29A Venture Concept #2

Opportunity: my opportunity will involve a Drive Thru Pizza Place designed to provide consumers of all ages with pizza at an efficient rate. Currently, a Drive Thru Pizza Place does not exist in the United States, so my opportunity could have the potential to be groundbreaking and quite successful. Essentially, an abundance of individuals absolutely love eating pizza, but sometimes they do not have the chance to sit down at pizza restaurants due to other immediate obligations. The Drive Thru Pizza Place concept would distribute pizzas in a mass production process to a plethora of customers who need pizza as soon as possible. Therefore, the growing levels of demand for pizza will be resolved via my Drive Thru restaurant. Individuals certainly need a Drive Thru Pizza Place due to the fact that pizza will be delivered to them in a highly efficient manner whenever necessary. This need derives from those who crave pizza but are unable to order it due to a lack of time. However, this issue can be resolved with our newly designed mobile app which comes with an incredibly inexpensive rate and free one month trial. Moreover, people will also avoid the waiting time for pizza, which is generally around twenty to thirty minutes long, by ordering through a drive thru line. Considering our market is also not necessarily defined from a geographic or demographic standpoint, we offer our services to practically every single individual who loves pizza. Consumers will have the chance to order any type of pizza they covet, along with any sides and sauces, as well. The primary objective is to deliver pizza to customers as quickly and effectively as possible in order to become the number one destination for pizza. In addition, we plan to make all of our pizzas individualized and catered specifically to the needs of every single one of our customers. We plan to expand on a domestic and international scale in order to continually increase our consumer base across the globe. In essence, my opportunity of a universal Drive Thru Pizza Place possesses extreme potential and promise, and will improve its services via our consumer feedback. We have a tremendous opportunity to succeed (window of opportunity is quite extensive) due to the fact that we would instantly become the first ever Drive Thru Pizza Place to be established around the world.  

Innovation: in terms of the opportunity's innovation aspect, potential consumers will have the chance of downloading our mobile app to receive a free one month trial. The Drive Thru Pizza Place mobile application can be installed on any smartphone device. Furthermore, the app functions without any difficulties/software errors and is easy to navigate/use, thus ensuring a smooth ordering experience for our customers. In addition, the individuals who acquire the monthly membership will only be required to pay a $10 fee, as well. Since the fee is incredibly inexpensive, our consumer base will increase tremendously and they will be informed of new items added to the menu as well as special promotions/deals, such as buy one get one free and half off all purchases. Moreover, we could further promote our company through social media ads on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, etc. Hence, we would acquire many millennial customers and younger individuals via our social media efforts. 

Venture Concept: the innovation that I developed will contribute directly to the opportunity to function smoothly and successfully. The innovation will enable my customers to order their pizzas on a mobile app while waiting in the drive thru line and have their orders ready in a matter of minutes. Therefore, the waiting time for pizza will be greatly reduced and customers will be satisfied by the speedy delivery/production process. My customers will certainly download the mobile app because it will allow them to complete their orders extremely efficiently. Hence, customers can literally grab their pizza and go during circumstances involving minimal available time. Plus, since we will offer a free one month trial and inexpensive monthly membership fee, customers will likely be inclined to download the app in abundance in order to have a smooth five star experience with our Drive Thru Pizza Place. I believe that my customers can make the necessary adjustments and adapt to a relatively simple application, especially since their experience will be enhanced tremendously, as a result. In fact, if I was ever in a hurry and needed food immediately, I would use the Drive Thru Pizza Place app in order to purchase my food in a matter of minutes. Nevertheless, my Drive Thru Pizza Place would have a plethora of competition. There are currently plenty of well established pizza places and fast food restaurants which could pose a serious threat to my opportunity due to their strong reputations and sustained success in the food industry. However, our competition certainly possesses some areas of vulnerability and weakness, such as longer delivery times and non individualized pizzas. In addition, since we pride ourselves on providing five star service to our customers, we will listen to and acknowledge all feedback from our customers and make those necessary adjustments. Essentially, our pricing strategies, current location sites, inventory, and production/distribution process is quite ideal and does not require any fixing or modification. Furthermore, I would employ a large social media team in order to further promote our services as well as communicate with our entire customer base. Ultimately, these social media coordinators will receive feedback from our customers and relay the information to the individuals of higher authority. Subsequently, the powerful people will make changes based on consumer feedback in order to improve the company itself as well as satisfy our large consumer base. I would start off by building a location near the University of Florida college campus in Gainesville, Florida. This is because college students primarily rely on takeout or fast food chains as their primary source of food, so our service would cater directly towards their daily food needs perfectly. 

