Adventures of Entrepreneurship

Opportunity.  As you know, the University of Florida has one of the most involved student body’s on campus. Because of this, students follow a strict routine and participate in extracurricular activities and on-campus events, meetings, and seminars. Other students utilize campus to meet with friends or study at the library. But while having this set routine, this can change due to the issue of parking. And we all know that parking is not the greatest thing on campus. Especially around the times of 5:00pm-7:00pm, where many events or organization meetings happen simultaneously in the central part of campus, near the library buildings of Marston and Library West. Around those areas, there are 5 big parking areas students will use in the afternoon time to come to campus and continue their activities. But because there is a rush of students coming to campus in that time frame, plus rush-hour for faculty leaving campus, there is a buildup of traffic in those parking areas, causing stude...

I   want to be with the business for about 30 years, growing the business to where I have people working under me as technical directors and other important administrative tasks, while I will focus on overall business ideas and projects. The goals is parking made easy, so as the business grows, I can further expand the idea from universities to cities where parking can be difficult to find, like Downtown Gainesville or New York City. After the 20 years, I want to step back and focus on other ventures and family, but still be there for the company as an advisor, only being called in if there's a situation that the company can't handle or for advice. I chose this strategy because I want to pass on the company to  a new generation and 30 years seems like a good amount of time for me to dedicate to a business that could turn into a company. Plus, that would seem like a good idea for me to retire and start my dream venture.

The book I read was How to Fail at Almost Anything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams. This book was a breakthrough in my mind because of how it tackles the concept of failure and how to rise above it. As college students, we refuse to be discouraged easily and keep our eye on the prize. In reality, college is a big adjustment, and learning how to accept failure and move forward is an even biggest adjustment. We come to realize that failure is a part of the human experience, which Adams discusses heavily in his book. For a class assignment, I would ask students to interview 3 people they think are very successful in their respective field (does not have to be business-related) and ask questions about their viewpoint on failure and what they felt was their biggest failure and how they overcame it.

1) Tell us about a time that you failed this past semester:  I think my biggest failure this past semester was letting myself get burned out. This class has a lot of assignments that require critical thinking or planning, which is hard for me because I wait until the last day or the day of to submit the assignments or do the cupcakes. This got to a point where I kept pushing off the peer review's and cupcake until the last minute and ended up completely forgetting about it until after the deadline. Because of that, I missed out on 4 points and ended up dropping my grade.  2) Tell us what you learned from it:  I learned that I like my GPA more than the 4 hours out of my week that is used to work on these assignments. I also learned that if I finish one assignment a day, it only take maximum one hour each day, which gives me less stress compared to when I'm scrambling to finish all three assignments at midnight the night before. 3) Reflect on what you think about failure: ...

Existing Market  As for what's next, I would expand the product to include cities that are usually crowded and are known for having difficult parking, such as New York City. After interviewing 3 people, I have learned that my existing market could see my venture focus on merging with other parking apps. They have opened up the possibility of combining similar-styled apps with my own, but they would stiff do their respective functions that they were created to do. Based on your own expectations and the feedback you received from customers, set a path for the future. In two to three paragraphs, describe what makes the most sense for your venture in terms of growing in your existing market. New Market I'm sticking with my idea of expanding the app to cities. After interviewing two people from this market, I could see how this app would not be so great for this market specifically. After interviewing these people, I quickly realized that they would not be searching for parking t...

Opportunity. As you know, the University of Florida has one of the most involved student body’s on campus. Because of this, students follow a strict routine and participate in extracurricular activities and on-campus events, meetings, and seminars. Other students utilize campus to meet with friends or study at the library. But while having this set routine, this can change due to the issue of parking. And we all know that parking is not the greatest thing on campus. Especially around the times of 5:00pm-7:00pm, where many events or organization meetings happen simultaneously in the central part of campus, near the library buildings of Marston and Library West. Around those areas, there are 5 big parking areas students will use in the afternoon time to come to campus and continue their activities. But because there is a rush of students coming to campus in that time frame, plus rush-hour for faculty leaving campus, there is a buildup of traffic in those parking areas, causing students t...