30A) Final Reflection

It was a very interesting semester in general, and different I would say. Definitively, the interviews were the most formative experience for me, especially since I had never conducted so many interviews before, in such a short period of time. It will be one an experience that I will remember years later because they were the first interviews that I did with business purposes. Another takeaway was the writing, I had never written so much before for a single purpose. I have to say that I even type superfast now because of how much I practiced it this semester (I was used to handwriting before). My most joyous experience was how much we all had to communicate wit each other and to see how everyone improved their business idea along the semester. I am most proud of the fact that I was able to go through this class with a perfect score and I was able to do all of the assignments and manage to learn something from them. Because English is not my first language, I really thought that it would be a problem for me.

I do believe that I have opened my mind to a more entrepreneurial mindset, not just because of this class, but because of a series of events that have influenced me. I come from a society where government regulations destroy any motivation to be an entrepreneur, therefore it was something that wasn’t part of my ideology.

I would definitively tell them to work ahead of time. It will save them time and avoid stress, some of the assignment don’t even have to be in order, what I mean is that if you find yourself stuck with an assignment, you could go and do another one in the meantime, and it could even pull the trigger for what you were stuck with. Another advice is to take assignment for real, I know a lot of people simulate their answers and ideas and fake the interviews and comments. If you really want to learn and challenge yourself, try to go for real.

29A) Venture Concept 2 EZTime

Opportunity:

I live in a big apartment complex in the Southwest area of the Gainesville and from the very beginning I moved in, I started having issues with my roommates. They are around my age and they all study full time at the University of Florida. Some time went by, and my friends started telling me about their issues with their roommates and the difficulties of keeping the place clean. Here is an analysis of common characteristics of who ended up being prospect clients:

·        Full-time students at UF (some of them even work at part-time jobs, or vice versa, study part-time, work full-time)

·        Ages range between 18 and 25

·        Come from families from medium and high income

·        Share apartment with other students with similar demographics

·        Live in apartment complexes (such as Gainesville Place, the Enclave, The Ridge)

·        Do not like chores, or do not know how to do them efficiently

·        Some of them have pets that make a mess or roommates are not happy with that fact

·        In the case of guys, I often notice that they tend to see chores and all these cleaning activities (specially for common areas) not manly and diminishing.

To clarify, I did not recognize any pattern where males were more exposed to these problems. In fact, it was a paradigm shift for me, because I found that many women have the same struggle, and in fact discussions tend to be of a greater dimension between female roommates.

After performing a series of interviews, the usual tasks that students struggle with:

·        Wash dishes

·        Vacuum

·        Take the trash out

·        Cleaning drier’s filter

·        General cleanliness

·        Bad smell in the carpet

·        Cleaning the refrigerator

I think this opportunity will be open for a long period of time because Gainesville is a city where students come and go (they spend about three to four years in town)

Innovation

With my business idea, I will present the solution to free student’s time, and help them reduce stress levels and arguments about house chores.

I am offering a house keeping service completely dedicated to local students in Gainesville, particularly for those sharing apartment. With a monthly fee starting at $40 per person (and up to $55 depending on the size of the apartment and the amount of people) students will be able to live in a clean place, where a person will come and clean the floor, vacuum the carpets, wash the dishes, take the trash out every week. This service can be requested for individuals (of course, it will be cheaper) or for everyone in the apartment. I plan to deliver the ultimate customer service at an affordable price, and to accomplish that, I will be considering the personal requests from our customers and learn from all the feedback. I even will offer a free trial to give my customers the opportunity to realize what are the benefits of using the services of EZTime (my company).

The innovation part of my idea is not in the service itself, but in the challenge of targeting students and having a cost-efficient structure. Also, it is worth to mention that I am aware of the low barrier entry to this industry and that it would be easy for competitors to copy my idea. That is why one of my aims is to create a brand moat.

