28A Your Exit Strategy

The exit plan that I plan to make would be to look into my potential venture further and plan on possibly making it into something. I have a real passion for my venture and feel that there is definite need for it in the real world. I think I would stay with the business and run it for a good while and retire off of it. Being local and able to be helped by the service would make me want to stay involved and not sell it off and lose touch. If my kids were willing they could in fact take over the business and provide for their kids with it. This exit strategy feels like the best option and has certain potential for expansion and real execution into the future. The exit strategy has allowed me to better mold my decisions and who I have reached out to learn more about my potential venture. I see things in both the long and short run points of view rather than just the short term for the class. This mindset has allowed me to better plan for the future.

Reading Reflection No. 3

For the third reading reflection I looked at "How to fail at almost everything and still win big" by Scott Adams.  Throughout this book one thing sticks out to me, he is always telling you to be observant and look at the things around you. This makes alot of sense to me because that is a great way to learn. You truly can learn lots by slowing down and seeing whats going on without you. This class teaches you to keep persevering and learning from around which is the entire theme of this book. To design an assignment off of this book I would have students look around in their life and identify things where slowing down and looking would teach them things.  I was surprised in this book by just how much you can learn, and the improvements you can make to yourself by just being observant.

26A Celebrating Failure

One time this past semester I failed was on my first big test of my UF career. While I did not exactly fail my first intermediate economics test of the semester I definitely did not do as well as I thought. I felt comfortable with the material and ready for the test but boy was I wrong. I did all the preparation materials and practice problems but it wasn't enough. Being the first of my tests for the semester didn't help the fact either. I learned from this experience that even if you think you are ready you are probably not, going into future tests I made sure I could do the problems forwards, backwards and with my eyes closed. The more comfortable you are with the material the better the end result is. Failure is inevitable in life and especially in ventures where the future is unknown. But on the bright side the way you learn the best and the most is when you go and do it, whether the outcome is good or bad. This class has made me realize that failure is inevitable in life and especially when starting a business, to make the best of it you learn as much as possible and learn from those failures so that moving forward you are able to minimize the number of failures.

23A Your Venture's Unfair Advantage

Resources in my venture:
-knowledge of hurricanes and effects
-familiarity of customer base in area
-knowledge and tools to prepare for storms
-contacts in the area
-actual storm aid and resources
-contacts I have made through past assignments
-personal contact and trust of customers
-ability to save peoples houses
-financial backing of previous work
-workers and family to help

For the knowledge and hurricanes and effects there isnt much exclusive to my venture however this information will play a huge role in to what preparations to make and possible effects levels on my customers. The familiarity of customer base in my area is pretty exclusive and special as I was born around here and know the type of people that love around here. As my venture possibly expands I will need to do more research into customers of other areas. The knowledge and tools to prepare for the storm is by no means rare but is very valuable as far as my venture plans go, it is a main part of the services that I provide. The contacts in my area are probably one of the most valuable and inimitable resources I have available to me and my venture. This is the whole basis or my venture and pretty exclusive to me and my venture itself. I have intel into the are that is not available to many others and that is what sets me apart. Before storms I have stockpiles of relief which help me in my plan to execute as quickly and thoroughly as possible. The contacts I have made are very valuable as the allow me to get better deals and learn more specifics about the individuals I am marketing to. The knowledge and ability to save peoples houses is a great and  valuable ability tome and my business. Through the work I have previously done I am able to bankroll that into new ventures and further build and snowball my business. My employees and family are willing to lend a hand whenever necessary so that is another resource that sets my venture apart from my competitors.

The most important resource to my venture is my knowledge of local resident sand their housing situation. This is vital to my business because it allows me to cater specifically to their income and residence levels to provide the most amount of help while maximizing profits.

21A Reading Reflection No. 2

The main theme of the book was really what the title says, it talks about your mindset and how you can change your mindset in order to better yourself as a person and business owner. The ideal mindset noted by the author would be the growth mindset. It is a mindset in which sets you up best for growing in life and your business.

This book connects with what we are learning in this class by talking about how if we were to take our business ideas in to the real world what type of mental preparation we would need in order to be successful. So it really builds on the ideas of the class.

My assignment I would create would be to identify the mindset you currently have and then to compare it to the ideal growth mindset and then the last part of it would be to plan out your business and the future with both your and the ideal mindsets in order to see the differences the mindsets can have on a business.

The biggest shocker or surprise to me was what in fact the growth mindset does. It allows you to appreciate and be positive in what you are doing no matter how it turns out. So it helps get rid of the negativity in order rot allow you to be more successful.

