30A – Final Reflection

What sticks out to you as the most formative experience? 

I think the most formative experience this semester has been quarantine and the way the whole world reacted to the pandemic and also the racial issues going on during this time as well. 

The experience that you'll remember years later? 

One experience during this semester I'll remember years later is being stuck at home for weeks/months on end, particularly because I enjoyed being home. 

What was your most joyous experience? 

My most joyous experience this semester was probably my parents getting remarried. 

What experience are you most proud of yourself for accomplishing?

I am proud of getting through this semesters classes. As time goes on, school is more and more of a struggle because I hate school. I love learning, I just hate having to learn stuff that doesn't apply to anything and also have to memorize it and regurgitate it for an exam. I cannot wait to never have to take another class again, although I will say I enjoyed this class as it did actually apply to my life. 

At the beginning of the semester, I mentioned that I wanted each of you to develop an entrepreneurial mindset. Now, at the end, do you see yourself as an entrepreneur? 

I saw myself as an entrepreneur long before this class and it was nice to be able to apply my mindset to a course here at UF. 

Do you think you have moved closer to developing an entrepreneurial mindset?

Because of the mentorship program I am in, I have very much already developed an entrepreneurial mindset, as I am surrounded by successful business people all the time, but this class definitely helped me see different aspects of business which I appreciate. 

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

I would recommend taking advantage of opportunities to meet people who are successful business owners and seek mentorship from people who have what you want in business, relationships, health, spiritual life, and finances, as those are the main areas of life. 

What would you recommend they do to perform best in this course? 

Work ahead. 

What would you recommend they do to foster that mindset?

Get around people who already have the mindset they want to adopt. Mindset is more so "caught" than it is taught. 

29A – Venture Concept No. 2

1.

Opportunity

The forces creating opportunity in this environment are all the athletes speaking up about their abuse situations during there athletic careers. Verbal abuse has been present in sports for a very long time, however, many athletes are speaking up about it now more than they ever have. Geographically, there is no specific group of people that this will target. Demographically, there is no specific group either since what I’m offering will range from young children, to older experienced adults. My audience will typically be low-middle class, on up. Some coaches are satisfying there need with general self education, however, many of them aren’t satisfying this need at all because they don’t know of any resources. I believe that this opportunity is huge, yes to make great profits, but more importantly to make a huge impact. I believe this window of opportunity will be open forever, because there will always be ways to improve personally and be better for our athletes. 

Innovation

In the gymnastics community, and athletic community in general, there is a huge need for coaches to better learn how to communicate with their athletes so they can bring the best out of them without being abusive or psychologically manipulative. What I am creating is going to be on online resource targeted mainly toward coaches, but I will also have content for the athletes and parents of athletes as well. 

Coaches content:

What I will be providing for coaches are recorded interviews, podcasts, articles, curriculums, and a book to access that all educate coaches on how to coach more effectively. These will cover a variety of topics like how to help an athlete overcome a mental block, how to use positive reinforcement vs. negative reinforcement, never wanting more for an athlete than they want for themselves, etc.. I will have many different guest speakers and experts to offer their knowledge when it comes to the psychology behind the sport. 

Athletes content:

This will mostly be interviews for the athletes to watch with guest speakers who are athletes they most likely look up to, speaking about different topics. Some of these topics will cover how to deal with injuries, how to deal with burnout, how to overcome mental blacks, etc..

Parents content:

This content directed toward the parent will be all about how to best look after their athlete. This content will be articles, interviews, and podcast covering topics like how to best be supportive of their athlete, how to be involved but not overly involved in their child’s sport, etc..

To have access to my resource, there will be a $20 monthly subscription fee that will include standard content like podcasts, and interviews, but additional fees for the book and curriculums. 

Venture Concept 

This opportunity will help alleviate some of the issues going on on the sports world related to verbal abuse. I don’t think my customers will really be switching from anything, but more so starting something new. The main competitor is a guy named Nick Ruddock who does something very similar to what I want to do, however, he is based in the UK and does most of his work there, and I don’t think that is a weakness of his, but it is more so an opportunity for me to have more opportunity in the US. I will not be limited to the US, though. Since my business will be online I will not have to worry about packaging and things of that nature. Given that my start up costs will be very minimal, I plan to create content for a year in advance before releasing any, and then from that point start releasing the content and continue creating more.

My most important resource will be my experiences and other experiences to pull from. For the next venture, I would branch off to start hosting seminars and gymnastics camps. 

In five years I want this to have 2000+ subscribers and by the 10 year mark I want to be hosting seminars for coaches and clinics as well. As an entrepreneur, I want to continue creating and adding value to people. I want my business to make so much profit that I don’t have to base my decisions off of how much it costs. I want to make all of my decisions based on my values and goals, not my checkbook.

2.

The only constructive feedback I received was about how creating content for a year before releasing any could be very costly if I don't plan on making any money in the first year. Given the nature of what I'm creating, I don't see that being a problem because my startup costs are going to be very low, and I have plenty of capital to pull from. 

3.

Given that feedback I did add in a part saying that my startup costs will be low, and that'll be very doable for me to do.