Venture Concept

What I will be offering is a very straight forward service, where students pay a flat monthly fee to get a person come every week to cover the needs mentioned before (wash the dishes, vacuum the carpet, etc.). I think it will be very important for my success as a company to taking specific requests into account. In order to have a high customer satisfaction and inflow of customer I will need to pay close attention to the individual demands, especially because young (mostly dependent students) are a very challenging market segment.

The most important element of my business plan will be price. After doing research, interviews, listening to suggestions, I concluded that the main reason why my prospects do not use this service is because of price. Housekeeping services around Gainesville charge around $65/hour which is too much for them. This is the reason why other companies have not gotten into this sector yet (it would mean to forgo a great portion of profits). The low profit margins are the reason for the lack of competitors.

To face this issue of low profit margins I have created a very cost-effective structure for my company. It will be key for me to deliver the service to people living within the same apartment complex. That way I will be able to save travel time and money.

As part of my branding strategy, and in relationship with my mission to help and free students time, I will be including something similar to an informative bulletin. It will be something that includes information about how to communicate with roommates, things to do to improve such relationships, how to better use your time, etc. I think it will be a good idea to make my customers more related to my brand and to differentiate myself even more from competitors.

At last but not least, the staff. I will be trying to keep the number of employees as low as possible and increasing as the business grows. It is part of the plan to keep costs low. I plan to start with myself and another person, getting paid with a percentage of each job done.

Minor elements

My most important characteristic is how I shaped my business model, to have a cost-effective structure. By targeting specific people, in specific places. By having this specific structure, I am able to deliver an outstanding service at a low price (even lower than competitors) and is the main reason why I can offer this to college students. Also, it is key to the success of my diversification plan since I will have big groups of clients in the same place.

My expansion plan is to add other services to the portfolio. The options include cleaning services to offices, a car wash and a home delivery. I think it will help me target other prospects that did not go for the initial cleaning service, but might be interested in a car wash, or other delivery services. I will also try to make contracts with the administration of the condominiums, so I become the official service provider of the place.

For the next five years I think that I would sell the business to keep going with my life, especially because I will not be living in Gainesville after I graduate. I will be in Law School and getting my MBA at the same time. After that I will start performing Corporate Law and investing in startups in the side.

Feedback

In general, I have received a lot of positive feedback. Students tell me that in paper it sounds like a great idea, and that it is a real problem, and I will have plenty of prospective customers. People also like the structure I plan to implement and how I care about students’ well-being, because I am willing to forgo a big chunk of the revenues just to at an affordable price for them. In the review comments people have told me that they like the details I give and how well thought my business plan is and how I am aware of my strengths and weaknesses.

The constructive feedback I have been told that students are usually broke and are not willing to pay for this type of service. This goes back to my point that if the student is “broke” it means that he/she cannot afford multiple things, not just a cleaning service, and therefore are not part of my market segment. Same thing with students who tell me that they do it themselves because they have the time and the know-how. Again, they are not my target. But these comments helped me realize that it would be harder than I originally thought, but I think that with the right marketing I can change people’s mind (or at least for a small percentage of people). In addition, people have shown concerns about security, for that I will be making background checks to employees, they will have a profile where the client will see a description and know who is coming in advance.

I expanded my venture concept a little bit based on feedback. I added some details to better explain my idea and to include a couple of new ideas that I got. For example, the informative bulletin and the deal with the administration of the apartment complexes.

27A) Reading Reflection 2

“The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More” by Chris Anderson

1.      The book was published in 2006, and it talks about how the market has been changing in the last few decades. It used to be a market of “hits”, where everything was about mass production of “successful” products -selling tons of just a few products. Mr. Anderson describes in the book how the introduction of new technologies has made possible to reduce the cost of inventory and shelf, the latter to almost zero. He explains why the success of companies like Amazon, eBay, Rhapsody, Netflix, etc. and how they presented what would be the new tendencies in the market -selling less of more. Also, the author describes what are the elements that have contributed to this evolution: democratization if production, democratization of distribution, connection between supply and demand.

