Reading Reflection No. 2

In this exercise, I'd like you to select a book from the second half of the Official ENT 3003 Reading List and report on it. This part of the list focuses on books that cover, generally, entrepreneurship, business, and learning. I'd like you to address the following in your post:

1)         I decided to read Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.  I would have to say that that in reading this book I realized there to be many themes throughout.  I will later delve into what I thought my biggest surprise/’aha’ moment later which, in my opinion will actually describe the overall theme of the book. Themes throughout the book include the interaction of system 1 and system 2 of the mind and how they interact.  System 1 work autonomously while system 2 requires effortful thinking.  This theme early on sets the base for the book and helps the reader understand the operable mindset, per say, of how we think as individuals.  This sets up the second theme with our thinking and the role that heuristics play in all of our thinking patterns.  Throughout the researchers have a focus towards why individuals have difficulty thinking and making judgments statistically.  The next part dives into examining how overconfident we are as individuals.  This in turn plays a role specifically into our ability to think statistically, especially when it comes to chance.  The mind has the general ability to accidentally underestimate the power of chance and over compensate correlation between two events and how this plays into our ability in thinking and making judgments.  This leads into the second to last theme surrounding choices with a focus on economics.  The theme here surrounds how, as previously mentioned, the workings of system 1 and 2 occur, and work together but influence all the choices we make.  It focuses as well on our framing bias and that when some risk is presented with a negative outcome versus a positive one we tend to take the risk more often when it is presented with a negative outcome as if we have something to prove.  Lastly, the book comes together examining the two selves we have – the experiencing self and the remembering self.  Overall, it examines the conflict between the two and our general difficulty in pursuing happiness as individuals while still satisfying our ‘two’ selves that form our identity.  What memories do we make, how do we make them, and how do we let our experiences as we move through life affect and exist alongside our remembering self. 

2)         This book I think really enhanced what I have learned so far in ENT 3003.  First off, it helps explain many of the decisions and the ways in which I have responded to assignments in the class.  Overall, it definitely will help me look openly towards assignments to counter the framework I generally analyze assignments with, to then be able to attack/think about the rest of the assignments from an additional, different point of view.  This book connects with each individual assignment in some way, shape, or form.  Every assignment involves some sort of analytical thinking.  Thinking Fast and Slow analyzes the mind and how we think throughout, therefore this new found knowledge can be used in every assignment. 

3)         If I were to design an assignment for this class specifically around this book I would make everyone answer five basic questions that coincide with the five parts of the book: Two Systems, Heuristics and Biases, Overconfidence, Choices, and the Two Selves.  I would have everyone write down their knowledge or what comes to mind based on all these titles for each part of the book.  I would then have them write about how they arrived at their answers or what memories or experiences shaped their answers surrounding the title of each part. Then I would have them analyze themselves in terms of the titles of each part.  After I would have them read each part, and after each part I would want them to reflect on the same question that was originally asked and reflect on their original answer.  After the book is finished and I would incorporate a cumulative response in a general reflection on the work as a whole and how it has affected, personally, that individual. This is the assignment I would create around this book. 

4)         Lastly the biggest ‘aha’ moment of this book was realizing that, this is one of the few books that can be summarized by the title, Thinking Fast and Slow.  This may seem like an impossible, loaded statement, but if I had to describe this book in four words this would be the only way possible to describe and summarize all five parts of this book.  The reason it is my biggest ‘aha’ moment was because it simplified and helped my understanding of the book.  For me when I first started reading this book, it required a lot of concentration and effort by me.  I had to make sure it was absolutely quiet with no distractions around me because the material was so thick.  But once I realized the title summarizes the book and brings all the parts together I saw how everything was connected.  I saw how each part built off the previous one and that cumulatively the book comes together and helped me with the way I analyze everything now.

         

Idea Napkin No. 2

1) You. Who you are. What your talents are. What your skills and experiences are. Also: what are your aspirations? Specifically regarding your business concept, how do you see this business (if you were to start it) playing a role in your life?

