Assignment 30 - Final Reflection

What sticks out to you as the most formative experience?

Whenever I started with this class I never really thought of myself as an entrepreneur although I have known many entrepreneurs growing up. I think what will stick with me the most is the venture concept that I came up with, because I really am passionate about my app. Knowing that I have the ability and creativity to come up with something that could possibly be real some day is so amazing.

Do you see yourself as an entrepreneur? Do you think you have moved closer to developing an entrepreneurial mindset?

I am surprised to say that I do see myself as an entrepreneur! It amazed me that I was able to come up with my concept, and I feel that the class really made me passionate about my idea. There is definitely something about knowing you have built a whole business idea from the ground up that is extremely gratifying, and I'm honestly so happy that I chose to enroll for this class for Spring 2019.

What is the one recommendation you would make to the students who are going to journey down this path in the future?

Keep up with assignments! Look at everything that is due for the week on Monday, not Friday! If you put in work to this class you will reap the benefits and truly come out with something amazing at the end of the semester.

Assignment 29 - Venture Concept No. 2

Innovation.

My innovation is incrementally groundbreaking, as people think of being fit is part of the lifestyle of the "rich and famous." Many people that have a low income do not see that eating healthy is attainable. My app is setting out to change that. I will have a large database of recipes around the $20 range for 4 servings of food all of which provide nutrition information and take under 30 minutes to make. I will also provide a map feature for users to access healthy take-out or delivery food. This will be able to be organized by location, price, allergens, and calorie level. The app itself I am hoping will only cost $1.99 for users to purchase.

Venture Concept. 

I believe customers will switch to my product because nobody offers the same services for this price, and few diet/lifestyle/health apps cater to those that are looking to remain in a certain budget. It should be an easy switch because they are not committing a large amount of money. Competitors could be programs like WeightWatchers or similar, but their price point is high for consumers in my market. Customer service I'm sure will play a key roll in the app development for bugs, reviews, etc. I am hoping that the price point will help the product distribute itself quickly. The venture, however, will start as me being the only real employee with a team of tech people to help with any app issues and nutrition experts helping me with that aspect of recipes. In addition to having healthy meal options I would like to incorporate some sort of fitness aspect to the app.

The Three Minor Elements.

Besides your actual innovative product, service, or process, what will you have that will make it hard for competitors to copy your success?

Nobody can replicate the experiences that I had in my lifetime. I had difficulty losing weight in high school and felt like I did not have the time and resources. This eventually sprouted a passion for nutrition and healthy, which is how the idea for this app came to be.

What’s next for the venture? 

I have considered adding some at-home or even in the office workout routines to the app for users looking to dive into exercise.

What’s next for you? Assuming you launched, where do you want to be in five years with this venture? Where do you want to be, as an entrepreneur, in the next decade, and how does this first venture help you achieve your vision?

I think that this venture helps me re-focus on my own health and prioritize myself in a way, again. As an entrepreneur I just want to be helping people reach their fitness and health goals. To me this is the stepping stone for that. I would love to eventually get a certification in nutrition and personal training in order to share my knowledge of that as well.

Summary of Feedback.

I, unfortunately, did not receive any comments or feedback on my last venture concept post, so I am not able to provide that information.

How did I change my venture concept?

With this version of my venture concept I decided to add in the fitness feature to my app, which will include possibly a few work outs for our users. I am still trying to figure out for sure how much I want to focus on fitness vs health foods.

Assignment 27 - Reading Reflection No. 3

• For my third and final reading reflection I chose to read something that I knew I would be interested in, so I read Coco Chanel: An Intimate Life by Lisa Chaney. I have always been interested in fashion and the people who create what we wear every day, so this was a natural book selection for me.

• What surprised you the most: Although I have always loved Chanel fashion, I had never questioned how Coco Chanel came to be, and what her early life was like. I was surprised to know that she was basically illiterate, and went through much struggle with her family life growing up. In a way knowing that she went through these things really made me admire her all that much more as a person and a designer.
• What about the entrepreneur did you most admire: Like many of the entrepreneurs that we have read about this semester, Coco had an intense drive and would not give up on her dream. I find this extremely admirable and inspirational.
• What about the entrepreneur did you least admire: The behaviour that I least liked about Coco Chanel after reading this novel was how she seemed to treat men throughout her lifetime. Often times I feel like men get a bad reputation for using women, but that seems to be exactly what she did with men.
• Did the entrepreneur encounter adversity and failure? If so, what did they do about it: Coco had a very hard life growing up by normal standards. Her mother died when she was very young and her father abandoned her, leaving her to be raised by nuns. She used her charm and beauty as well as knowledge as resources to pull her out of the situation. She had a lot of drive as well, which she definitely needed throughout her life.