2.      I feel like this book is an extension to what we learn in class. In class we learn the basic ideas of how understand the market forces, how to find an unmet need, and how to deliver a solution. With this book, I have been able to appreciate a new perspective of the market, looking from a more analytical and statistical point of view. Moreover, it taught me how the behavior of customers has changed, mostly due to the rise of the internet, and how it is more evenly distributed among the different good offerings.

3.      I think that probably a case study would be a nice way to put in practice the knowledge acquired after reading the book. The author mentions many times examples of companies that have been part of this revolution. I suggest using one of them, or maybe find a “new” company that uses a similar approach and perform a case study of that business about it has impacted the market.

4.      Actually the ‘aha’ moment came from the very beginning of the book. I was impressed about the topic the book was presenting, I didn’t think about how the market now a days has a “long tail” (that is how it is called when there are events, even a few, further out the tail of the distribution curve). Plus, I was kind of in shock when the Chris Anderson disregards the famous 80/20 rule and explains how it is not as common in today’s environment.

28A) Exit Strategy

My exit strategy is to sell the business in the near future, most likely within the next 5 years. I do not intend to keep it or pass it to the family for many reasons. First of all, I do not plan to be living hear much longer after I graduate, hence, I will not be able to take proper care of the company. Also, I think that the money that the sale will generate is going to help me with other things that I have planned. It could be repaying my student loans or investing it in the stock market or another startup with more potential growth, profit margins, or near my next place of living.

I think that my exit strategy hasn’t affected my decision making on the development of the business plan. I have tried to play safe to guarantee that the company will be around in the next few years, and that it has a solid growth. But it is something that works for both decisions, whether I keep it or not. What it has done is to make me focus on learning as much as possible and fail forward to make me a better entrepreneur.

26A) Celebrating Failure

This semester all my classes are online, therefore, I don’t have a strict schedule to do things. Rather, I can choose when and where study and make assignments. I thought it would be an easy semester because of how discipline I am, but I turned out wrong. What I thought would be the best of the semester -flexible schedule and freedom- were a double-edged sword. I have to say that I have failed to be constant and stay motivated during the semester.

I have learned that the mind is an incredible tool and that it all depends on how you train it. It is out nature as human beings to be constantly challenged, and the name for it is eustress, which refers to the optimal level of stress where we are the most productive. The graph for stress level (x-axis) and productivity (y-axis) is an inverted U. Under too much or too little stress our mind doesn’t function at its best. That is what happened to me. Because I don’t have tight deadlines or mandatory in-person classes, I lack the motivation to wake up early or study on my own schedule.

At the beginning of the semester I knew that it would be important that I create my own routine, therefore, I decided to follow a regular bedtime (where I go to sleep and wake up at the same time every day. It worked for a little while, but soon I would start to “make exceptions” that became the new norm. I struggled to be effective and started spending some time trying to fix my situation. I tried some vacations to recover mentally, tried changing the routine, adding more workouts, but nothing really worked. I still wasn’t able to open my eyes when the alarm went off, instead I would turn it off and keep sleeping. The result was a self-fulfilling prophecy, where I would wake up late, not study enough, spend more time in other things to entertain myself, not getting the best grades, stressing about it, going to sleep later every day, and so on and so forth.  Falling in a small depression. I realized that, even though, people would give advises to change my situation, it ultimately depended on me. Thus, I started doing more intellectual activities to train my brain and boost my self-esteem and discipline. I have to say that it has been better lately, but I still need to improve, and I am on my way to getting there.

It definitely changed my perspective on failure. I now understand the role of risk taking and failure in life. By using those two properly, we can go from making a plan and set goals, and transform those in achievement and success without the fear of failing on the way. I am now more likely to assimilate risks and take opportunities that would challenge me and make me realize that I need to improve.