1) I am a very analytical person.  I enjoy working with numbers, which may seem odd, but I truly do.  I’m good at finding patterns in a set of numbers, while taking into account external factors that might contribute to the numbers, being that certain pattern before indicating any causality between the two.  I like to plan things always, whether it is the day of, the next week, or the semester.  I therefore love set schedules that do not have moving parts and are very simple.  Other than analytical types of problems, I am very athletic.  You could say that is a talent but it allows me to exercise and workout, which was originally my central theme following my original entrepreneurial idea.  This assignment made me focus on my aspirations.  It made me start to think about, what do I tell people when they ask me what I want to do and what my end game is with my accounting degree.  I always have responded saying that I aspire to start my own wealth management group.  Traditionally people think of wealth management groups as greedy hedge funds managers making a lot of money, but I would divide my wealth management group into segments or departments to be able to target different segments of customers.  Once started I see this playing a role in my life because I could be able to utilize my analytical abilities to help the more and less fortunate.  I see myself being able to live and sell my company on a day to day basis.  If I can make you more money than you can yourself, therefore making me more money, why not?  It may seem greedy or whatever but there are a large number of people who want more money or want even more money on top of the money they already have.   To add to all of this I was talking to a coworker of mine, a line cook, and he was like, Landini “You should definitely come up with something about giving advice to people bro you’d be great at it.”  Then I briefly told him about the idea that I’ve always have had that I have communicated throughout the assignments in this class.  That validation was nice to see and help me realize that this goal of mine is possible.

2) What are you offering to customers? Describe the product or service (in other words, how you'll solve customers' unmet needs). 

Individuals all have the money but truly don’t understand the concept of growing one’s money.  More than 50% on America lives paycheck to paycheck.  If I can coach, teach, and help individuals not live paycheck to paycheck the economy and system will be better off as a hole.  They can start to not worry about money to meet all their needs for their bills they have. I would do this through developing plans that individuals must follow.  Based on your needs it be an individual plan that would then be linked to their debit card accounts with us to where the category spending is set to certain limits and unless there is an emergency then the set limit per month cannot be gone over.  Yes that may limit the power of an individual, but I think it can help them create healthy money habits to eventually stop and just budget themselves but still have an account with us.

3) Who are you offering it to? Describe, in as much detail as possible, the demographic and psychographic characteristics of your customers. Think especially of this question: what do your customers all have in common?

The customers would be a wide range of customers.  I would be able to offer products and funds – similar to a hedge fund – that higher income individuals can put their money into to earn a greater return.  These customers would be making above $250,000.  Then I would also be servicing other customers, through a separate division, targeting lower income families.  under $50,000.  These customers would be targeted to give advice and guidance to help them save more, earn more money, retire sooner, or even go on that next family vacation sooner than expected.  

4) Why do they care? Your solution is only valuable insofar as customers believe its valuable to them. Here, explain why customers will actually pay you money to use your product or service. 

They care because I care.  That may seem vague or not strong enough but that is how people tend to listen to me.  I have a big heart and I do want the best for people.  Trust is something built over time, but it is something I can sell.  With the trust I can then sell them the possibilities that can be achieved or the hardships that can be forgone by helping all of these individuals manage their money better, either through advice (consultation), or management of the money itself by my firm. 

5) What are your core competencies? What sets you apart from everyone else? Also: what do you have that nobody else has? 

What sets us apart is that we would service the low income individual.  Many wealth management companies have high minimums that low income individuals are absolutely not able to achieve.  The income inequality gap is widening with more individuals at the low income end of the spectrum.  My firm would address the needs of those people which far outnumber the high income individuals. 

In addition to these five elements, please spend a paragraph evaluating whether you believe these elements fit together or whether there are aspects of your business concept that are weaker / out-of-joint with the others. 

I believe these five elements fit together better now than the first time around  I switched up my original idea during the  first go around on this assignment and based on the feedback I am really happy I did. The feedback from students truly affirmed that the elements work together and that targeting the different invidiuals on the income scale brings a different edge to my idea.  I think outside of the idea I worry about how can we balance control over someone’s assets to help them where they do not think they have lost control and they still trust as a company to help them at the end of the day is what it will come down to in my opinion.    

For the "feedback memo" -- please summarize five main points that you took away from the feedback you received. Also, please describe how you incorporated the feedback into this idea napkin. 

