The Life of an Entrepreneur

Wednesday, April 22, 2020

30A – Final Reflection

1) While reviewing all of the posts I've created for this class, the most impactful experience I had was finalizing my Idea Napkin No.1 because it was my first actual exercise that required me to sell who I was, what opportunity my company was fulfilling, and why my solution was the most effective. This assignment captured the main elements of brainstorming any type of of start-up business and it helped challenge me in organizing my thoughts and what I intended the service to do. One experience that I know I will remember years later was writing and filming my first elevator pitch, which happened to be my first official elevator pitch ever! Playing back and hearing how well the script flowed and how enthusiastic my speech was really brought me to a new level of happiness. That exercise helped me truly discover the path of business I'm most interested in, being a click-and-mortar type business. My most joyous experience was also the one I'm most of proud of completing in this class and that was finishing my first venture concept. After I completed and went through my finalized venture concept, I realized how much work had been put it and how accomplished I felt when reviewing the final product. I really enjoyed watching all of the work I complete this semester fall in line and ultimately help me create a complete, in-depth summary of my service, BeyondKash.

2) As the end of the semester approaches, I definitely saw myself develop an entrepreneurial mindset and realized my interest in learning about the entrepreneurial process. After actually learning the steps and knowledge behind creating a product or service, I discovered that I was really interested in learning more and going above and beyond with each assignment. I truly wanted to learn how to do everything correctly, and in the end I saw myself grow and change as a person and into a businessman, who now looks at everything in different perspectives. I hope that I can use the skills obtained in this class and build upon them to ultimately fulfill an open opportunity that I believe in and have a solution for.

3) One recommendation that I would make to future students about to embark of this journey would be to actually buy-in and challenge yourself by practicing each step of the process to thinking more like an entrepreneur. You can either look at this class as a way to half-ass assignments and give yourself credit, or to take the knowledge and skills the professor is offering, and apply them to a potential opportunity to actually see how things play out. This can not only help show you the basics behind businesses, but actually help you discover your interests and the path of business you want to go down and study. Additionally, I would truly recommend that the student follows the process and tries to understand the reasoning behind each assignment. This is the best way to help the student understand the purpose of this course and ultimately offer them an advantage with putting everything together and summarizing the basic characteristics of thinking like an entrepreneur.

29A – Venture Concept No. 2

BeyondKash

1) Venture Concept No. 2

Opportunity

Mobile payment applications that are currently available for download through your mobile device's app store are a part of a very competitive market, and developers are having trouble establishing an intricate enough app design that will dominate the market. I believe that there is an opportunity to create a universal mobile payment application that allows all individuals to download and transfer money, fee-less, to clients, customers, friends and other businesses.

The people involved in this current opportunity are the existing app developers, as well as the main target audience of customers/mobile users in search of finding an easy-to-use, low-fee, reliable and timely application to assist in moving and managing all their wallet needs. The reason current app developers meet the 'who' of my need is because they each have their own unique advantage to attract customers, but creating an app that combines each differentiator and adds a 'secret sauce' will ultimately dominate the user market. My main target audience for this app design would be current users and individuals who are looking for the 'perfect' money managing and transferring app. The market of users that are in search of a reliable and all-in-one payment application are dispersed globally, and are categorized in all demographics throughout the world. This offers a high ceiling for my opportunity market as there will always be customers in search of a better way to manage their savings, transfer money and ultimately spend their earnings on what they want.

Customers are currently satisfying this need through a variety of apps available that all offer similar options: sending/receiving money, setting up a universal credit card linked to the app, face ID and finger scanning payment options, messages, voice recordings, emojis and videos sent with the payment and many other unique opportunities for the user to utilize while on the app. These customers tend to have more than one account on competing applications, which clearly shows how loyal they are to using one specific app. This is due, in part, to having friends, clients, or other businesses that utilize one specific app as their 'preferred' payment method. The two specific areas that seem to be the main problem with customers throughout each app are that not every recipient they're trying to pay/receive from has the specific mobile payment app they have, and the costly fees that come along with transferring money. This led me to realize a solution for the current issue in mobile payment applications. This opportunity is extremely tight, as there already are few dominant applications that control the majority of the mobile payment market industry. However, none of the current available applications solve the glaring problem of limiting/removing the fees and time that come with withdrawing and transferring each transaction through their apps. I believe this window of opportunity will be open until someone fulfills the need or figures out a more effective way to eliminate fees from the mobile users.

Innovation

My company, BeyondKash, is offering to customers the ability to access their own universal mobile payment application that allows for spending, budgeting and saving all at the accessibility of your fingertips.

