Monday, August 28, 2017

3A – My Entrepreneurship Story

My greatest influence in wanting to be an entrepreneur is my father. He is a venture capitalist mainly focusing on tech companies, this means he is constantly investing and working with young companies and entrepreneurs trying to help them succeed. Due to this throughout my entire life I have heard about the start up process, and the risk, reward, and excitement that accompanies it. I have seen how joyful the people who he works with become taking what is just an idea in their head and actually creating something from it. I want to experience this joy of being able to look at a successful company and think I created this.

This summer my desire to work in the start up community grew even greater. I had a wonderful internship at a startup and it was everything I could have wanted. The work was interesting and challenging because we were addressing problems no one had addressed before. The culture was fun because working for a small company meant little to no bureaucracy. Finally and perhaps most importantly the people were driven. When working for a large company often employees dont care they are there for an hourly paycheck. Working for a start-up, most of the employees had options and had made sacrifices for the company. Due to this they actually cared whether the company succeeded or failed. Working with people who care and on something you care about is so much more enjoyable than just grinding away on something you dont care about just to make ends meet.

The reason i am taking this class is because being a computer science major with knowledge about entrepreneurship seems like an ideal combination. The field is growing rapidly with new businesses appearing (and failing) all the time. In  the first assignment for this class we had to list 20 things that bugged us, how many of your bugs could be fixed with a computer? With almost everything in our everyday lives using computers I hope to use the skills I have programming to address the 'bugs' I see in our world.

A picture taken inside the Groundswell Startup Incubator
my father is a partner in.

2A - Bug List

1. In the Marston library it is often difficult to find a spot with access to an outlet especially around exam time.
Why: Because Marston is an older building and was not built with the mind set that every individual student would require an outlet for their personal electronics.

2. There is often no easy way to get around campus, there is often no parking nearby and buses do not go exactly where you need and only come occasionally.
Why: The university has very limited space and does not wish to waste that space on parking. Buses cost money to own and operate so there must be a limited number going a limited number of places.

3. When on a dive charter boat inexperienced divers will sometimes confuse their and your gear.
Why: They are not familiar enough with their gear to distinguish it. There is limited space on the boat so every ones gear is often kind of on top of each other.

4. The nearest shopping centers are not within walking distance of campus making shopping difficult for students without cars.
Why: Shopping centers require large amounts of space which is not available in the area around campus or if it is available is probably very expensive.

5. When my roommates dont put the dishes away after using the dish washer them it can be hard to tell if they are clean or dirty.
Why: Since they are sitting in the dish washer it is sometimes assumed they are dirty and new dirty dishes are mixed in. There is no indicator showing the last time they were washed or something similar.

6. Many classes at the university of florida use HITT clickers which in my experience break often.
Why: Classes require these to take attendance but carrying them around in my backpack along with heavy books often ends up in them breaking and needing to be replaced.

7. There is no good way that I have found to figure out how to get somewhere based on the bus schedule.
Why: When using google maps to figure out how to get somewhere it tells you the fastest way from that very moment. That fastest way might be different if you searched a little earlier or latter depending on the bus schedule. The maps of the bus schedules are a confusing and overwhelming jumble.

8. When moving into a new apartment there are many heavy things to carry from the car to the room requiring many trips.
Why: Apartments do not supply carts to assist with move in as dorms do. Many people do not want to buy a dolly just for move in.

9. Often it is very difficult to understand professors and what they are attempting to teach.
Why: Many professors have strong accents that make them difficult to understand and/or are not excellent teachers despite being experts in their fields of study.

10. When programming on a machine through ssh you can only use certain text editors and can not use more visually pleasing ones. This may result in copy pasting from a local computer.
Why: Only having cmd line access through ssh means you can not use a gui. There is no way (that i know of) to have a gui editor on your local computer automatically upload the code you write to a file on the remote computer over ssh.

11. In Melbourne the bridge over the inter coastal at ocean ave backs up all the way back over the other side of the bridge.
Why: There is only one lane that turns right which is the direction all students and people working at the hospital who live beach side must go. There is also only one lane going straight and a short right turn lane. This is the bridge all Melbourne beach residents must use to get mainland.

12. If you break or lose a phone charger it can be difficult to replace with one of quality. Many of the ones sold second hand are low quality and break often.
Why: Gas stations and other places that sell low quality phone chargers dont care if it breaks. If your buying one from them you are in need of one very quickly probably. If the charger keeps breaking then they can keep making money selling knew chargers.

13. Bikes are a great means of transportation but in Gainesville they are often stolen.
Why: It is possible to lock your bike but you can only lock the frame to something. Since bikes are very easy to take apart it is easy for thieves to steal unlocked parts of the bike like the seat, handle bars, and wheels.

14. When doing laundry I often must wash my clothes extra to get out all the detergent.
Why: The pre-packaged detergent containers are meant to be used in a standard sized washer and the washer in my apartment is very small. There is to much detergent for the amount of clothes/water in the washer.

15. There is no dumpster near my apartment, the nearest one I must take my trash to is across the complex.
Why: My apartment is near the pool, the management of the complex probably does not want a dumpster near the pool making it smell and be less desirable.

16. When traveling/doing something I dont take pictures because they are a hassle but would like to share the experience with others.
Why: Taking pictures means I am focused on the picture not the experience itself. It takes you out of the moment. It also requires bringing around a camera at all times. Phones obviously serve this purpose but their photos are usually not very high quality.

17. In Big Sky Montana (somewhere I lived) everything is closed by 11 pm. There is not a single store open so if you have a late night emergency you are in trouble.
Why: It is a small town with a very spread out population. People are not typically out and about at night so it would be unprofitable for stores to remain open.

18. My truck shows the last audio to play from my phone on the bluetooth display when the phone connects even if it is not playing and is closed.
Why: The phone probably caches the last thing being played as some setting the truck uses for its display. This cache must not be updated until something else is played.

19. My email gets so much spam that some times the real mail gets lost in the heap.
Why: Almost every service requires an email for a user to sign up. Not only do you get emails from all the services you sign up for but they also will sometimes sell your email to other services.

20. When it is raining my laptop and notebooks get soaked when traveling to or from class.
Why: My back pack is not waterproof and there is often not a way to travel from point A to point B while staying undercover.

Coming up with 20 bugs was actually very difficult. I found myself getting stuck on a couple things that really bothered me a lot and not being able to get past those. I had to force myself to expand my thinking and really focus on all the little things i found inconvenient not just the major issues.

Wednesday, August 23, 2017