25A) What's Next

Existing Market

I think that the next step after I start my housekeeping service is to create a brand around it, some type of moat that calls the attention of prospective customers and makes me stand out among other similar services. It is very important that my company and my logo is present all the time in the areas that I will be targeting (sort of advertising). I need students to be aware of the service my company offers and that EZTime is the first name that comes to their mind when they are struggling with chores at home. With this, will come an expansion to towns with similar conditions. Non-metropolitan and a student-based population.

I took the feedback as constructive criticism, since I did not notice some of the things that my interviewees told me. For example, of them (a person that is willing to use the service) told me that it is a great idea to think about establishing a brand, but he doesn’t think that it will be easy or quick for me to expand to other towns because of cultural differences and because (as he made me realized) I have not done any research about those markets. The second person shared similar insights.

 In the other hand, the only girl I interviewed is not willing to use my service, even though she has the characteristics of my market segment. I guess that the only fact that puts her apart is that she is economically independent from her parents (she is 19). She thought that the business was a great idea in paper, but that students are not willing to spend money to clean the apartment. It made me realize that I need to create a marketing campaign where I illustrate that the benefits of using EZTime are not just a clean floor, but harmony in the apartment.

New Market

I am currently targeting students living in apartment complexes; therefore, a radically different market would be office buildings. The differences are obvious, students are mostly economically dependent, don’t spend at much time at home, and they don’t really care about cleanliness. In the other hand, in office buildings people spend most of the time in there, it is where they make money and sometimes they receive clients in person (so they have to keep a clean appearance).

After talking to a small law firm and a dentist office I got to learn that it is a very competitive market. They said that they loved the idea of my cost-efficient structure to target students in Gainesville, but it doesn’t work the same with office. I was told that to be able to target offices I had to adjust the structure, especially because schedules and load of work. I told them about how I was planning to add a mobile car-wash, which idea they loved because while the car is in the parking garage it could be wash and workers wouldn’t even have to waste their time taking to the place to be washed.

In general, I learned many things. For example, students are a very challenging market, even when you have a well thought, well-structured idea, It is not a very competitive market right now for a reason and it is the risk and low profit margins. In the case of targeting offices, the first problem is the competition in the market and the difference in schedules and reasons why the would request a cleaning service.

24A) Venture Concept EZTime

Opportunity:

I live in a big apartment complex in the Southwest area of the Gainesville and from the very beginning I moved in, I started having issues with my roommates. They are around my age and they all study full time at the University of Florida. Some time went by, and my friends started telling me about their issues with they roommates and the difficulty of keeping the place clean. Here is an analysis of common characteristics of who ended up being prospect clients:

·        Full time students at UF (some of them even work at part-time jobs, or vice versa, study part-time, work full-time)

·        Ages range between 18 and 25

·        Come from families from medium and high income

·        Share apartment with other students with similar demographics

·        Live in apartment complexes (such as Gainesville Place, the Enclave, The Ridge)

·        Do not like chores, or do not know how to do them efficiently

·        Some of them have pets that make a mess or roommates are not happy with that fact

·        In the case of guys, I often noticed that they tend to see chores and all these cleaning activities (specially for common areas) not manly and diminishing.

To clarify, I did not recognize any pattern where males were more exposed to these problems. In fact, it was a paradigm shift for me, because I found that many women have the same struggle, and in fact discussions tend to be of a greater dimension between female roommates.

After performing a series of interviews, the usual tasks that students struggle with:

·        Wash dishes

·        Vacuum

·        Take the trash out

·        Cleaning drier’s filter

·        General cleanliness

·        Bad smell in the carpet

I think this opportunity will be open for a long period of time because Gainesville is a city where students come and go (they spend about three to four years in town)

Innovation

With my business idea, I will present the solution to free student’s time, and help them reduce stress levels and arguments about house chores.