BeyondKash allows users to:

Send
Receive
Withdraw money for no fee
Add unlimited money to a personal credit card associated with the app
Avoid waiting multiple business days to have access to your money
The best part? Completely customize and manage your mobile spending and saving with the all-in-one hub feature that allows for notifications, easy contact access, payments by Face ID recognition, video notes as payment messages, and many other features.

BeyondKash's target consumers are focused on those who are interested in downloading a universal mobile payment app that eliminates transaction and withdrawal fees. Our goal is to establish an application that charges a one time fee on the app store and eliminates any other fees applicable when sending money to contacts or companies. All of our customers interested are looking for an easy to navigate, all-in-one money saving and management app to help make purchasing goods and services much easier on the go. The app also targets customers in search of the ability to transfer money instantly to their contacts while also allowing them to instantly transfer their app balance to a connected bank account. BeyondKash's service and all of it's features can be found in the app store for a one time payment of $9.99. This fee would cover all of the included features on the application, as well as routine updates to make our customer's experience on BeyondKash as convenient and affordable as possible.

Venture Concept

My innovation in creating the app BeyondKash will help solve the problem of added fees and wait time inr a universal mobile platform that allows users to send and receive currency to contacts,

BeyondKash offers:

An up-front payment style money transferring application
Completely eliminates the hassle of withdrawal deductions
Eliminates sending/receiving fees,
Eliminates timely/costly instant-transfers from current app balances.

Our customers care because of concerns about current apps that operate their mobile payment and banking applications with hidden fees.

BEYONDKASH IS UNIQUE IN THAT EVERYTHING IS COVERED BY A ONE TIME FEE THAT ELIMINATES ALL CHARGES, WAIT TIME AND ADDITIONAL FEES FROM MONEY TRANSFERS AND ACCOUNT WITHDRAWS.

There are many apps available that perform similar actions to BeyondKash, but none offer the ability to pay a one time fee that eliminates all charges and additional fees from their money transfers and account withdraws. The application's unique modifier targets one of the main challenges of being a 'middle-man' money service by offering customers the ability to manage their money fee-less, while also contributing to creating a community that ultimately is featured around a complete user-friendly payment application.

Why BeyondKash?

I believe users will transition from current competitor applications to BeyondKash due to:

Convenience
Timeliness
Costliness
Ease of an all-in-one application
And it’s popularity among users!

Expressing our key differences with rivals such as Venmo, CashApp, ApplePay, Zelle and more will help explain to users the problem with having multiple different platforms that all charge variable fees for actually transferring money to contacts. I believe these competitors' weaknesses include charging a variable fee per transaction on their platform, offering costly charges to be able to instantly withdraw money, and not being able to establish one complete application that users don't have to worry if the recipient has an associated account. Since my product/service is a technological application, I do not have to focus as much on packaging, distribution or location play, and can spend my time working on improvements to the app that will increase the customers experience and offer new improvements to handle any wallet needs. As users begin transition to BeyondKash and testing it's abilities, our price point will vary based on the traffic generated and there will be a 24/7 customer support center available right within the application. To continually support our application’s production, multiple teams with 3-7 employees are necessary. This would most likely include a production, design and technological team of certified app developers, a customer support center group and a sales/marketing team. All other business operations would be handled through the approval of the CEO and Owner, Cade Tolchinsky.

I believe that my company's true "secret sauce" is creating the first universal mobile payment and managing applications that will attract users with its variety of features and low cost up-front payment fee. Users want more of their money being transferred without the current issues of time and fees; this is the exact problem that my company, BeyondKash, has found a solution for. Furthermore, BeyondKash's next major opportunity is to focus on marketing and advertising our platform to potential customers, while also influencing current users of competitor’s applications to transition over to BeyondKash. Assuming my company launched successfully and is generating traffic, I hope to take the skills, processes and knowledge I've acquired from BeyondKash and invest my time and money into designing and creating a product that will assist people in solving the everyday problems they face.

2) and 3)

Due to receiving no feedback on my previous venture concept description and my "What's Next" exercise, I decided to leave feedback on my own venture concept to help me with finalizing and cleaning up the concept behind BeyondKash. To start, I went back and thought about all of the most common areas that my peers commented on when they left feedback and I tried to point out any overlooked mistakes in my own work. After going through it once, I reread my venture concept and started weeding out the areas that I felt were too wordy, off-topic or didn't help me convince my intended audience the opportunities that BeyondKash was solving. I knew that, in any venture concept, I had to identify what made my company different, so I added more detail about the application being more user-friendly and how it's features satisfy people's unmet money managing needs. I made sure to discuss each question and answer in great detail, while factoring in our main differentiators, to ultimately help show why BeyondKash is unique from the current competitors. Additionally, I thought about how to convince current customers in the market to switch from their current platform by emphasizing the idea of an all-in-one wallet-type platform that we believe will eventually become the main universal form of mobile payment. Lastly, I made sure to organize the formatting and design to look professional, while also including a rough outline of our logo to help display to our viewers the authenticity of our company and service, BeyondKash.

