Final Reflection

I think my most formative experience thus far in this class would be the elevator pitches. Those assignments were very helpful for me to learn how to pitch a business idea confidently in a short period of time. This helps with public speaking skills and persuasion skills as well. My most joyous experience in this class would be creating the customer avatar. This was a really neat and creative experience that also allowed me to pinpoint what my potential customer would be. The experience I am most proud of for accomplishing would be the elevator pitch as well. As I stated before, this assignment helped with my public speaking skills and my confidence in presenting an idea.

I would say that this class has helped me become an entrepreneur. Obviously, there are a lot of skills that I need to work on that would take time, but this class has definitely helped me identify these skills and start to work on them. My mindset has shifted to more of an entrepreneurial one.

One recommendation I would have for those going down this path would be to keep an open mind. When becoming an entrepreneur, it is important to know that there are going to be unexpected events and you have to be able to keep an open mind to be able to conquer them. For this course, I would recommend staying to a strict schedule. Personally, I struggled at some points in this class with keeping up with the due date on assignments as I am not used to a noon deadline. To foster this mindset, I would say to set reminders on their phone which will get them into a habit of doing assignments on time.

Venture Concept No. 2

Opportunity: The opportunity that I have defined is the need that consumers possess to have access to safe, environmentally friendly food. Those who mainly possess this need are families who would like to feed their family fresh, safe food and those who are mindful of the environment and the effects that large, conventional agriculture can have. This need is not necessarily prevalent among all consumers, but in recent years, this need has grown to where it has affected how farmers grow their food. As more and more people are concerned about the environment and what they eat, this need has grown with it. Organic products that are perceived as both safe and environmentally friendly have become more common in stores. This need has grown mostly in the United States, specifically in urban areas that have not had first-hand experiences around agriculture. Currently, customers have been promoting these organic products and buying local to try and combat this problem. For the most part, these customers are loyal but some can stray from their efforts. This window of opportunity will be open for years to come.

Innovation: My innovation would create a way to provide these customers fresh, environmentally friendly foods and show these customers the process that goes into growing the food that they eat. Basically, instead of growing organic products that are very labor intensive and risky, I would grow GMO crops, set up local farmer’s markets, and promote all of the advantages that these products provide. These GMO products are actually very environmentally friendly because they give crops traits like drought resistance, pest resistance, larger yield, and more. The farm tours I would provide for free to start to shift the mindset of these customers who do not buy conventional agricultural products, but then I would set up local farmer’s markets where I would charge a smaller percentage higher than the average price of these products in order to make a profit (and since these are local and fresh, they would sell for more money).

Venture Concept: This innovation will help meet customer needs because it will address the problem that these customers have with conventional agriculture. By showing these customers the process that goes into growing crops and describing all of the different advantages that comes with these products, these customers will be more open to buying them and promoting them elsewhere. I believe it would be hard to get them to switch at first due to the negative mindset that these customers currently have towards conventional agriculture, but I believe that the farm tours would help with this process. My competitors would be those who partake in organic agriculture. Their possible weaknesses would include the intensive labor that goes into this and the fact that this type of agriculture also uses chemicals on their crops which is something many of these customers do not know. I believe that the customer experience would be my selling point of my concept. When customers get the opportunity to see how their food is grown and are able to have the experience of a local market (which are actually very neat), they would be more open to buying. I would start small, though, with maybe around 1,000 acres and a few employees to keep up with maintenance and to also run the market. That would be pretty much it as it does not take too many employees to run a farm that size.

Most Important Resource: My most important resource would be the uniqueness of this business. Currently, there are really not many businesses that promote conventional agriculture on a small scale and offer farm tours to customers.

What’s Next for the Venture?: I would like to expand this business into more urban communities after getting established. Obviously, I would need land to grow crops but if I could find land close enough to an urban setting, I believe that expanding to these areas would be key.

What’s Next for Me?: I would like to be growing these crops on a large scale and eventually give this business opportunity of giving farm tours and farmer’s markets to some managers instead of doing it myself. Going to a large scale farm would allow me to ship these products elsewhere.

I did not complete my first venture concept so any feedback would be greatly appreciated!