The Twenty Percent

The 80-20 rule is one of those general principles that applies across industries and organizations.  The objective here was to identify a local business entrepreneur to examine his or her conception of the 80-20 phenomenon so I decided to speak to Marco, who owns a great local Italian restaurant in Brandon, FL called More Italian Bistro & Pizzeria.

Week 8 Reading Reflection

Questions

1) What was the biggest surprise for you in the reading? In other words, what did you read that stood out the most as different from your expectations?

I found the discussion about the types of stock surprising in that there is the potential for a lot of creativity in negotiating and structuring a deal with potential investors.  The ability to take debt to equity with some type of a convertible note is very powerful.

Half-way Reflection of an Aspiring Impact Sociologist

I was looking forward to this course and I have not been disappointed.  The most exciting aspect has been the format because it is all about doing; practical application over theoretical analysis.  This is the way entrepreneurship MUST be taught!

What behaviors have I cultivated to to keep up with this course?

Free Money

How I Gave Away Free Money

Where did I you go?

Right off the bat, I have to admit that this was the most daunting exercise of all.  My first inclination was to go to the beach but then I found about the Ybor City Chocolate Festival in Tampa where food trucks were selling all types of chocolate goodies.  I decided to take my family to this event and conduct the free money exercise so kill two birds with one stone.

Week 7 Reading Reflection

Questions

1) What was the biggest surprise for you in the reading? In other words, what did you read that stood out the most as different from your expectations?

I did not appreciate the detailed history and depth of market segmentation.  The article did a great job in tracing the history of how market segmentation has evolved after changes in product innovation and marketing strategies after WWII.

Elevator Pitch No. 2

SORIN (SOcially Responsible INitiative)

This is a follow up to the first elevator pitch post when, thinking like an impact sociologist, I focused primarily on statistics to make a case for the SORIN, the Socially Responsible Initiative concept.  I received positive feedback - a surprise for sure - on that pitch so in this second version, I decided to try more of an emotional appeal based on real life examples that highlight the problem of the shrinking middle class.  

Customer Interviews No. 3

Finally, this week's interviews made it possible to get feedback on the idea itself:

1) Define your interviewing strategy - I asked people to look at my elevator pitch video using it as a description of the idea and opportunity and comment on it.  I also followed up with questions about some of the key points I was hoping to convey to see if they got them and how they felt about them.

Week 6 Reading Reflection

Questions

1) What was the biggest surprise for you in the reading? In other words, what did you read that stood out the most as different from your expectations?

If you reflect on it, the five competitive forces are pretty intuitive.  The way Michael Porter breaks them down and then provides specific examples was something that I was not expecting and learned a lot from.  His examples were especially pertinent and made the concept come alive.

2) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.

The difference between factors and forces is something that requires more reflection and research.  The distinction is hard to identify in some situations.

3) If you were able to ask two questions to the author, what would you ask? Why?

The exhibit on page 6 shows profitability of selected U.S. industries.  Where is the profitability of financial services companies?  I would speculate that it would be above the mean of 14.9%.

Is it not possible for some factors to be forces in specific industry situations?  For example, government or government regulation may be a competitive force in some heavily regulated industries.

4) Was there anything you think the author was wrong about? Where do you disagree with what she or he said? How?

I need to better understand the distinction between forces and factors but overall, I don’t disagree with anything the author wrote.  His competitive force framework is very powerful in analyzing business at the micro to the macro levels.

Idea Napkin No. 1

The five important elements of my business concept, SORIN, the SOcially Responsible INitiative are as follows:

1) You.

I am a seasoned financial services and technology professional with 25 years of experience.  I have been described as a jack of all trades in that I have been experience in technology, finance, marketing, business development, product development, and management.  I see SORIN as being my ultimate accomplishment typing in all my past experiences and future education into a movement dedicated to proving that socially responsible financial services are not only possible but necessary to thwart the potentially self-destructive tendencies of capitalism.

Interviewing Customers No. 2

This week, it was time to hit the road and talk to some folks.  The steps were as follows:

1) Fine tune your opportunity - I believe I am on to something with social responsibility and financial services.  So far, people's opinions are quite varied and I am still searching for and wondering if there is a pattern or trend in this regard.

2) Fine tune the "who" - My opportunity covers a very broad area and I have to interview a lot more people to get a better sense of how people conceptualize the intersection of social responsibility and financial services.  I tried to interview varying types of people who had a greater exposure to financial services since last week, most of the interviews were of college students.  I always felt that my "customer" can be any adult in society because financial services and the economic system impacts everyone and this belief has not changed during this process.

3) Tweaking your interview questions - I will need to ask more detailed questions at a later stage but for now, I am very comfortable with the questionnaire that I have.  It covers people's understanding of social responsibility, its intersection with financial services, and their desire for socially responsible products and services.

Week 5 Reading Reflection

Questions

1) What was the biggest surprise for you in the reading? In other words, what did you read that stood out the most as different from your expectations?

The biggest surprise for me was the Entrepreneurial Business on E-Bay box listing various tools that E-Bay makes available to entrepreneurs.  I did not know of their existence but can see how properly assessing them can really lead to success on the E-Bay platform.

2) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.

Truth be told, this was a pretty straight forward chapter and I did not find anything really confusing with the exception of a couple of ratios listed in table 6.3.  I plan to review them in more detail.

3) If you were able to ask two questions to the author, what would you ask? Why?

I would ask why the differences between a feasibility analysis of different types of businesses were not identified.  There is a big difference between say a manufacturing startup versus a professional services one.

I would also like to know which new-venture evaluation approach (profile analysis or feasibility criteria or comprehensive feasibility) is better and how does it relate to different types of start-ups?

4) Was there anything you think the author was wrong about? Where do you disagree with what she or he said? How?

Again, this was a straight forward chapter so there was not much to disagree with except that the author should have spelled out how the various assessment techniques differ from one type of start-up versus another.

Elevator Pitch No. 1

SORIN (SOcially Responsible INitiative)

In my top 5 world problems post, thinking like an impact sociologist, I listed capitalist cultural hegemony as the top problem.  So this elevator pitch is for SORIN, the socially responsible initiative, a movement dedicated to social justice in the financial services space.