28A- Your Exit Strategy

I would love to work at this business to decades and retire from it.  It would be awesome to be able to run a successful business for years and be able to sell the business for a big return.  It would be ideal to retire around 50 years old and live out my years spending time with my family and friends.  I have selected this particular exit strategy because if I sold the business in five years I would not have enough money to be able to retire.  I do not want to sell the business if I can not live off of the money for the rest of my life.  I believe that my exit strategy has influenced my decisions for my concept.  That is why I will always have the business growing.  That way when I am going to retire my I will have plenty of money to support me because the business will be big. 

27A- Reading Reflection No. 3

1.  The one thing that surprised more than anything else was the reason why he chose the name for the company Apple.  Not only did he like apples, he said that apple comes before Atari in the phonebook.  The thing I admire the most about Steve Jobs is how he created such an amazing brand and company that is recognized worldwide today.  The only thing I do not admire him for is that he seemed arrogant.  I believe that this also led to him being so successful.  He definitely experienced adversity and failure.  He was fired from the company he started.  He ended up coming back and becoming the CEO of Apple and bringing the company so much success. 

2.  His biggest competencies would be hard work, determination, and passion. 

3.  The only thing I would say that us confusing to me is the fact that you can be fired from a company that you start.  It is crazy that he got fired and then came back to the company.  So many people would be bitter about being fired and not come back. 

4.  I would ask him how he just kept going after any failures and setbacks that he had.  I would also ask him why he went back to apple after they fired him. 

5.  I think that his opinion of hard work is that it is everything that needs to be done make something a success.  He knows that there is no way that you can become successful without hard work.  I do share that opinion with him. 

26A- Celebrating Failure

Failure is something people will always experience.  If you are not failing then you are not pushing yourself.  If you would have asked me a few months ago I would have told you that I do not like failure.  Now I enjoy it because I look at failure as a new lesson I am learning in life.  Earlier this year I experienced a big failure.  I was attempting to start a business to start selling items on ebay for a profit.  I was buying items at thrift stores and at garage sales on the weekend.  I listed all of the items on ebay and was waiting for them to sell.  I cam home one day and all of my items that I was going to sell were stolen by a family member.  It was a big failure because people had purchased a couple of the items and I needed to ship them.  The lesson I learned was to lock away my items beause I can not trust people to not steal them.   

24A-Venture Concept No. 1

Opportunity- The opportunity is that people will always need to have their lawn taken care of when they own a home.  Many people will do this themselves but there will be so many that will not because they are physically unable or they do not have enough time.  There will always be an opportunity in Florida where my business will be based.  Year round is hot and there is a little portion of the year when it is cold.  In the summer when it rains almost everyday most people will have to have their lawn taken care of at least once a week.  This opportunity will always be present and never go away as long as people have lawns.  The opportunity is also present among real estate companies that are trying to sell homes and also cities and counties that need medians and land taken care of. 

Innovation- Every service involving landscaping would be included in this business.  It would include:  lawn mowing, blowing, weed eating, edging, tree trimming, stump grinding, sod removal and installation, gutter and roof cleaning, and gardening.  We will always adapt to the times and make improvements.  We will get all the newest and best equipment to best service our customers.  We will start at basic mowing, edging, and blowing starting at fifty dollars and up depending on the size of the yard.  Next we will begin to incorporate tree trimming that will start at fifty dollars per hour.  We will continue to upgrade our services to scale our business.  Once more crew members are added, we will be able to add more types of services. 

Venture Concept- The reason customers should switch to my service instead of any other landscaping business is because our customer service will be top notch.  We will treat our customers with the utmost respect.  We will offer incentives to our customers so that they know we appreciate their business. Every so many cuts we will offer a free cut for the customer.  There will be many competitors in this field.  We will offer outstanding work with: attention to detail, top notch customer service, and affordable prices. 

I will be a servant leader and treat my employees with respect and kindness.  I will treat my employees as I am serving them rather then they are serving me. 

Once I have one crew going strong then I will develop more teams to scale up the business.

I would like to have my hand in a few different businesses in five years after start up.  I would like to diversify my portfolio by doing different services for people.  The more services I am offering means the more opportunities and I am solving. 