3 Minor Elements:

1. Advertising our company directly through various different types of social media outlets. 
2. Building a myriad of locations within the United States and other different countries in order to continue our expansion and increase our overall consumer base from a domestic and international standpoint.
3. Finalizing the development of our mobile Drive Thru Pizza Place application in order to ensure that customers can place their orders smoothly and successfully.

2) My fellow peers all gave me only positive feedback for my first venture concept blog post. In regard to venture concept #1, there was one student who claimed that my idea of a fast food pizza place was brilliant and has a good chance of succeeding in the real world, as well. I received positive feedback regarding the manner in which I described my idea as well as how detailed my blog post was. I was also given only positive feedback for my What's Next assignment, as the peer reviewer suggested that a Drive Thru Pizza Place is an exceptional concept. The peer reviewer claimed that I explained my venture concept in a very "clear and organized" manner and advanced the notion that my concept would likely succeed in the city of Gainesville and other areas. Overall, with the positive feedback that I have previously received, I will continue to move forward with my venture concept and invest time, effort and money into research and development in order to potentially expand the Drive Thru Pizza Place business in the foreseeable future. 

3) Ultimately, I did not change anything about my venture concept. This is mainly due to the fact that I only received positive feedback from my fellow classmates and was not advised to change a single thing about my particular venture concept. I included a substantial amount of information for my first post, therefore making my venture concept appear rather complete and incredibly detail oriented, too. The only change I made was that I discussed our starting location (Gainesville, Florida near UF campus) in order to educate the readers on the perfect starting point for my potential venture concept. 

Elevator Pitch 22A

https://youtu.be/oJ42S0SZdfc

2) I did not think that there was any feedback that necessarily surprised me from my last pitch. However, some feedback that I thought was silly was that I was not passionate enough in my speech. Overall, the feedback that I received from my last pitch was mainly positive and encouraging.

3) Based on the feedback from my previous elevator pitch, I did feel that a few things were changed as a result. To start, I had the entire speech fully memorized by heart and was able to deliver the pitch in a coherent manner in roughly one minute. I made the pitch more efficient and reduced my time by about 17 seconds. Moreover, I did feel more comfortable recording myself in front of the camera and even dressed the part for the speech (dressed as if I were attending the gym since I'm pitching an idea involving the gym).

30A – Final Reflection

In terms of my final reflection, I would say that I have mostly enjoyed my experience taking the ENT 3003 course. Although I did struggle in the beginning, I learned to become more organized and proactive which helped me tremendously along the way. What sticks out to me as the most formative experience is the time where I was required to develop my own business venture concept. The experience that I will remember years later would involve the instances where I performed my elevator speeches. My most joyous experience would be when I created my own custom avatar since the avatar was modeled after myself. The experience that I am most proud of myself for accomplishing would be the development of the Bug List because that particular assignment took me roughly four days to complete. After taking the principles of entrepreneurship course, I now see myself as an entrepreneur and someone who has moved even closer to developing an entrepreneurial mindset in life. The one recommendation that I would make to the students who are going to journey down this path in the future would be to adopt a proactive mindset and complete every single blog assignment and cupcake well before their due dates in order to remain ahead. If they hope to perform their best in this course, I would recommend for them to stay organized and keep a calendar with all of the due dates for each assignment. In order to foster that type of mindset, I would recommend that they purchase a notebook/journal and dedicate time and effort to the course on a daily basis. Therefore, by consistently working and applying effort, future students will easily achieve A's and learn how to develop into successful entrepreneurs in the business world. 

28A – Your Exit Strategy

The exit strategy that I fully plan to make would involve my business being sold. Specifically, I do fully intend to sell my business in the next 5 years for a large return. I have selected this particular exit strategy because I doubt I will be able to handle all of the responsibilities in regard to managing my business. Essentially, I plan to take the money that I would receive from the sale of my business and invest in other areas such as stocks and other businesses. I would prefer to be involved in various successful businesses as opposed to running the show on a daily basis for just one business. My exit strategy had certainly influenced the other decisions that I have made in my concept to a certain extent. The exit strategy of selling after 5 years helped me identify the opportunity of investing in alternative companies to become a profitable part-time owner. Ultimately, my exit strategy has undoubtedly influenced my growth intentions as well as how I plan to acquire and use resources, thus enabling me to incur plenty of profit and avoid debt before my inevitable departure.  