Feedback Memo

The feedback I received was fantastic.  I was honestly hoping that it would be a little more filled with constructive criticism.  I just wish that because I want to hear the other spectrum from others and see just my opinion through their eyes.  Overall, I took away a few main ideas from the feedback I received.  I realized that it was very interesting and powerful, and slightly different that I would use my expertise to build a service instead of a product to help people with money, and this is why I kept a lot of ideas surrounding the service components of my idea from Idea Napkin #1.  Also I found that helping people was also key to my future success of my idea as a service which is why I decided to segment my business.  This leads into my next thing I learned is that the individuals whom commented on my post really agreed with the segmentation of my business as a service to address many income levels with the associative needs at those income levels as well.  Due to the lack of constructive criticism I have decided to self-evaluate my response.  As I self-evaluated myself I decided to add a few elements to the ‘What are you offering customers’ section.  I decided to go more in depth on how I would address the specific money managing problem at heart and not just what I might be able to provide as I originally was addressing in my first Idea Napkin exercise. Overall, I did not change too much from my first Idea Napkin exercise, but I believed I added a few integral parts that address weaknesses I had previously.  

With this post, you need to include the phrase "Idea Napkin No. 2" in the title. Once you have published this post, be sure to Share the post URL and make the appropriate Declaration. 

Halfway Reflection

1.      So far this course is interesting to me in different facets.  I t is interesting because I honestly did not know what to expect at first, so the layout and the format of the course is interesting and it fosters more creativity than I thought it could.  With that being said, if one is not tenacious mentally, then this course presents problems.  One must be able to appropriately manage the time needed to complete each individual assignment, and the course continuously tests one’s idea, by taking criticism and approval.  For me I have become more tenacious through this course as time has gone on.  I have realized that whether you complete the assignment early or at the last minute, one key is looking ahead.  If one looks at the assignment early ideas are able to float around in your head, creating ideas and it makes the assignment easier to complete especially if exterior conflicts arise and one must complete the assignment at the last second.  I would also say that watching the lectures helps me keep up with the course.  This is because the lectures add a level of interaction, despite being through an impersonal media connection, that helps explain questions I’ve had and gives rise to more ideas in relation to the individual assignments.  As well, I have learned more about the entrepreneurial process through the lectures, which is in conjunction with the assignments.  All of these ideas help finish the assignments and help me stay up to date with the course.

2.            There have definitely more than one instance in which I wanted to give up in this class.  For example, even though I am a waiter I still have difficulty going to people for feedback on an idea even with my own family and me knowing it is for school.  When I was completing Testing My Opportunity Hypothesis Part 1, I just did not want to do the interviews.  I told myself and just made myself start the assignment.  That sounds simple, but procrastination usually exists before that assignment or chore has been started.  Once started, and as we finish individual parts, we as humans feel a sense of accomplishment which helps us push through the task.  This is why I just forced myself to start the assignment.  Once I finished one interview I told myself that I was already 20% done and I could make it the other 80% of the way and finish the assignment.  Otherwise in regards to developing a tenacious mindset, I believe I have developed different facets of a tenacious mindset. It might be self-involved but I believe that regularly I have a tenacious mindset but involving many aspects that do not involve school, like my job.  From this class, I have developed a more tenacious mindset to combat my procrastination and imaginary mindset.  Other than the example I previously mentioned, the due dates and constant classwork with weekly due dates has forced me to stay up to date with the class which is usually very difficult for me with other online classes.  Also I have always considered myself as a rigid thinker, and definitely not as an individual who thinks outside the box.  The Bug List assignment really opened up my mindset and thinking.  It made me realize that thinking of ideas or being an entrepreneur has nothing to do with thinking outside the box.  It made me realize that it was more about thinking about problems that people face and then identifying five whys to why that problems exists to find the root cause of that problem, and then setting out to solve that root cause. This is how I have improved the imaginary tenacity of my mindset during this class

3.

Fostering skills that that foster tenacity

Do not procrastinate.  Assignments will get done quicker and ideas will be fostered better if the assignment is done sooner.  It will help better ideas come to mind.

Sit down and plan your week out around the assignments with this class.  This will allow you to allocate the appropriate time needed and if you are on a time crunch it forces you to know when you must finish the assignment by.