Thursday, April 16, 2020

28A – Your Exit Strategy

1) The exit strategy that I've planned for BeyondKash includes developing the software behind the application to contain each feature laid out in order to make sure our platform is completely user-friendly. After being implemented, I intend to find an investor or market competitor to either sell a percentage stake in BeyondKash in return for an investment, or completely sell my application to a buyer. I believe that this company could yield significant results and generate lots of net profit, but ultimately I've decided to rather pursue a company on something that I've done more planning and research with, and am willing to put in the effort and finances to go from a start-up to a multi-million dollar company. BeyondKash was able to provide with the business experience and insight into how to correctly follow the entrepreneurial process, and what to do throughout each step of the way.

2) l've selected this particular exit strategy due to the failure I encountered while developing the application for BeyondKash. I realized that I am more interested in creating a brick & mortar or click & mortar type business, rather than just a pure eCommerce type company. I find that I prefer to do research in a field of other competing products or services, rather than research apps and digital content that requires lots of technology knowledge and expensive finances. Although, the experience and skills I learned while designing BeyondKash offer me knowledge into online advertising, and ultimately utilizing social media platforms to build a community around my product/service.

3) I believe that the exit strategy I chose was dependent on the type of business I wanted to run, and if I wanted to have a physical product or an online presence. Although, the opportunity I picked was chosen based on my vision of believing in a specific market and understand the audience and how to solve their wants. Additionally, I do believe that my exit strategy had an influence onto how I planned to acquire and use resources, as well as how much time and amount of money I was willing to invest into BeyondKash. These specific areas and my overall plan of action for this business were part of the reason why I decided to not pursue BeyondKash, and rather focus my energy into an opportunity that provides a greater ceiling.

27A – Reading Reflection No. 3

The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users, Guy Kawasaki

1) What was the general theme or argument of the book?

The general argument of the book was to offer insight on how to navigate social media platforms, how to advertise yourself professionally on social media accounts, and what content to create and offer to your followers. The reason he explains these concepts are because Guy Kawasaki believes that there are social media elements to include in your social media account to build a growing with followers that help build-up your community. The book teaches you the basic important lessons that would help build a community around your social media accounts online.

2) How did the book, in your opinion, connect with and enhance what you are learning in ENT 3003?

In my opinion, the book connected with with what I'm learning in ENT 3003 in aspect of advertising and digital marketing to help grow and advertise a business. Kawasaki's book focuses mostly on the social media aspect of online advertising, but most of what he says crosses paths with the information Professor Pryor is discussing in his lectures. Kawasaki offers insight into how to use accounts to promote one another, make sure your image is professional, what content to share with followers and how to build a community around your hobbies. Similarly, Professor Pryor expresses the benefits of your biography, profile, way of expressing information, and who your audience is targeting. To continue, Guy Kawasaki expresses that creating content in the form of a blog is very valuable to relating to your social media growing, which is similar to how this class is structured in a blog format. This format allows us to learn how to express our ideas and answers in the form of 'posts' which is similar to creating content for a twitter feed and tweeting to your followers.

3) If you had to design an exercise for this class, based on the book you read, what would that exercise involve?

If I had to design an exercise for this class based on the book I chose, I would ask the students to create a twitter account based on their product or service and require them to tweet information relating to opportunity and advertising their solution for it. This would help students understand about having an online social media presence and how to professionally express your opinions while growing your following around you. Also, this would demonstrate the different methods on how to advertise your business through one of the many social media platforms.

4) What was your biggest surprise or 'aha' moment when reading the book? In other words, what did you learn that differed most from your expectations?

My biggest surprise while reading Kawasaki's book was finding out the other social media platforms being used for advertising business products and services, and how each social media platform focuses on a different aspect of advertising your business. Guy goes on to bring in examples of how Pinterest and Instagram force companies to learn how to adapt to advertising with mostly pictures and short captions, while Twitter allows businesses to include links, images, and directly tweet to another company or person. Ultimately, these requirements were not part of any of my expectations when I started reading this book, and I was actually shocked to find out how many other little features can be utilized to better advertise your company online.