I am offering a house keeping service completely dedicated to local students in Gainesville, particularly for those sharing apartment. With a monthly fee starting at $40 per person (and up to $55 depending on the size of the apartment and the amount of people) students will be able to live in a clean place, where a person will come and clean the floor, vacuum the carpets, wash the dishes, take the trash out every week. This service can be requested for individuals (of course, it will be cheaper) or for everyone in the apartment. I plan to deliver the ultimate customer service at an affordable price, and to accomplish that, I will be considering the personal requests from our customers and learn from all the feedback. I even will offer a free trial to give my customers the opportunity to realize what are the benefits of using the services of EZTime (my company).

Venture Concept

What I will be offering is a very straight forward service, where students pay a flat monthly fee to get a person come every week to cover the needs mentioned before (wash the dishes, vacuum the carpet, etc.). I think it will be very important for my success as a company to taking specific requests into account. In order to have a high customer satisfaction and inflow of customer I will need to pay close attention to the individual demands, specially because young (mostly dependent students) are a very challenging market segment.

The most important element of my business plan will be price. After doing research, interviews, listening to suggestions, I came to the conclusion that the main reason why my prospects do not use this service is because of price. House keeping services around Gainesville charge around $65/hour which is too much for them. This is the reason why other companies have not gotten into this sector yet (it would mean to forgo a great portion of profits). The low profit margins are the reason for the lack of competitors.

To face this issue of low profit margins I have created a very cost-effective structure for my company. It will be key for me to deliver the service to people living within the same apartment complex. That way I will be able to save travel time and money.

At last but not least, the staff. I will be trying to keep the number of employees as low as possible and increasing as the business grows. It is part of the plan to keep costs low. I plan to start with myself and another person, getting paid with a percentage of each job done.

Minor elements

My most important characteristic is how I shaped my business model, to have a cost-effective structure. By targeting specific people, in specific places. By having this specific structure, I am able to deliver an outstanding service at a low price (even lower than competitors) and is the main reason why I can offer this to college students. Also, it is key to the success of my diversification plan since I will have big groups of clients in the same place.

My expansion plan is to add other services to the portfolio. The options include cleaning services to offices, a car wash and a home delivery. I think it will help me target other prospects that did not go for the initial cleaning service, but might be interested in a car wash, or other delivery services.

For the next five years I think that I would sell the business to keep going with my life, especially because I will not be living in Gainesville after I graduate. I will be in Law School and getting my MBA at the same time. After that I will start performing Corporate Law and investing in startups in the side.

23A) Unfair Advantage

1.      Customer service experience. So far, all my work experience is related to customer service, and I have excelled at my job.

·        Valuable: I think it is a valuable resource because this tells me that it will be a strong factor to differentiate myself, and to gain and retain customers.

·        Rare: It is not a rare quality, since many people can have customer service experience.

·        Imitable: No, customer service experience is easy to acquire and learn, but it takes time to understand the different possible situations

·        Non-substitutable: Yes, I think it cannot be substituted because it is a service business, which means that customer service is one of the pillars for the success of the company.

2.      Direct and personal customer service. Since it is a small company, I will be able to have a more personal and fast approach to customer service.

·        Valuable: Yes, I would say it is not the most important quality, but it adds up with other resources to increase customer satisfaction.

·        Rare: No, it is common to see companies that have many ways to communicate with their clients, but the bigger the company, the harder it becomes to keep this trait.

·        Imitable: No, everything it takes is to pay a person (or more) to only take care of communicating with customers.

·        Non-substitutable: There have been may tries to substitute this with automatic phone messages, and computerized responses (on the phone or online), but I would say that it hasn’t been that successful.

3.      Easy to approach my target market. Since I live in the same town, and I fulfil the characteristics of the segment I am targeting, it is easier for me to understand my clients, get in touch with them.

·        Valuable: Partially, like at said before, it is not my main strength, but it adds up with the rest to give a better competitive advantage.

·        Rare: In my area I would say that yes, the only housekeeping services that exist are managed by people in their 30’s and older, and they don’t target the same market.