• What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited?
• I would say that Coco Chanel had many competencies. She always had amazing foresight with fashion, but I think after reading this I would say that she was extremely resourceful and cunning as well.

• Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.
• I did not feel like any part of the reading was particularly confusing, but I do question why Coco Chanel pushed her siblings away after losing her parents at such a young age.

• If you were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur, what would you ask? Why?
• Coco Chanel clearly led a very interesting and abnormal life in the limelight for a good portion of her life due to her own success. I guess I would ask her if she regrets any part of how she got to where she was? Also, did she ever want to reveal her true self to the world and stop living under a facade? I feel like it must have been exhausting.

• For fun: what do you think the entrepreneur’s opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion?
• I think it is clear that Coco Chanel had true ambition and drive with the vision that she had for fashion. I think that to her, hard work would consist of doing whatever it took to reach the goal in mind. I do not necessarily share this same opinion, as I do not agree with certain actions such as using people (such as men) to become more successful.

Assignment 28 - Your Exit Strategy

1) Identify the exit strategy you plan to make. 

I plan to stay with my business venture for a few decades most likely, and maybe even grow from just an app to a brand.

2) Why have you selected this particular exit strategy?

I plan to take this exit strategy because I have a true passion for health and fitness and believe that everyone should have access to living a healthier lifestyle no matter their income, how many hours they work, if they are single, married, etc. I love people improving their lives and how much of a happier person they become because they take matters into their own hands.

3) How do you think your exit strategy has influenced the other decisions you've made in your concept? For instance, has it influenced how you have identified an opportunity? Has it influenced your growth intentions or how you plan to acquire and use resources?

I believe that my exit strategy and the reason why I came up with ReFresh in the beginning come from the same motive of loving health, and loving to be able to help people. It has definitely affected my vision for the app and how I want to market it.

Assignment 26 - Celebrating Failure

This Spring semester was actually a good semester for me, overall. However, there have been times where I felt like a failure because I did not complete things in the time that I had set out to do them. I also have failed at attending class every day like I set out to do.

Even though my lectures are recorded I find that I learn much better in a classroom environment, so I promised myself that I would attend class every day. I made it about halfway through the semester (which is longer than I've gone in the past), but stopped going right before the midterm to "take study time" and never went back after allowing myself out of the pattern. I had several mornings where I told myself I would wake up and go again, but it just didn't happen. I'm pretty disappointed with myself in this regard, because I know I always make better grades and retain the information better when I am in the actual classroom. Otherwise, I tend to get very distracted and do not focus on the lecture itself.

I am kind of embarrassed about this because I told a few close friends about my goal and I saw me just utterly fail at it. Generally when I fail at something I do get kind of frustrated, but I try not to hold on to that feeling for too long because I know it will do nothing good for me. Overall, I try to move on and just kind of improve myself in the future. So, although I have not yet reached my goal of attending class every day (for my recorded classes), I have made a bit of progress this semester and hope to do even better for Fall 2019.

Assignment 25 - What's Next?

Existing Market.

Step 1: I think that I could expand my venture from what it is when I feel I have enough experience in fitness.

Step 2: I walked around one of my classes and asked a few people (Erin, Samantha, and Rosie) what they thought I should do next after explaining to them my current venture, and all of them actually said that I should include some sort of fitness/exercise regimen if I was interested in expanding my idea. One of the girls also said I should make sure to include vegetarian/vegan options because of the popularity of that lifestyle.

Step 3: I was a bit surprised that everyone came up with the same conclusion that I came to, but I think in some way that is just the next logical step with something that is health related. Rosie leads a women's fitness group here at UF and thought that if I included fitness in the app as well it could be used as a supplement in addition to their weekly group exercises. 

I think to continue my venture I first need to learn more about nutrition and fitness myself, possibly even become certified so that I can best help my clients.

New Market.

Step 1: My new market would be wealthy individuals who are looking for a lifestyle change, or maybe travel a lot for business and need options for healthy eating.

Step 2: To market best to people that are wealthier I could include nutrition information even on air planes. Although I would have to charge them more, I could personalize the service more and even ask them where they are travelling so that I could collect information on the area and provide them with customized information on where the best location to eat would be for their needs.

