William Sanders Blog

I think the thing that most sticks out to me during this semester is building an idea from start to finish. It was extremely difficult to build the idea up and see it to fruition. The experience that I will remember for a long time is coming up with the idea. Coming up with the one idea was one of the hardest parts because I had so many different things that I was thinking about for this semester. The most joyous experience was coming up with everything associated with the idea. I feel like now I have a good base for if I was to actually start this business. I am most proud of coming up the final venture concept that is the base for the business for years to come. I do now see myself as an entrepreneur. I’m not sure if I will ever start the business I created in this class, but I feel like I have learned so much about what it takes to be an entrepreneur. In the future if I wanted to start a business, I feel like I have moved closer to the entrepreneurial mindset that would help me su

Opportunity The need exists for students at the University of Florida that have a car and need to park on campus. The nature of this need is that they need a way to plan out their day so they aren’t always stymied by driving around looking for parking. The forces creating this opportunity are the fact that UF is growing at an extremely fast rate and that means more cars are on campus. The market is limited to students at UF in Gainesville. There is no way for customers to currently plan out where they want to park. There is no dedicated way to check whether parking lots are full or not except by driving around aimlessly. This opportunity is big because there are a large number of students at the University of Florida that have cars. The window of opportunity exists as long as UF keeps bringing in record amounts of students each year. Further research will need to be done on whether the market exists for other campuses. Other campuses have a large amount of parking lots as well and m

I think my ideal exit strategy for this company would be to stay with the business for around a decade and then sell it to someone else. The reason I have picked this particular strategy is because eventually I think my product might become obsolete as technology moves ahead rapidly. Within the next 10 years, I think that my product will still be relevant and could command a high price from buyers. My exit strategy has influenced other decisions made in my concept. The main thing it has influenced is the fact that I want to spread the product quickly for maximum growth. In ten years when I would go to sell my business, I would want to have a maximum amount of growth to command a higher price when selling the company. After selling the company, I would attempt to stay on in some sort of board member role that way I could still be involved in retirement.

For the last reading reflection, I decided to read Shoe Dog by Phil Knight. The thing that surprised me most about Phil is that he first started his shoe venture by selling shoes out of the trunk of his car. That start to such a large and successful company such as Nike is incredible to me. The thing that I most admire about Phil is that he took chances and had great tenacity in starting his business. The thing I least admired about Phil was the fact that he set up factories in China. Some of those factories were eventually found to have sweatshop like conditions. Phil Knight did encounter adversity and failure. I think the main thing he did to get through those times was to just keep pushing. The main competencies Phil exhibited were his constant work ethic and his ability to let people work to their fullest potentials. In the early days of Nike, Phil had to work extremely hard to sell the shoes and build his brand. This hard work ethic along with the people he surrounded himself with

This biggest time I have failed this semester is when I accidentally missed a reading assignment for one of my other classes. The reading assignments open weekly on canvas and are due on the day of the first class. Most of the assignments for the semester are stored on my calendar in Outlook so that I can easily maintain a schedule even when times get really busy. I did not put the reading assignments on my calendar because I thought I could remember them weekly. A couple of weeks ago I got really busy with other stuff and forgot to do the assignment. This failure was hard to deal with. The assignment was really easy and would only have taken me about 15 minutes to do. From this failure, I learned that I really need to put all my assignments and events on my calendar. I shouldn’t rely on purely remembering things because times get busy and easy assignments have a tendency to slip my mind. When I failed in this, I just tried to take it as a learning experience. I didn’t get mad or sad.

Existing Market The next market that I think would be good to target is other schools across the state of Florida that have similar parking problems. I think that in order to expand and grow the business there will be a need to expand to other areas and schools in the Florida area the best way to do that. It is local, so it won’t be completely out of my element and there are other campuses in Florida that are bigger and have more parking spaces and areas to look after. Cade In talking to Cade, he thought it would be a good idea to expand to other schools in Florida. His only piece of advice was that I should make sure to grow slowly that way my current markets that I am in don’t suffer from poor quality or inaccurate information. He also said that I should consider doing some sort of special event notification on the app, so students know that parking lots might be really crowded during certain times. Jacob In talking to Jacob, he also thought that there was a need to expand to other c

Opportunity The need exists for students at the University of Florida that have a car and need to park on campus. The nature of this need is that they need a way to plan out their day so they aren’t always stymied by driving around looking for parking. The forces creating this opportunity are the fact that UF is growing at an extremely fast rate and that means more cars are on campus. The market is limited to students at UF in Gainesville. There is no way for customers to currently plan out where the want to park. There is no dedicated way to check whether parking lots are full or not except by driving around aimlessly. This opportunity is big because there are a large number of students at the University of Florida that have cars. The window of opportunity exists as long as UF keeps bringing in record amounts of students each year. Innovation Applications on smartphones have made it much easier to access information on the fly. Mobile applications primarily serve as a way to pass time

1. I have good human capital with my connections through the business school. This resource is very valuable because students in the business school have a wide range of experiences to help with growing a business. It isn’t really that rare because there are a lot of business students. It would be pretty easy to copy but I do think that it is non-substitutable because UF students are some of the top students in the country. 2. I have taken public speaking and networking classes to improve my social capital and ability to speak with others. This resource is valuable because the ability to speak with others is very important in selling an idea. It is rare because there are certain people good at public speaking and others that are not. It would be pretty easy to copy by taking classes but there is no substitute to good communication. 3. My knowledge of technology is very broad because I have decided to pursue a Master of Information Systems and Operations Management. Th

Link To Pitch:  Elevator Pitch No. 3 The feedback I got on my previous post was again positive. The things I changed for this pitch are cleaning up the wording a little bit and trying to make it flow better. I also tried to dress as formal as possible to resemble exactly how I would be in my real pitch.

The book I choose to read was Makers: The New Industrial Revolution by Chris Anderson. The main point the author is trying to make is that we are entering a third industrial revolution which involves digital manufacturing to produce products rapidly and efficiently. This book enhanced learning in ENT 3003 by providing a perspective on where business is heading in the future. I think that as an entrepreneur, one must be constantly looking at trends to gain a competitive advantage and keep up with the future. Many of the ideas presented in the book about digital manufacturing are very prevalent to any entrepreneur because they could help those getting into a business have a leg up on the competition and produce things in their own home. I think that if I were to design an exercise for the class based off the book, it would involve going and seeing the 3D printers in action that they have in Marston Science Library. I think that seeing them in action could really put many of the ideas in