting my $100 project business. The funny thing about startup funding is that it really makes you go back and look at the numbers. I began thinking about all the costs and whether the $20 startup capital I put in my business plan would be enough. Through double checking everything I found that I had forgotten to include the costs for one of my products and I had underestimated the costs of my website. It turns out the real number needed was almost double what I originally thought. This taught me a very important lesson, double check and triple check your numbers before going to get funding. You don't want to set yourself up for failure by under funding your business from the get go.

As I really looked at getting a solid number I realized that I had overlooked some important aspects of choosing my website hosting. I had looked at yearly costs instead of monthly costs and I had not considered Credit card processing, tech support, or inventory and order management. I ultimately went with the Hosting that was $5 more because it included a lot of the added features and benefits.

I also really enjoyed reading and learning about fundraising this week, a couple of words of advice that really stuck with me are, "when you go asking for money you will likely get advice, but when you ask for advice you may very well get money." This really stuck out to me, fundraising is about relationship building, by asking for advice and taking time to get to know the people who can help you, you are more likely to build a repor that will make investors more comfortable investing in your idea.   "The second was if you can get venture capital take it, but if you can do not spend it." Guy Kawasaki said that taking money and then spending it can really change a business. If you don't have to use money you get, don't. He said that he made that mistake and warns against others making the same mistake. Over all I learned a lot this week and I am excited to get my business up and going.

Lesson 3

This week was a really interesting and overwhelming week all at the same time. We learned all about business plans, the structure the organization and what should be included. I find business plans really overwhelming. While they are an essential part of any business, they are also a very daunting task. This week I had to create two, one-page business plans, one for my $100 project and one for my big idea. I really enjoyed the process. While it was very time consuming it was also very though provoking and insightful. I began to get very excited about the direction of my company as I thought about the vision statement, the objectives and plan to make everything happen. It really made the business come to live in my mind and began to think about what challenges I might face, which for my $100 project there were any big challenges that came to mind.  I also got very excited about my about my big idea as I realized how big of an opportunity there is in Colorado for my plan. I also got very overwhelmed with my big idea as I realized how much money it would take to make it a reality. It will cost about 6 million dollars to get off the ground but at the same time the small one-page business plan made it feel like it wasn’t out of reach. I realize that it won't be easy by any means but it fells like  I really have a feasible business. 

I really enjoyed the one-page business plan project because it made me really think about all of the aspects involved with starting a company. That is why a business plan is so important it really makes you do your research, it makes you crunch the numbers and it makes you face possible road blocks before they even occur. While I am far from being ready to write a full blown business plan, I have a greater respect for the business plan process. It really is a road map for your company and it makes you set things like you companies values before you even take the first step. 

Lesson 2

This week was another great week for learning about entrepreneurship. There are several very important things I learned this week. First was the need to really do your research and plan ahead. This week we studied the Boston Duck tours case. The founder of Boston Duck Tours had a lot of hoops to jump thorough getting his business up and going. He had to get over 30 licenses. He had to find over $1 million dollars in funding and he lost a majority of his funding due to how long the process took. He had some very difficult times but was able to persist through them because he knew the rewards that were awaiting. Another valuable lesson that will hopefully stick with me is, always live by the rule of 3 when it comes to business. Plan on things taking 3 times longer than expected and costing 3 times more than expected.

We also focused on idea creation and the creative process that allows for creative thinking. One of the things that I really got from this is the need to crate diversity of thinking in any creative team. My wife and I were actually talking about this this morning. She is a literal thinker she is very goal and fact oriented, she says things as they are and a lot of times sees things much differently than I do. Because of this we do have some creative disagreements but we are able to find better solutions than we can on our own. Through the process of disagreement and debate better ideas are generated.

This week I have thought a lot about business ideas. My $100 project idea isn't something super innovative and it isn't something that fills a major need but it is something that gets me excited and motivated. So it think I have settled on the idea of Home decor made from barn wood and tree branches. Passion and motivation are a big part of any startup and if you don't have the motivation you are not going to be successful. That is all for this week but I still have a lot of learning left to do.

Lesson 1

I am very excited about this class this semester. I have always wanted to own my own business and I am excited that I will get the opportunity to do that this semester.  This week as I studied the course material and read my student choice book, several important things stood out to me.  First is that every entrepreneur will need help at some point, asking for help is not weakness it is strength that will help your business to be successful. I chose the book StartupNation to read for my student choice book. The authors Jeff and Rich are the inventors of Battery Buddy. The Idea came while sitting outside a bar one night and watching a guy struggling with a dead battery. Jeff thought about how awesome it would be to create a device that would hook up to the battery and keep it from going dead. He didn’t know anything about cars, he didn’t know anything about how batteries worked but he found help from people who did and after hard work and disappointment, Battery Buddy was patented. This week we studied blogs that gave tips and vital information to help entrepreneurs. Coming to the realization that I will need to be willing to ask for help if I plan to be successful is big for me. I tend to be one of those people who thinks I can do it on my own and I don’t need help but that is not the case and I am glad that I have resources I can turn to.   

The second thing I learned is that you have to be willing to push through difficulties and disappointment to be successful. One of the discussion board comments this week really hit me. It was talking about the first 15 min of learning and how we get frustrated and give up just before we get to the point of breakthrough. If Jeff and Rich had given up the first time they were denied a patent or the first time they were told they needed to have a better prototype they never would have created Battery Buddy. As our Acton Hero for the week Corey Bell said, we must remove the word Can’t from our vocabulary. If we allow ourselves to get discouraged our if we start telling ourselves, we can’t do something we won’t be able to accomplish it.

The final thing that really stood out to me was that to be successful, we must have a burning passion. It is that burning passion that will carry us through the difficult times and the frustrations we will face. That leads me to my $100-dollar project. As I was brainstorming ideas I had some real passion for my big ideas that I have been thinking about for a long time, but I was feeling very uninspired by any of my small short term ideas. That was until the idea of selling home décor made for reclaimed barn wood and tree wood. I have made a lot of this type of décor for our home and always get compliments on how awesome it is. I can start this business for almost no money since my Aunt has stack and stacks of old barn wood I can use. This is a business Idea that really gets me excited and I hope I can pull it off for this class. Overall this was a very productive learning week for me and I cannot wait to see what the rest of the semester holds.