Step 3: I know several people that are wealthy businessmen thanks to my brother, so I interviewed him and a colleague for this part of the assignment. They both were very interested in the customized health plan and were impressed by the length that I would go to help my clients but mentioned that this information might be difficult to acquire in some areas of the world.

Step 4: I had not thought of the fact that areas like Southeast Asia would have no way of tracking how they made their food, and many restaurants or places to eat would not even have websites or phone numbers to call them. 

I think that my expectations of personalized plans and treatment were correct, but I would need to come up with a better way to successfully create this service for them. I think that this market could be very profitable in the long run, but would have many more expectations from the services that they use and would overall be pickier. 

Assignment 24 - Venture Concept No. 1 - ReFresh

Opportunity. 

There is a need that many people have who have low income or not as much free time to find ways to eat healthier without committing lots of time/money. These people are mostly low-income families, students who frequently having to balance working and school, and working professionals who have long hours at work. Geographically these people can be found all over the country, but especially in areas where the cost of living is normally very high. This opportunity is unfortunately created by the low income to cost of living situations that exist. I do not think something like this currently exists, but people are always trying to find newer and easier ways to lose weight or be healthier, so this satisfies that need. I think that this opportunity will exist as long as we have a large wage gap in this country. 

Innovation.

My innovation is incrementally groundbreaking, as people think of being fit is part of the lifestyle of the "rich and famous." Many people that have a low income do not see that eating healthy is attainable. My app is setting out to change that. I will have a large database of recipes around the $20 range for 4 servings of food all of which provide nutrition information and take under 30 minutes to make. I will also provide a map feature for users to access healthy take-out or delivery food. This will be able to be organized by location, price, allergens, and calorie level. The app itself I am hoping will only cost $1.99 for users to purchase.

Venture Concept. 

I believe customers will switch to my product because nobody offers the same services for this price, and few diet/lifestyle/health apps cater to those that are looking to remain in a certain budget. It should be an easy switch because they are not committing a large amount of money. Competitors could be programs like WeightWatchers or similar, but their price point is high for consumers in my market. Customer service I'm sure will play a key roll in the app development for bugs, reviews, etc. I am hoping that the price point will help the product distribute itself quickly. The venture, however, will start as me being the only real employee with a team of tech people to help with any app issues and nutrition experts helping me with that aspect of recipes.

The Three Minor Elements.

Besides your actual innovative product, service, or process, what will you have that will make it hard for competitors to copy your success?

Nobody can replicate the experiences that I had in my lifetime. I had difficulty losing weight in high school and felt like I did not have the time and resources. This eventually sprouted a passion for nutrition and healthy, which is how the idea for this app came to be.

What’s next for the venture? 

I have considered adding some at-home or even in the office workout routines to the app for users looking to dive into exercise.

What’s next for you? Assuming you launched, where do you want to be in five years with this venture? Where do you want to be, as an entrepreneur, in the next decade, and how does this first venture help you achieve your vision?

I think that this venture helps me re-focus on my own health and prioritize myself in a way, again. As an entrepreneur I just want to be helping people reach their fitness and health goals. To me this is the stepping stone for that. I would love to eventually get a certification in nutrition and personal training in order to share my knowledge of that as well.