23A-Your venture's unfair advantage

1.  Premier customer service
It is rare with existing companies.  They let customer service after they make it big like Wal Mart.  This is what will separate me from the rest.  Extremely valuable. 
2.  Attention to detail
Not very rare, but this can separate you from other companies. 
3.  Creativity
This is not rare, but the possibilities are endless.  It is extremely valuable. 
4.  Efficiency
not rare and can easily be replicated. 
5.  Ability to get financial capital from a lender
Not rare and easy to obtain
6.  Mentors in the same business field
This one of the most valuable items to obtain on this list.  It is rare to find. 
7.  Able to perform any landscape need
Many people can do this but it is valuable. 
8.  No shortage of workers
This is valuable because you need employees to survive as a business. 
9.  Training employees
Training employees is an extremely valuable asset.  It is not rare, but I know with large companies they lack good training. 
10.  Being a servant leader
This is an extremely valuable asset to a business.  You want to treat your employees like they are the king and you are serving them.  It is extremely rare in business and I believe it to be essential to make employees happy. 

I believe that number ten is the top resource on this list.  Everybody looks to the leader for motivation and examples of how to work.  Being a servant leader is an essential quality for an amazing and unique leader.  If you respect your employees and make them feel like kings and queens they will love to do quality work for you. 

21A- Reading Reflection No. 2

The general them from this book was lessons about life and working that Scott Adams learned throughout his life while working and failing at certain aspects of life.  He breaks them down simply to teach these simple but important lessons about life and business.  It teaches you that entrepreneurship is not easy and there will be failures.  That is something that I learned in this class also.  Another thing is that your attitude has to be in the right place to succeed.   If you constantly have a negative attitude then it will draw negative results.  It would be an exercise to show you that you do not need wildly successful billionaires and executives to teach you things about being successful.  It could be an exercise about asking five random friends questions about giving ideas about a business you are doing.  Then you go over the ideas and see if they change any aspect of the business you were thinking about.  Honestly the idea in the previous question about designing an experiment for the class is what most surprised me.  It is the most unique takeaway I had from this book. 

20A- Growing Your Social Capital

1. Domain Expert- Eduardo Rosquete is someone I have met that is in the same lawn care business field that my business would be in.  He has had a lawn care business for 15 years.  I was working with Eduardo at Publix because he had Publix as a second job.  I used to help him a lot at work with different problems at Publix.  He offered me help with giving me insight into helping me start a lawn business. 

2. Market Expert- Ralph Daniels  is a lawn equipment repairman that has been involved in the industry for over 30 years.  I found him through Eduardo Rosquete because thats where he goes for for lawn equipment repairs.  I will give him business by letting him work on my lawn equipment.  He will help me by giving me pointers in the industry. 

3. Supplier- Cutter Power is a shop in Tampa that specializes in all lawn equipment.  I met the business by doing a quick google search for a lawn equipment salesman.  I will buy equipment from them and then they will give me pointers of the proper equipment to buy that will worthwhile. 

I believe  all three of these people will help me enormously and help to show me new opportunities.  I think they will help me to find new contacts in the industry and expand my business.  In the future I will always talk to as many people as I can and collect as much information about the field as I can. 

19A- Idea Napkin No. 2

1.  I am Peter Murray and I am best at landscaping and making people's yard look great.  My aspirations are to start a lawn company and grow it to be the most successful lawn company in Tampa.  I am sure that starting the company and growing it to be the biggest will take a huge toll on my personal life.  I would be willing to sacrifice that to make it successful. 

2.  I will offer my services to make their lawn perfect and up to their standards.  I will cut lawns, blow off decks and driveways, clean gutters, and trim trees.  I will do anything at their house involving landscaping that they need. 

3.  I would love to service wealthy clients in the South Tampa area.  They are always on the run and do not have the time to take care of their own lawn.  They also have the money to pay someone else to do their yard. 

4.  My customers all have the same thing in common.  Time is the most valuable asset.  They do not have time to do their own yard.  They have the disposable income and they are willing to pay someone else to do it so they can spend time on other things they find more important. 

5.  Honestly there is not much that separates one landscaping service from another.  The only things I can think of is exceptional customer service, incentives for discounted or free service, and hard work. 

I wrote exactly the same thing that I had in the first napkin idea exercise.  I only received positive feedback and nothing was said about what you could make it better.  I know it is not perfect but I did my best and I can not change it because I did not have any negative feedback.  

I only received positive feedback so there was nothing to revise on this exercise.