Week 8 Reading Reflection

Angel capital was interesting for me in this chapter because I had never heard about it before.  I also thought it was surprising that the median amount for an informal investment is $700,000, because that seems like quite a lot. I was also shocked to read that theres only around 500,000 people in the United States that have over a million dollars in wealth, I assumed there would be so many more, considering our population is over 325 million people.  Venture financing was a little confusing for me, when the pool talked about if a group of people was available for venture financing, and then came up with a number of what the pooled money would amount to, I was unsure about where this number came from.  If I were to ask the author a question, I would want to know what methods he thinks is best for collecting the funds for a start up.  Or if he has started a business, how did he collect his funds and does he have any regrets?  I did not disagree with anything written in this chapter.

Half-way Reflection

This is the image google uses in it's definition of Entrepreneurship. So far I have really enjoyed this course and I think the image above defines it well. I have definitely developed the skills needed to succeed in this course.  In the beginning, when the assignments would require video recording and going out and talking to actual business owners, interviewing random people, and various other intimidating activities, I would forgo doing those assignments because I was much less comfortable doing them.  As I saw my grade slip, I learned that I just have to be confident and go out and do the assignments, even if they are intimidating.  As I did more and more assignments, I became so comfortable with going up to random strangers and entrepreneurs and asking if I could ask them a couple questions.  I was frustrated that I lost those points earlier in the course, just because I was nervous about the assignment.  My advice to those students who are taking this class next semester is just to jump in and start learning to be comfortable with the activity based assignments right away, because you eventually will have to. When I was interviewing Entrepreneurs, I interviewed someone who I realized was just the owner of a chain restaurant, so he did not create the restaurant himself.  After searching for more entrepreneurs and running into this same problem over and over, I felt like giving up.  But I stuck with it, and told myself I would try a couple more businesses; and I found a business owner at the next shop I went into, who was willing to be interviewed.  The key is persistence, so I would encourage future ENT students to be persistent, confident, and driven.  Its important to stay on top of the work and check canvas frequently, as deadlines can pass quickly.

The Twenty Percent

The first video is an audio recording of my interview with the owner of Maude's Cafe, and the following three interviews are of three Maude's customers.  It was interesting to see that what the owner thought Maude's biggest problem, was unmentioned in the interviews with customers.  The customers seemed to thing customer service, the time it took to receive what they ordered, and the seating at the cafe was insufficient or less than desirable.  They only rated these issues as a problem from about a 4 to a 6, so not too bad. The owner, however, did not mention any internal problems that Maude's had, but only mentioned the homeless coming to disturb the customers and ask for money.  The owner did not accurately understand the customers problems, but the owner also did not know that I was going to interview her customers as well, so this might have been why she did not feel the need to disclose any internal problems, such as customer service.