Assignment 23 - Your Venture's Unfair Advantage

1. Uniqueness of venture idea: Although there are many apps that cater to health and budgeting, I have not yet found an app that attempts to help users that way that my venture does.
• Valuable: I think that this is valuable as it would the targeting a need that consumers do not have filled yet.
• Rare: It is rare for now.
• Inimitable: I am sure that someone else could think of a similar concept or copy mine in the future.
• Non-substitutable: There are plenty of other unique ideas out there that I'm sure would have similar pros and cons.
2. Social capital: Personal relationship with other people interested in promoting health and wellness.
• Valuable: I think that this is beyond valuable because they would be able to help me market my idea and spread the word of my app.
• Rare: Many people in the world have connections, it's not rare in-and-of itself. 
• Inimitable: Although my personal relationships cannot be copied plenty of people have other connections to friends/acquaintances that could benefit them similarly.
• Non-substitutable: I could get the word out in other ways.
3. Capabilities: I started out school going to culinary school, with a focus in nutrition.
• Valuable: Extremely valuable at coming up with cheap, tasty recipes for my app.
• Rare: Others do go to culinary school, but I think it does give me an edge for my app.
• Inimitable: Could be imitated, but would lack the same passion I have for food.
• Non-substitutable: General knowledge of food cannot substitute formal education.
4. Social capital: Contact with plenty of people that would be in my target market
• Valuable: I need to know what my customers want within the app, and how I can improve - so, very.
• Rare: Not very.
• Inimitable: Nobody can imitate the relationships that I have, but plenty of people have contact with college students and low-income households that would be using my service.
• Non-substitutable: Nothing can be substituted for direct contact with the market. 
5. Social capital: Several of my friends have degrees in nutrition.
• Valuable: For the recipes I post I would easily be able to check with them about nutrition content and overall health, along with calories.
• Rare: Not as rare for a college student, many of my friends are various majors.
• Inimitable: Many people possess degrees in nutrition.
• Non-substitutable: I could check nutrition facts for recipes online, but probably not overall health. Health is more than just calories.
6. Human capital: Experience: In high school I used to be very overweight, so I understand to some extent the struggle to be healthy.
• Valuable: Very. Many fitness/health gurus have never been seriously overweight or lacking funds and therefore many plans do not cater to people with these struggles.
• Rare: Somewhat. We are the most obese country.
• Inimitable: Many people are overweight, but fewer people remain consistent after weight loss.
• Non-substitutable: I think this is probably my most useful and non-substitutable resource.
7. Social capital: Several family member that I have work in app development and with computers. 
• Valuable: Very, they can help me design the app itself.
• Rare: Somewhat, the majority of people have not designed an app before.
• Inimitable: This familial relationship cannot be imitated.
• Non-substitutable: I could hire someone to help me with app design.
8. Social capital: I have been raised around people that created their own businesses and are entrepreneurs.
• Valuable: This made me realize how hard creating a start-up can be, but it also helped me see that it's the long-run that matters more. The results could be worth it for an idea that is well executed!
• Rare: Not extremely.
• Inimitable: Many people have created start-ups, so this is inimitable.
• Non-substitutable: This gives me insight that no other resource could.
9. Human capital: I am generally a pretty creative, visual person which I believe could benefit my app in the long run appearance-wise.
• Valuable: Very, some apps can be very unprofessional/unattractive.
• Rare: Not necessarily.
• Inimitable: Many people are creative and have beautiful apps.
• Non-substitutable: You cannot force or fake having and eye for when something is visually appealing. Some people do not have this quality.
10. Financial capital: In a way, because the app will be so accessible to many people at its low price point.
• Valuable: Many people believe they do not have access to a way to become healthier due to budget/time.
• Rare: Yes.
• Inimitable: It could be imitated in the future.
• Non-substitutable: This is the primary draw that I provide for consumers to use my app, so I do not think it is substitutable. 

I think my human resource of experience is the most valuable resource that I have because it allows me to empathize with my consumers and view things from their perspective as they go down their road towards healthier living.

Assignment 21 - Reading Reflection No. 2

1. What was the general theme or argument of the book?

The book that I chose to reading for this assignment was The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users by Guy Kawasaki. Overall I believe the argument that the book made was how important social media presence is for businesses, especially in today's society, and how correctly managing your businesses social media accounts can really help a business become successful.

2. How did the book, in your opinion, connect with and enhance what you are learning in ENT 3003?

Although the app that I have been doing my assignments about is not necessarily social media related I think that it does go to show you how much our digital connections influence today's society. I most likely would use social media to advertise my app, so it was also very helpful in that respect. Additionally, all of our assignments are submitted as blog posts so I think in many ways the book directly relates to our assignments in this class for that reason.

3. If you had to design an exercise for this class, based on the book you read, what would that exercise involve?

If I had to design an exercise for this class based on the book I think I would create an assignment in which students had to set up social media accounts for their business idea based on the knowledge this book provides.

4. What was your biggest surprise or 'aha' moment when reading the book? In other words, what did you learn that differed most from your expectations?

It's amazing to me how much influence social media has over today's society, but it also interested me that the book mentioned how seriously you should take your start up's social media posts and pages. I guess this makes sense as you do not yet have a reputation so you still need to build one. I always see larger brands like KFC or others posting smart or funny responses to posts, and after reading this book it kind of surprises me that they do that (as many companies have also gotten backlash for doing this and offending someone as a result).