27A – Reading Reflection No. 3

I opted to complete my reading reflection on the book known as "Mindset: The New Psychology Of Success" by Carol Dweck. Essentially, Carol Dweck touches upon the concept of success and what makes an individual become successful in life. Dweck reached a conclusion that an individual can have a growth mentality or a fixed mentality in life. Moreover, Dweck concludes that the individuals who possess a growth mentality will have a better chance of sustained success in life than those who possess a fixed mentality. In addition, in my opinion, the book connected with and enhanced what I was learning in ENT 3003 in several ways. Most importantly, the book taught me that I should aim to adopt a growth mentality in order to develop into a successful entrepreneur in life. Essentially, I also learned that I should always strive to overcome failure and adversity to experience personal growth and attain/create significantly more opportunities for myself. Based on the book I read, the exercise that I would design for ENT 3003 would involve students to perform research on successful entrepreneurs and business people. I would like for those students to evaluate how those entrepreneurs overcame any adversity in order to become the successful entrepreneurs that they are today. The biggest surprise or "aha" moment that I had when reading the book related to my quest to become a successful entrepreneur, quite frankly. Ultimately, as an individual who can occasionally procrastinate and be disorganized, I learned that I must instill a growth mentality in order to develop the growth mindset and achieve success in the world of business. 

26A – Celebrating Failure

Last semester, I failed to achieve my goal of gaining 15 pounds of muscle. I would try to attend the on-campus gym on a daily basis and eat plenty of protein-based meals and shakes. However, I would only gain roughly 9-10 pounds of muscle as opposed to my ultimate goal of anywhere between 15-20. I would take supplements and train as hard as I possibly could to no avail. From my failure last semester, I learned that I must remain positive and determined in order to achieve my ultimate goal. If I can successfully maintain a tenacious mentality, then I know that I can accomplish anything I set my mind to in life. Personally, I believe that failure helps us become more strong-minded individuals. Moreover, we must learn from our past failures and mistakes in order to improve ourselves and accomplish all of our goals in life, as well. Failure is certainly tough to cope with, and can certainly be embarrassing and depressing at first, but we should not allow our failures to define us. We must learn to overcome these trials and tribulations in order to become successful. I was depressed at first from an emotional standpoint, but eventually overcame my temporary depression to work even harder at the gym and with my diet, too. Ultimately, this class has certainly changed my perspective on failure. I certainly do believe that I am more likely to take a risk now than I were just a few months ago because risks are necessary to reach our primary goals. 

25A – What’s Next?

Existing Market

I'm attempting to target the existing market of pizza enthusiasts in the United States. The subsequent move for my Drive Thru Pizza Place company would involve targeting a pizza lovers. We should take advantage of our existing segment in order to continue to expand/promote our company to a wider customer base. If successful, we can pursue expansion opportunities, both domestically and internationally. Following my 3 interviews with the consumers within my market, they collectively suggested that I explore the pizza segment to a greater degree, as well. Although my product will certainly appeal to those who love fast food, my company would also satisfy those who indulge in pizza services. This is because my company prides itself on serving individualized pizzas to customers as efficiently as possible. The interviewees also suggested that I focus on targeting the younger audience, consisting of mainly millennials as well as college students. This is chiefly because younger people generally purchase pizza quite frequently on a daily basis. Therefore, by targeting a younger audience, my total revenue and profit margins will increase drastically due to an increase in my customer base. 

Reflection: Following the feedback I received from the three customers, I intend to perform further market research in order to determine the most appropriate target audience for my service/product. Once I have finalized the market research, I will be able to deduce which market I should focus my efforts on in order to remain successful and sustainable in a highly competitive industry. 

New Market 

A new market in which my product/service would fit into would be the fast food industry. My company can serve a crucial role in terms of providing effective competition alongside the other fast food companies. A Drive Thru Pizza Place is practically unheard of and is a completely new idea. My company will actually benefit other fast food companies due to the increased competition. If we can advertise/promote our company with success, then we will certainly be able to gain a plethora of customers, ranging from all ages but mainly the younger audience. Following my interviews with two individuals, I have determined that my potential company can achieve sustainable success if we offer promotional deals and focus on the quality of our products, as well. Due to our promotional deals, our company would need to negotiate reduced prices with the suppliers in order to maintain a profitable status and possess tremendous profit margins. 

Reflection: my new market of fast food enthusiasts is quite different than my existing market of pizza enthusiasts. This is primarily because there are more individuals who indulge in fast food than pizza, so we would have to accommodate a significantly larger consumer base, as a result. I would also have to advertise or market my company in a completely different manner for the new market of fast food enthusiasts. I would need to offer various promotional deals in order to attract the fast food lovers since the pizza lovers will purchase the pizza regardless of the promotional deals being provided.