30: Final Reflection

1) Read through your posts from this semester. Recall all of the experiences you've had a long the way -- the highs, the lows -- the fun moments, and the moments of drudgery, and even the moments of dread.

This semester has been full of highs and lows. Some weeks I did my research and really sat down to write a well thought out blog post for my product, and other weeks I was too busy to do any of that and could have done a better job completing the assignments. A fun moment would be doing interviews with different people. It was far out of my comfort zone but it made me less nervous to talk to people and was a fun assignment. Dread would have to go to elevator pitch hands down, as I was anxious to do it and got a lot of critiques each time I did one, some helpful others not so much. It made me improve but I was never excited to do them.

2) What sticks out to you as the most formative experience? The experience that you'll remember years later? What was your most joyous experience? What experience are you most proud of yourself for accomplishing?

The assignments I remember vividly are the bug lists and the interviews with our target market. These required me to go out and find things that bother me, (which surprisingly there are quite a few!) and to get out of my comfort zone and talk to people, some I didn't know! These were good exercises for a entrepreneur and will continue to try and do these more often to get comfortable in these areas. 

3) At the beginning of the semester, I mentioned that I wanted each of you to develop an entrepreneurial mindset. Now, at the end, do you see yourself as an entrepreneur? Do you think you have moved closer to developing an entrepreneurial mindset?

I see myself having improved my entrepreneur mindset from the start of the semester. I learned a lot of tricks and find myself trying to solve problems in my day to day life. I especially learned a lot from the required books we read over the semester and feel that they above the lectures improved my mindset. (Sorry Dr. Pryor!) Especially Mary Kay's book, Never have I had a book move me like that one, it changed my way of thinking and improved my motivation to become a better version of myself. 

4) What is the one recommendation you would make to the students who are going to journey down this path in the future? What would you recommend they do to perform best in this course? What would you recommend they do to foster that mindset?

Do all the assignments, even if your uncomfortable doing it. At least try, step out of your comfort zone with a positive attitude! You'll surprise yourself and may even learn to love what you were scared to do in the first place. Also don't be afraid of your idea, make it yours and change based on what you find is best, it's your ugly baby after all!

29: Venture Concept 2

The Problem: 

Currently, there are 19.9 million college students in the United States. All are looking to receive a higher education which could catapult them to a higher-level position in their career. In order to remain a student and graduate, a student most stay focused on their academics, but as we all know, a 4.00 GPA is not enough to get hired today. Participating in clubs and volunteer opportunities is a must and internships are required by many colleges in order to graduate. With all of these requirements and dates, it’s hard to keep up and stay stress free. The last thing on a student’s mind is what’s next. Many students just live day by day as they don’t have time nor effort left to actively plan their month or even week. This way of organization is ineffective and leads students to mismanage time and forget about important events and due dates. 

What's Already Out There:

The most used forms of organized for students includes online calendars that are provided by the education platforms they use like Canvas, and the calendar apps provided on their cellphones. Both of these options create problems of their own. These online calendars provided by sites like Canvas are helpful when your logged in, but could be hard on the go to pull up. Not only that, but the are single use, meaning they only serve a single purpose. This leads to students going back and forth from multiple open tabs to get your correct schedule. A smart idea may be to log everything in a planner or calendar app, but it’s tedious work to schedule individual dates, especially if the students participate in multiple clubs, volunteer, and work.  When looking at the most used online calendars on the market like Google Calendar and Outlook, there is an amazing tool, the sync button. This allows you to automatically sync most calendars at just a touch of a button, creating a single calendar in seconds. This tool is a life saver and used by many, except for college students. Due to the secured log in for education sites, you cannot sync these online calendars to Outlook, leaving a huge opportunity that could benefit students in a big way.

Why Me:

I am a college student myself, obviously. I am a full time student who works a part time job and participates in a club. I am always on the go and have a need to stay organized, especially since my job requires me to keep my schedule up to date incase they need me on the spot. I have gone through different ways of organizing in hopes to find something that works. I like calendar apps as I always have my phone on me and its pretty easy to use and make your own. Though with any planning, it takes time to do. Most weeks I’m okay with the snail pace of logging each individual date in, but others I’m scrambling to finish the current week, not even stopping to think what’s to come the following week. I’ve seen this problem first hand, I have background in web design and coding, and entrepreneurship background, making me a good candidate to try and make a product to solve this problem.

My Solution:

I created Sync Me EDU, a calendar app that automatically connects and syncs with student’s educational sites due dates, class schedule, club meeting times and locations, and any events happening around campus. This product would be sold to Universities for $5,000 a semester and provided to students to use by logging in with their student’s ID number and password. I plan to work with colleges and universities to allow my app access to their programs, like Gator One, in order for students to successfully sync their calendars into one place for easy access and use.

The Details:

Once a student opens the app and inputs their log in information, their class schedule and canvas due dates would already be inputted into the calendar. From there the student can sync any other online calendar, like their work or personal schedule. Students would also be able to look up official clubs of their university and add their schedule with meeting locations to their calendar. This can be also be done with Greek life, sports events, and special events happening around campus. Each organization would be required to keep their schedules up to date and would have a different type of account.

Bumps in the Road:

Though the idea seems simple, there are no other business trying to solve this problem. My largest competitor would be Outlook, but there is a clear difference between Microsoft’s product and mine. Outlook’s target market is business professionals, whereas mine is college students. My simple design and includes desired features for active students then Outlook’s over complicated design and heavy focus on email. And, as stated before, Outlook cannot sync calendars from websites that require a log in. 

Partnering for Good:

I decided to sell my app to universities because of how closely we would have to work together in order to make this product a reality, and the fact that college students are cheap. By partnering with universities instead of selling the app on the app store, we would be able to give more to students and offer them a chance to become more active in their time at college. I plan on starting small, selling my idea to colleges with a student body of 10,000 or less to test the system to make sure it works under pressure and to find out more of what students want from the app. 

Looking Towards the Future:

I would eventually need a team; a crew of tech gurus to help with later system updates and new additions when larger amounts of students start to use it, as well as a professional connections team to help keep our bonds with the colleges and universities we partner with.  Through this product I would love to grow with our connections to create and provide more tools and products that students can use to make their lives stress free and more valuable.

* From my feedback I didn't change the writing, as I provided an abundant amount of information about the problem, solution, and end game for my product. The major change was breaking my large concept into smaller pieces to make it easier to read and for me to see my flow of thoughts. I like this better than what I previously had and feel it makes it more organized and easier to convey my message (Thank you for the suggestion Antonina!).