Assignment 22- Elevator Pitch, No 3.

https://youtu.be/Zekpb-530fg

I did not have any comments on my last video, so I did not change anything based off of that when I recorded my elevator pitch this time around. However, I do think that I tried to make it a little bit more upbeat. I struggle with not being monotone whenever I speak (even when I took my public speaking class), and I noticed that I did not have very much variety in my tone with the last attempt. This time around I tried to vary my tone throughout the recording, and I think that the result came out much better. I did also have the pitch almost memorized this time around which I think significantly helped me. It also took me about half the time to record as when I did the first pitch because I felt much less awkward. Overall, I think that these exercises have helped my confidence with speaking in front of the camera a lot!

Assignment 20 - Growing Your Social Capital

1) Domain expert: I was able to contact a mutual friend named Joe via FaceTime to interview him about the idea that I have for ReFresh. He has learned coding and has previously created other apps before, so he has plenty of experience with that. I let him watch my elevator pitch and read some of the posts on my blog so as to get a better picture of what I am envisioning with the app. From what he said the app would be created in the way that I would like, although of course it would be a process of trial and error. He actually wanted me to give him an example recipe to try out for himself. Having Joe in my network could definitely help me come up with a flawless app design to draw in more customers.

2) Market expert: I previously worked for a wellness center in Orlando during high school. I was able to call my old boss, Tracy, and speak with her since she got her degree in Nutrition. She said she loved the idea that I had presented after seeing my blog and would love to partner with my if I created the app. As long as my idea comes to light she also said that she would help me come up with calorie counts, etc. for my proposed recipe ideas. This could help me so much, as all of her clientele would then have access to my app!

3) Supplier: One of my connections from the job that I had in Orlando had my frequently working with someone who supplied health food to a raw bar in the area, and I had a chance to sit down and talk with Deborah about my idea. She was of the opinion that my app would take off, and I will definitely be talking with her about my app idea more in the future so that we can coordinate. She also mentioned she would be happy to give me some of the recipes the raw bar uses and some tricks of the trade to making the recipes flavorful.

Reflection: I think that this assignment actually helped me in many more ways than I thought. I've always had an interest in nutrition and health food, but it helped me see how far your connections can really get you. All of the people I interviewed also seemed very interested in the idea and found it unique and refreshing, which as the idea supplier was extremely gratifying.

Assignment 19 - Idea Napkin No. 2

• Who am I?
• My name is Arielle Bloom, a 4th year Business Marketing student at UF. I also have a huge passion for food, whether that cooking, baking, or just eating. Before switching to business I was actually a culinary arts major! This was a huge inspiration for my app idea, ReFresh, because I have always loved coming up with crazy ways to make healthy food taste good. 
• What am I offering to customers?
• Within the app I am offering a database of healthy food recipes that take under 30 minutes to make and cost $20 or less for 4 serving sizes. I also plan to offer a map feature which uses the users locations in order to direct them to the closest quick eating locations that have cheap, healthy food options. Each location will then offer options based on calories, macros, vegetarian options, and overall "clean" eating options. This will give people who are on a budget but looking to eat healthy a good range of options based on what they want with their diet. That being said, I will charge a small fee to initially buy the app. 
• Who am I offering it to?
• Specifically, I am looking to market towards students and busy professionals (people who travel a lot). My target market is essentially anyone who has a tight budget or is low on time but is looking to lead a healthier lifestyle. 
• Why do they care?
• I think that ReFresh provides a feature that many health-food or diet apps do not provide, it relates to customers in a way that many others do not by putting a focus on time and money. Many Americans do not have much time or funds to eat healthy, or so they think, and ReFresh is looking to change that. 
• What are your core competencies?
• ReFresh focuses on providing a budget-friendly healthy lifestyle for customers.

• Since my last Idea Napkin I have decided to charge customers a small initial fee for the app in order to make some profit from the idea, but I would ideally like to keep the app costing under $2 per user. I think that these ideas do fit together pretty well and I think that there is a need for this kind of app.
• The feedback that I received was only positive, which led me to the takeaways that: there is definitely a need for this app, and I can also market to app to people that travel frequently which is something that I had not previously thought of. I believe that most of this feedback was already initially included in my first idea napkin since most of the comments made seemed to agree that the app would be of use. 

