30A – Final Reflection

What sticks out to you as the most formative experience? 

Assignment 20A- growing your social capital taught me a lot.

The experience that you'll remember years later? 

Definitely all the elevator pitches, i feel they were the most constructive assignments

What experience are you most proud of yourself for accomplishing?

Assignment 16A- what's your secret sauce? because of the interviews and the responses.

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

I wouldn't say i see myself as an entrepreneur yet just because i haven't been in a position of actually starting a business or taking any real steps towards it. However, i have developed more of an entrepreneur mindset for sure throughout this class.

What is the one recommendation you would make to the students who are going to journey down this path in the future? What would you recommend they do to perform best in this course?

For those taking this class in the future i recommend being organized with the assignments and completing them on time. If you do that alone you should be able to get an A in this class. For the cupcakes i recommend watching the videos and taking quick notes on it for reference purposes.

29A – Venture Concept No. 2

Opportunity:
There is an unmet need for one-stop-shop clothing brand for quality ‘basics’. This exists because although theres many clothing brands most are a mix of cheap quality pieces, or the ones that are good quality, are expensive for the everyday consumer. Also, theres almost no competitors for this very specified brand concept of basics, most clothing brands now a days have breadth but not depth in their merchandise. This opportunity is targeted to middle class women ages 18-30. There's about 22,000,000 women in the US within that demographic (Census 2010), a big amount are found in the south and west regions of the US. I believe the window of opportunity for a business like this is now, it's a competitive industry and many new brands are being build in this day and age.

Innovation:
My business concept can be described as incrementally innovative, because compared to the clothing brands that currently exist this concept improves the depth of merchandise. It provides different forms of basics- casual shirts, formal shirts, blouses, casual pants, formal pants, blazers, sweaters, and cardigans- all in a more neutral color spectrum including white/black/nudes. This is innovative in a way because I can't pinpoint one brand with that spectrum that has good long lasting quality in a medium price range- they are all expensive! $30 for a simple casual shirt - no thanks! This concept makes money by selling the clothing pieces for a range of $15-$70. Also the business would strive on being more than 50% sustainable overall and it would grow alongside those who make it possible.

Venture Concept:
This concept addresses the opportunity mentioned above because it would fill the gap in the market for good quality essentials and all at the ease of a one-stop-shop. Customers would switch to this brand because it provides them with an ease of shopping, by having all the essentials in one place, for a reasonable price. This concept is also special because of its sustainability efforts and community growth which is rare for clothing companies. If done correctly, this can go a long way.

The Three Minor Elements:

1. As identified in the prior assignment my most important resource is  the support of my family and friends. Its really important as a start-up to have people who believe in you and can invest in you. It's also important for you to trust the person(s) who give you money. It's easy for someone to be starting their first business venture to get scammed or start partnerships with bad character people.

1. The next step in this business would be creating an extension online where customers could pair different pieces in a virtual model to see what outfits they could create before or after they purchase the clothes. Also have a photo gallery with outfit ideas and you can click on it to be redirected to the page of the specific clothing article.

1. In five years I want the brand to be known in the United States, specifically having stores in major cities and shipping nationwide. I want to start thinking about expanding outside the US by then and having a great team of talented and expert professionals working side by side with me.

Feedback:

This venture concept is very similar from the first one. I received 1 feedback from my first venture concept which was all positive feedback making it hard for me to change anything about the concept.