26A – Celebrating Failure

Let's Fail, A Lot!

1) During this past semester, there's been many times outside of this class where I have experienced continuous failure. One specific time was when I was interested in learning how to drop ship products from a site like Alibaba.com, and advertise the products through social media platforms to sell out my inventory. I quickly learned a lot about suppliers, product distribution and storing inventory, while I was still slowly understanding social media advertising, such as Facebook and Instagram ads. After negotiating deals with suppliers on inventory products such as mini projectors, keychains, phone chargers and more, I experienced my first business lesson in not taking into account my product inventory and where I was going to store everything until it was sold. This led me to search around for a service that would house my products and distribute them when a transaction occurred. I found a way through Amazon to advertise on their platform and have them house my inventory until orders were placed, which would then have Amazon ship out for me at a small connivence fee. Over time, I started to realize a second issue with the cost of housing my inventory as the cost started to exceed my revenue I was generating from the actual sales of the products. I was stuck in a situation and decided that the best decision for me was to shut down all operations in order for me to figure out how to successfully drop ship, while still focusing on school and my grades.

2) In the end I learned that, even though I experienced failure multiple times, there are still important life and financial lessons to be obtained while trying to operate any start-up company. These experiences and resources will only benefit me in the future as I now understand the importance of planning and actually taking the right steps to setting-up and creating a successful company. Not only does this include the specifics like inventory selection, web-designers or product distributers, but also helps the entrepreneur take into account the financial and management risks that come along with dedicating any time and effort to working on a start-up business.

3) As I was excited to finally start generating revenue, the reality hit that I would never actually fulfill the figures that I was hoping for because of how I planned out my company. In my case, I was very emotional and disappointed because of the high hopes I had for this start-up distribution company with popular products. Additionally, I would say that this experience encouraged me to want to understand more about what I did wrong and learn from that knowledge to utilize my skills and drive on something that I'm dedicated to. Not only did the drop shipping business motivate me to want to take more risks, but ENT3003 has actually helped me define myself as an entrepreneur and find what avenue of business I want to study. I can confidently say that I am more likely to take a risk now than I was a few months ago because of how comfortable I am with the business process and how fueled I am with determination because of the experience I initially had with drop shippings. Mr. Pryor's class has ultimately taught me that failure is just as beneficial as it is consequential if you learn to adapt and put in effort to find the good from your mistakes.

Thursday, April 9, 2020

25A – What’s Next?

What's Next?

BeyondKash

Existing Market.

Step 1: BeyondKash's next major opportunity is to focus on marketing and advertising our platform to potential customers, while also influencing current users of competitor’s applications to transition over to BeyondKash. Assuming my company launched successfully and is generating traffic, I hope to take the skills, connections and knowledge I've acquired from BeyondKash and invest my time and money into designing and creating a product that will assist people in solving the everyday problems they face.

Step 3: I believe that as BeyondKash continues to grow it's popularity within users, it will start to become a universally accepted form of payment that can be used to pay friends, family, contacts and even local businesses. As current technologies modernize, I hope that my company can fulfill all of the wallet needs requested by users to ultimately create an easy mobile-payment method that can be accessed without the need of a credit-card or bank account. Additionally, I believe this will, and already has, start to revolutionize the forms of acceptable payment by most local and big businesses.

New Market. Retired and Elderly.

Step 1: The radically different market I plan on researching and targeting are retired and elderly individuals. The reason why I chose to appeal to this specific group is because typically users involved with BeyondKash would be technologically advanced people between the ages of 15-59, and retired/elderly individuals fall outside of that range.

Step 2: I believe that my company, BeyondKash, can appeal to this specific market in helping to set up direct deposit services, through our platform, to offer these specific individuals an all-in-one site that provides them with all of their financial insight. This could help with dealing with retirement funds, social security and insurance transactions, as well as offer a simple way for elderly individuals to have easy, traceable access to using their funds.

Step 4: What I learned most about this new market is that typically most elderly or retiring individuals are inexperienced with technology, and since our app is based on using your mobile device, we can offer a simple way for these users to navigate our platform. What ultimately surprised me the most was how involved this specific market of customers was with their finances and how complicated some banks make it on them. This helped me realize that this "radically' different market may actually offer insight on new features that can be added to make BeyondKash more user-friendly within older generations. Some of what I assumed was proven correct, but I was mostly surprised to acknowledge that this new market could actually have potential in helping to target new users who are unfamiliar with mobile payment and managing applications on their phones.

24A – Venture Concept No. 1

BeyondKash