Assignment 17 - Elevator Pitch No. 2

https://youtu.be/XCOSZapwrgw

After reading over the commentary from my previous elevator pitch, I determined that I mostly received positive reactions from those who watched my video. I received good comments about my energy and how I dressed in my business clothing, as well as positive feedback about my app, ReFresh. Everyone seemed to relate to wanting to eat and lead a healthier lifestyle, but seemed to feel restrain based on lack of money or time as a student. Due to this, they were all on board and seemed interested in trying the app should it exist. They only thing that I did find I needed to change was that I originally mentioned the app as being free, but decided to change it to cost a small $1.99 fee based off of the fact that it would still be cost efficient while providing some sort of return to me as the designer of the app. I think that this is a very fair cost, and look forward to seeing how readers react to the price change in this version of my pitch. 

Assignment 18 - Create a Customer Avatar

My customer avatar is based on the prototypical customer that I have described throughout this blog, and today I will be describing more specifically the typical student looking to eat healthy on a budget (or without spending hours on meal prepping and cooking).

My character, I will name her Laura, is a student at a 4-year university between the ages of 18-23 years old, and she is involved heavily in on-campus life! She's a part of the business club for women in business and basically lives on campus, making it pretty difficult for her to eat healthy throughout the day.

She, like most girls, lives in leggings and her sweatshirt for most of the week and when she does have free time she likes to binge-watch Netflix or just chill with her friends. Basically, she does not have much free time and not tons of extra income to be spending $15+ on "healthy" meals to-go. She feels like she is just a typical girl for her age, but wonders how anyone in school has time to balance everything properly AND make time for their personal health.

I have a good deal in common with my customer avatar, and I believe this is because it is easier to determine opportunities for a target market when you are a part of that market. Essentially, you can determine what you need yourself and build off of that as long as others have the same needs as you. So no, I do not think this is a coincidence. I feel like overall I have a pretty good feeling of what my customers need based off of being a part of the target market myself.

Assignment 16 - What's Your Secret Sauce?

1) Describe five ways in which you think you have human capital that is truly unique. I think that five things that make me unique would be my sense of creativity, my love of learning and being a student, and also my sense of adventure. I love finding new ways to make things that aren't very fun a better experience. Finally, I also have a great sense of mediating conflict most of the time (something I learned from having a large, close family), and I am good at assessing every angle of a situation. For example, my mom went to get a new car and did not want to test drive a certain car because the sales person compared it to another car she had mentioned that she was not interested in. I saw the sales technique as him trying to up sell her, and asked to test drive it. In the end, she loved the car!

2) Interview the five people who know you the best.

I interviewed several co-workers and several close friends of mine, as I spend a lot of time at my job and we are like a huge family most of the time. 

https://soundcloud.com/interviews

3) Reflect on the differences. I think that most of the things I observed in myself were pretty accurate, but generally I think we are also our harshest critics and so there were also plenty of things that I did not expect to hear. I was really nice to hear that my co-worker, Jacqui, thought so highly of me. I would keep my list the same, however, I do think that they added some very kind points.

Assignment 15 - Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 2

• Find three people who would fit that segment and arrange to interview them. I interviewed three people for this assignment, Britney, who is a resident where I work who is a dental student, Jamie, who is in one of my classes and works part time as well as being a full time student, and Alec, who is a recently-graduated friend of mine that moved out of the Gainesville area for work.
• Begin with alternative evaluation. I found that price and the user interface mattered the most to those in my segment.
• How/where do they buy? They would buy the product online, either through the Apple Store or on an Android marketplace, and they would pay out of pocket. I do not believe I would need to provide financing due to the low price of the product.
• Post-purchase evaluation. I believe they would find gratification in leading a healthy lifestyle. The app is supposed to making the journey to a different lifestyle much easier and painless, so they would be satisfied based on the results of feeling better, losing weight, or whatever their personal goals may be.
• Report the findings.

Britney is a resident at the apartment complex that I work at, and we have become friendly over the time that she has lived there. However, I know that she struggles with her weight and eating healthily due to being in dental school. She has talked to me so many times about her level of stress and lack of free time in the graduate program. Of course, that came up when I interviewed her as well. She loved the concept of the app and did not seem to mind paying a small $1 or $2 fee for something that would be so useful to her. She did stress that the app would need to be easy to use, because she found many actual "diet" apps were not. 

Jamie is a busy undergraduate business student that feels like he rarely has time to cook based on having a job, being involved on campus, and being a full-time student. He was excited by my app idea for ReFresh, and said that the price would be more than worth it as long as the app did what I had mentioned. His only concern was that he uses his meal plan occasionally, so for college students I may also want to provide "the healthiest restaurants on campus" or something along those lines. 

