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.