Look ahead.  Yes, like previously mentioned plan for the week, but don’t narrow mindedly get stuck in the current week.  Thinking ahead allows you to foster better ideas and be better prepared for the class.

Developing a tenacious mindset

Don’t give up.  It will make you stronger.  If you give up on one assignment, you will be sure to do it again.

Take the comments that people post seriously.  This will help improve your ideas and be better prepared to hear constructive criticism.

Lastly, try your best.  That sounds cliché, but you never know what you may think of.  This class, at least will help become a better thinker and develop a tenacious mindset. For that to occur, you have to try your best and put all your effort into every assignment.   

Idea Napkin No. 1

1) You. Who you are. What your talents are. What your skills and experiences are. Also: what are your aspirations? Specifically regarding your business concept, how do you see this business (if you were to start it) playing a role in your life?

1) I am a very analytical person.  I enjoy working with numbers, which may seem odd, but I truly do.  I’m good at finding patterns in a set of numbers, while taking into account external factors that might contribute to the numbers, being that certain pattern before indicating any causality between the two.  I like to plan things always, whether it is the day of, the next week, or the semester.  I therefore love set schedules that do not have moving parts and are very simple.  Other than analytical types of problems, I am very athletic.  You could say that is a talent but it allows me to exercise and workout, which was originally my central theme following my original entrepreneurial idea.  This assignment made me focus on my aspirations.  It made me start to think about, what do I tell people when they ask me what I want to do and what my end game is with my accounting degree.  I always have responded saying that I aspire to start my own wealth management group.  Traditionally people think of wealth management groups as greedy hedge funds managers making a lot of money, but I would divide my wealth management group into segments or departments to be able to target different segments of customers.  Once started I see this playing a role in my life because I could be able to utilize my analytical abilities to help the more and less fortunate.  I see myself being able to live and sell my company on a day to day basis.  If I can make you more money than you can yourself, therefore making me more money, why not?  It may seem greedy or whatever but there are a large number of people who want more money or want even more money on top of the money they already have.   

2) What are you offering to customers? Describe the product or service (in other words, how you'll solve customers' unmet needs). 

Individuals all have the money but truly don’t understand the concept of growing one’s money.  More than 50% on America lives paycheck to paycheck.  If I can coach, teach, and help individuals not live paycheck to paycheck the economy and system will be better off as a hole.  They can start to not worry about money to meet all their needs for their bills they have. 

3) Who are you offering it to? Describe, in as much detail as possible, the demographic and psychographic characteristics of your customers. Think especially of this question: what do your customers all have in common?

The customers would be a wide range of customers.  I would be able to offer products and funds – similar to a hedge fund – that higher income individuals can put their money into to earn a greater return.  These customers would be making above $250,000.  Then I would also be servicing other customers, through a separate division, targeting lower income families.  under $50,000.  These customers would be targeted to give advice and guidance to help them save more, earn more money, retire sooner, or even go on that next family vacation sooner than expected.  

4) Why do they care? Your solution is only valuable insofar as customers believe its valuable to them. Here, explain why customers will actually pay you money to use your product or service. 

They care because I care.  That may seem vague or not strong enough but that is how people tend to listen to me.  I have a big heart and I do want the best for people.  Trust is something built over time, but it is something I can sell.  With the trust I can then sell them the possibilities that can be achieved or the hardships that can be forgone by helping all of these individuals manage their money better, either through advice (consultation), or management of the money itself by my firm. 

5) What are your core competencies? What sets you apart from everyone else? Also: what do you have that nobody else has? 

What sets us apart is that we would service the low income individual.  Many wealth management companies have high minimums that low income individuals are absolutely not able to achieve.  The income inequality gap is widening with more individuals at the low income end of the spectrum.  My firm would address the needs of those people which far outnumber the high income individuals. 

In addition to these five elements, please spend a paragraph evaluating whether you believe these elements fit together or whether there are aspects of your business concept that are weaker / out-of-joint with the others. 

I believe these five elements fit together better than I had expected.  I switched up my original idea because of this assignment.  As my original thoughts about answering each question in regards to my original idea came to me, I realized they did not fit together well. This is why I switched my idea up entirely.  This does not mean that the elements of my new, current idea fit perfectly together, but they still fit better. Most importantly it incorporates my knowledge combined with my passion to helping people.  This allows for emotions to help seel my idea and my firm versus my other idea.  