·        Imitable: It is copied by having a founder/chief sharing many similarities with customers or by adding diversity to the staff, which is more effective in bigger companies.

·        Non-substitutable: yes, it cannot be substituted.

4.      Openness to listen to customer requests. I aim to differentiate my service by making it more personal, therefore, taking into account requests and suggestions

·        Valuable: yes, college students tend to be very diverse in what they want and like. It will help me maintain a higher customer satisfaction.

·        Rare: Yes, usually these types of business have a rigid structure that allows them to reduce the human error and be more efficient.

·        Imitable: It can be copied but it increases cost

·        Non-substitutable: No, it is a capability that is offered or not.

5.      Lack of direct competitors. There are similar services to mine in Gainesville, but the difference is that they don’t target the same segment.

·        Valuable: Yes, I think it is one of the most valuable qualities I have right now.

·        Rare: Yes, usually the lack of competitors is not often in a country like USA, specially in a industry with low entrance barriers.

·        Imitable: Yes, could be imitable, but it requires to forgo a greater profit margin, at east for a period of time.

·        Non-substitutable: No, it is a very important aspect.

6.      Narrow target market. I have a very specific description of the demographics of my customers

·        Valuable: Yes, this trait allows me to be in a market without direct competitors

·        Rare: No, usually companies try to target a narrow market segment. The problem is when it overlaps with other companies.

·        Imitable: Yes, but what makes it harder is that to target my same market segment means to forgo great profit margins (which I did to be able to solve the need of thousands of students)

·        Non-substitutable: Yes, because the characteristics of students sharing apartment is completely different to adults and families living in their own home.

7.      Even though I seek a narrow segment of the population (local students in Gainesville, living in apartment complexes and sharing apartment), it is the predominant demographic in the area.

·        Valuable: Yes, I focused in that segment, which is hard to sell to due to financial limitations, but it is a huge segment here in Gainesville

·        Rare: It is rare for housekeeping services, but not for other business.

·        Imitable: Yes, but again, it brings costs and profits to the discussion table

·        Non-substitutable: No, it is key to my success.

8.      Cost efficient structure. I plan to approach a system where I only target apartment complexes and condos, which saves me time and travel expenses. Also, it means that my responsiveness will be better, and it will be free advertising.

·        Valuable: Yes, it is basically the key to my business model. It is what allows me to target this tough market segment and keep the competition away. It also triggers other key qualities.

·        Rare: Yes, it has not been done by any other housekeeping service in town

·        Imitable: It could be copied, but not by itself, it requires the price of the service to be low, so college students pay for it.

·        Non-substitutable: No, it is the most important element to keep costs low.

9.      Low price supplier. My price is $40-55 a month per person, while competitors charge about $65 an hour. I am able to do this thanks to my business model.

·        Valuable: Yes, it is valuable to be able to sell to my customers, but at the same time it is the reason why my profit margins are low.

·        Rare: Yes, I mentioned before other companies’ prices and they are way higher.

·        Imitable: To be copied, companies need to make changes to their structure.

·        Non-substitutable: Yes, it cannot be substituted because it means that students will not be able to pay for it.

10.   Diversification of services. I plan to expand my business to offer other services, like a mobile car wash, and probably some chores like the purchase of basics for the apartment.

·        Valuable: Yes, it will add value to the company, specially if I know how to manage the expansion, if I can be effective targeting the correct customers and creating more dependency of customer on my company

·        Rare: Not really, it is something that I have seen other companies do (but not the car wash though)

·        Imitable: Yes, it is imitable, in fact, I am copying it from other companies.

·        Non-substitutable: No, it is something that is decided by the owner of the company and depends om the market research done.

My most important characteristic is how I shaped my business model, to have a cost-effective structure. By targeting specific people, in specific places. By having this specific structure, I am able to deliver an outstanding service at a low price (even lower than competitors) and is the main reason why I can offer this to college students. Also, it is key to the success of my diversification plan since I will have big groups of clients in the same place.