Alec works full time now and has a hard time adjusting to the fast-paced life of Miami, so he was very interested in my app idea. Especially because his area already has so many options, he said it would be very nice to be able to narrow those down and know he's making a healthy choice. The price, for him, did not seem to be a factor. 

• Draw conclusions. Most of the people that I have interviewed did not care about paying a dollar or two for the app if it was as useful as I have led them to believe. I was a bit surprised by this, because I know sometimes college students are very budget conscious, especially if they do not have enough information about a product. They are much less likely to buy it. Ease of using the app seemed to be the biggest concern among respondents, so when creating the app I will make sure it is very straight forward and streamlined.

Assignment 14 - Halfway Reflection

1) Tenaciousness is a competency. What are the behaviors that you have used (or developed) to keep up with the requirements of this course? 

For me personally, I find that it is best to stay ahead of the game. The first week or two I was trying to submit things a little bit more last minute, but it is so much less stressful to start my work on Monday and work on it little by little throughout the week. Overall, I am much happier with my completed assignment as well!

2) Tenaciousness is also about attitude. Talk about a moment or two when you felt like "giving up." What pulled you through? Do you feel like you've developed a tenacious attitude during the past two months? What experience or experiences most contributed to this?

I have pretty bad anxiety when it comes to public speaking, even though I took a public speaking class. Although the videos are not equivalent to speaking in front of a crowd it still made me very nervous knowing that other people would be watching them. I almost did not submit anything for the assignment, although I had recorded for it. I don't know if I would say I have developed a tenacious attitude, but I did get over my fears and realised that it is not as big a deal as I was making it. What pulled me through was recognising I would sacrifice my grade somewhat if I did not become more confident about my post!

3) Three tips. What are three tips you would offer next semester's student about (1) fostering the skills that support tenacity and (2) developing the 'tenacious mindset' ?

I think that being organised within your class, job, whatever it may be really supports whatever tenacity you start out with. However, if you do need to develop that mindset (like I am doing now), I think that it is also a good starting point. Being organised makes you more sound of mind throughout the semester and gives you more time to come up with genuine ideas for the assignments. This, ultimately, supports the development of a tenacious person.

Assignment 13 - Reading Reflection No. 1

I read:

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

What surprised you the most?

When reading the book, I was most surprised about his unstable mental state and resulting drug use. Most people do not generally associate drug use and dropping out of college with financial success, so it was interested to read about someone who was so successful that broke almost every stigma that we associate with attaining financial wealth.

What about the entrepreneur did you admire?

 I completely admire his perseverance. Even when fired from Apple, he never stopped being an entrepreneur and wanting to innovate technology. It just goes to show what can happen if you never give up on your ideas. It can be extremely difficult to push through when you feel like nobody believes in you.

What about the entrepreneur did you least admire?

I do find issue with his lack of work/family balance. Family is a very important aspect of life, and I don't believe you should make your family suffer or have to choose between work or family in order to be successful. Specifically, he would not claim his child as legitimate for many years. 

Did the entrepreneur encounter adversity and failure? If so, what did they do about it?

Steve encountered failure time and time again throughout the book. He was even at one point fired from Apple. However, in this time he focused on other projects and in turn became even more successful. This eventually led him back to working with Apple, and he did so until he passed away.

What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited?

He was extremely focused on his goals and had huge amounts of perseverance, more than most other people. He was constantly innovating and wanting Apple to be on the forefront of technology, from adding color screens to creating new font types. 

Identify at lease one part of the reading that was confusing to you?

Nothing about the structure of the book or something such as that confused me. However, I was confused and baffled about how people successfully worked with him. He definitely had vision and was ultimately successful, but his personality seems to have clashed with many in the process.

If you were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur, what would you ask? Why?

I would ask:

• Does he have any regrets about how he handled his family life?
• How would his vision of Apple today differ if he were still running the business?

Family is very important to me, and my dad passed away when I was very young. I can't imagine how I would feel without having all those pleasant memories of him from before he passed and the only reason I have those is because he did put family first. Also, I think that he was more innovative than most other people in the company. Due to this, I think it would be interesting to see how he would change Apple's image or products today.

For fun: What do you think the entrepreneur's opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion?

I believe he put a lot of value on hard work and never giving up on your dream. I also believe that. Although it can be very difficult at times, you will never see results of anything if you give up.