22A Elevator Pitch No. 3

Here is my Link:
https://youtu.be/CFTJmntLAkE

Going back to the feedback on my last elevator pitch, people commented on my dress and knowledge of my topic. Some critiques I received would be to speak up and with a little more passion as my voice was a little monotone. I can see both the critics and compliments in my past elevator pitch and where the commenters were coming from. So for this pitch I kept my dress and knowledge the same while practicing and trying a little more inflection and enthusiasm into my voice. It definitely did get easier every time and can see a huge improvement over my first elevator pitch.

19A Idea Napkin No. 2

1)My name is Emory Allnutt and I am a junior here at the University of Florida. Talents of mine I would have to say would be my ability to talk to people and perseverance or determination. My aspirations are to be in a healthy relationship and stable job by the time I am in my late 20s. Looking at my business idea I could easily see this playing a huge role in my life if it were to come to real life. I am passionate about the subject and think it is a promising enterprise.
2) I am offering a pre storm preparation service as well as post storm aid to my customers. Customers in my area struggle in preparation for storms leading to more costly damage in the following weeks and once the storm has come through they struggle in order to get the relief they need. I serve as a preparation service and transport service.
3)I am offering my services to potential storm victims in the small coastal towns along the big bend. Both before and after the storm I am able to help them with storm damage prevention and cleanup. All my customers have in common the want and need to be impacted by storms as little as possible and the need to recover quickly.
4)Customers in my enterprise will be encouraged to purchase my services because there is a potential to spare their valuables from storm damage if they are properly secured before the storm hits. I am able to tie down and properly secure these items before the storm for a small fee. I am able to spare them from the potential grief of losing valuables so I think they would be willing to pay. And after the storm they are in need and willing to pay for convenience just like anyone, so I will make money of the transportation of post storm goods.
5)I am set apart from competitors by the fact I am local and fast, may times being local can earn you a sense of trust with the customer and makes them more likely to do business. the fact that the money is earned here and put back into the community here is a great trait. I like to think my people skills are another thing I have a leg up on the competition with.

I think that all these elements do in fat fit together and all build a nice promising business opportunity. I think I can improve on how to provide post storm aid without coming across as a price gouger that rides the coat tails of storms but rather a community friend here to help. I took away from my feedback that I need to be more specific in my ideas and to do a better job of planning on how to execute my ideas, so I tired to better outline what it is I'm doing and how to do that better.

20A Growing Your Social Capital

Domain Expert in My Industry.
-Bob Pearce, Regional Disaster Officer, Red Cross
-Bob has been with the Red Cross for 14 years holding multiple positions as executive directors of multiple chapters and areas. He has proven himself in many many areas such as staff development and community disaster preparedness.
-He is a domain expert in my proposed business as he and his organization do the same disaster relief and supply distribution I plan on doing.
-I found bob through a little research on the Red Cross' website and narrowed him down to be the ma in charge of my area and the area of my potential clients. I reached out to him via email regarding my questions fro this assignment.
-While not exactly telling him I had a proposed business to compete with his I asked questions regarding to what they do and how they are able to the scale of it. I learned of the warehouses and special steps they take in regards to storm preparation.
-I have learned lots through my communication with him and will be able to apply the knowledge towards my proposed business and future plans.

Expert on your market
-John MacDonald, Director, Levy County Emergency Management
-John MacDonald was previously in the Air Force then served as Fire Chief with the Inglis Fire Department. He has alot of experience in public safety showing this through his many years as a local firefighter and previous years as a emergency manager.
-He is a market expert in my proposed business area as he works for the county  providing relief and managing those resources as well as he is specific to my area in the fact that he is stationed in my county.
-I found John trough a little research on local disasters relief and traced him back to the Levy County Emergency Management website. On that site I dug around and found him as the director.
-I asked him questions pertaining to any specific things the Emergency management center does in the area specifically of rthis area in able to better cater to the residents after a natural disaster. I was able to specialize to the residents in my area after learning these specific details.
I have gained very valuable knowledge pertaining to the residents in my area and how they handle the situations when they arise.

Important Supplier to my industry.
-Tom Smith, President, Customer Development and Sales Operations, Nestle Waters
-Tom Smith has more than 30 years of sales experience as well as having multiple positions within the nestle waters company. He began his career with nestle in 1985.
-Tom fills the supplier role in my business as one of the most important things after a natural disaster is clean bottle water for drinking and other tasks.
-I found Tom after some research on what is essential after a storm and then for various brands that would fit these roles.
-I learned about potential deals in bulk of bottled water through my contact and he seemed interested in the business I was pursuing.
-Having a contact with a bottled water supply company will greatly allow me to cut costs and increase profits passing a lower cost onto he consumer who is in fact the ones in need after a natural disaster.


Going into the future this networking will allow me to be more confident in networking seeing how willing to help these much more knowledgeable and successful people were. Entrepreneurs respect other entrepreneurs in the fact that they all had to start somewhere. This helped and varied from the past in the fact that I was forced to reach out and make new contacts.