With this post, you need to include the phrase "Idea Napkin No. 1" in the title. Once you have published this post, be sure to Share the post URL and make the appropriate Declaration.

Elevator Pitch No. 1

My business will be named Gym-in and it will solve the problems that gym users face from providing workouts and giving the ability to share them with other friends.  This will be integrate in a mobile app so gym users who never track a workout or do not understand how to do a workout they will now be able to.  Also I have built extra revenue streams surrounding the leasing of equipment.

Here is my link to my first elevator pitch and below the related text.

My Elevator Pitch #1

Have you ever got to the gym and forgot your workout plan?  Have you ever needed guidance on an exercise? Do you ever have yourself wasting time in the gym trying to find your next exercise?  Yes, we have all had these problems or similar ones pester us while we are trying focus in the gym.  My mobile gym app will never let you miss an exercise, the next or your next rep.  Gym-in will be your in to your own personal trainer.  Find workout plans for any type of goal ranging to satisfy the needs of beginners all the way up to gym experts.  Even experts have a few questions.  Our team will be able to provide this information to these users free of charge through advertisement placement throughout the app and website without distracting the user.  We will generate revenue through our integrated business to business lease of gym equipment new and used to help even those individuals with a dream to start a gym and the professionals to have the newest gym equipment at all times at a reasonable price.  Together we can promote fitness throughout our country and help our country fight our obesity epidemic one step at a time.  And by the way, when someone asks what workout you are doing all you will have to do is press the share button as we spread the Gym-in phenomenon throughout the country.  Thank you very much.   

My Solution

For my solution I plan on incorporating both a service and products all into one. I want to create a brand that is based on online platform.  This website will be able to service all types of individuals looking for exercise, exercise advice, and or exercise related products.  I want to cater to regular consumers by having experts add workouts that we have access to and then pass that access to the consumer for whatever they may be looking for whether for leisure, a specific sport, or goal in mind.  To be able to provide this service I will have to have advertisements on the website to create a revenue stream.  Another revenue stream would be where I would focus on products as well.  From this side I would provide gyms with the ability to lease gym equipment.  The purpose of this would be so gyms can have the most up-to-date equipment and then other start gyms can start up with less capital because then we would also lease refurbished gym equipment which we would have received from the gyms that have leased new equipment from us.  Lastly, I would have a complete mobil application integrated with social media so friends can share their workouts, check-in to where they are working out and compete with friends to accomplish lifting, running or any other measure of success.  This will encourage competition and help people workout.  This is my solution to my problem.

Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1

    1)       I would like to take advantage of the opportunity that there is no dominant force in the market that provides workout information to individuals.  This includes workout and diet plans along with a fully integrated mobile application as well.  Below are the links from conversations involving my investigation of the who what where when and why.

Conversation 1: http://www.tapeacall.com/re3nzx3jp9

Conversation 2: http://www.tapeacall.com/2ebpn4cmhg

Conversation 3: http://www.tapeacall.com/xz9h34jkkv

Conversation 4: http://www.tapeacall.com/bkbe3hufvg

Conversation 5: http://www.tapeacall.com/nqvxwjpf89

   

2)      My Opportunity Hypothesis – “All gym-goers are unable to find nutrition, and workout plans along with an effective tracking system for workouts because now It is difficult to find the information and bring that information into the gym.”

The who: Gym-goers (men, women)

The what: They have difficulty finding workouts and then difficulty tracking them at the gym.

The why:  Because the gym-goers are unable to bring that information to the gym and/or access it without paying for it from a trusted source.

   3)       For this part I realized there was different view concerning my idea.  I realized that people around the age of 50 like my parents are used to an old system where the gym itself kept sheets and held onto them for you.  Also on the other hand, I at first I did not recognize that other people, not just gym-goers, can be part of my “who”.  My girlfriend mentioned that she, like many other girls prefer just to run and do bodyweight exercises, which are not recognized by many sites currently.  She also mentioned that many times she has a girlfriend ask what workout she is doing but there is no way to share such workout through her mobile device. Overall, this exercised helped me realize where this opportunity truly existed and where it could go.