26A – Celebrating Failure

My biggest failure this semester was having to drop my engineering statistics course. I knew the class would be difficult going in but it was much harder than I anticipated. It started out easy enough because I took and passed AP statistics in high school. However by the end of the first exam we moved on to materials I was not familiar with. The graduate student instructor was terrible at explaining things and extremely boring. We often compared him to Ross from Friends. I tried to study by myself but failed miserably due to a difficult to understand book. I think failure is a lesson. I think if I had dedicated more time to the class and watching videos like khan academy I could have succeeded. Im upset with myself about that. If you try your absolute hardest then it is no big deal.

25A – What’s Next?

Existing Market
The biggest thing that is next for my current market is developing the technology behind it. This will be the hardest part of the entire venture I believe. Pretty much everyone I talked to agreed with me that the thing I needed to focus on was the underlying technology. That will really make or break the whole business. If it is good enough to provide an immersive experience it will be great. If it is unrealistic, grainy, and jerky people will not pay for it. They also all said why limit yourself to this travel VR or AR. If you develop the technology that is good enough companies will be all over you to use it for their purposes.
New Market
The applications for VR and AR are endless. With the technology developed for my original concept I could reach many other markets. One market I thought of is as a training tool.  Think about a medical school student for example. They could use VR to practice or learn more about surgery for example. This creates value because it may allow people to train to do tasks where actually doing those tasks over and over again might be expensive or unrealistic. The first person I interviewed was my aunt who is a doctor. She said she could definitely see an application for this especially among starting med school students. The next person I talked to is my roommates dad who is a former air traffic controller. He said it would be a great training tool for pilots.

22A – Elevator Pitch No. 3

I tried to be clear and straight to the point. I wanted the pitch to be easy to understand for someone with out any technical knowledge.

23A – Your Venture’s Unfair Advantage

• Generate a list of all of the resources in your venture (produce a list of at least 10 resources that you already possess). This can include your human capital, social capital, financial capital, and capabilities. You may also discuss the organizational culture you intend to create (but, obviously, it's not a resource that you have, now.) 
• Conduct a "VRIN" analysis for each resource. That is, describe, for each resource, how it is valuable, rare, inimitable (how hard it is to copy by others), and non-substitutable (are there other resources that can provide the same benefits?). 
• Remember, not ALL resources will measure up well. That's OK. You just need one. 
• After conducting the VRIN analysis, determine what your top resource is. Explain why it's more important to your venture than all of the other resources.

1) My first resource is my programming talent.  I have not done VR before but I could learn more quickly than most other people.  

-This is a valuable resource since pretty much everything involves computers now

-It is not that rare especially at a University

-It is very imitable, anyone can start learning with some googling

-The key to this resource is building the VR engine which will be unsubstituable and inimitable (hopefully).

2) A project as big as this VR would not be possible without a whole team of engineers behind it. So a resource is many of the computer science students I am friends with. Many CS students are extremely entrepreneurial and dream of being the next Jobs or Gates. I could probably get a team together around a good idea.

-This is a valuable resource, cheap engineers aren't that easy to come by

- It is actually pretty rare. The fact that we are at a University means there are plenty of programmers I could recruit. In another town that may not be the case.

- It is imitable, obviously anyone can assemble a team, it might be harder and more expensive else where however

- There is no other resource that can replace a team of engineers

3) I am familiar with start up organization. Many start ups especially tech ones use the Agile framework as a way to organize there business. I have worked at businesses with this framework before and would implement it in mine to maximize efficiency.

-This is an extremely valuable resource. Many people have a great idea but don't know the business side.

-If you have worked with tech startups you have likely seen this, or you can read about it. Therefor it is common.

-Anyone can read about an imitate this.

-You could use other frameworks but this is a tried and trued method.

4) I have connections in the tech startup world. I know members of various venture firms who once I developed an alpha product I could approach. Venture firms fund companies the large amount of money it often takes to develop software. In exchange they receive a percentage of the company and usually board seats as well.

-This is a valuable resource, many companies die simply because they can not be funded

-It is pretty rare, especially for someone my age.

-It is not imitable.

-VC firms are actively looking for investment opportunities. So if your idea is good you can hopefully get in the door without to much trouble.

5) My next big resource is the University. There is a gator VR club I can use to learn more about VR. There are also opportunities to get funding from the University if I wanted.

-This Is a valuable resource, having someone teach me will significantly speed up the time I can learn to build VR apps in.

-This is a kinda rare kinda common resource. It might be common for college students but rare for most people.

-You could hire someone to help you.

-You could use online resource as a substitute but I believe it is best to be in person.

6) Another resource is the time. Im early on this idea its not possible yet. I will be ready when the time is right though.

-It is a valuable resource, 10 years ago it would be impossible to VR, 10 years from now it may be to late. It should become possible within the next 5 years I believe.

-Everyone has this resource

7) Another resource I have is the competitiveness of the VR device market. There are currently only a couple companies all vying for power. This makes the possibilities of getting deals with various manufacturers easier since they are all looking to out do their competition.

-This is a valuable resource, some markets are harder to enter than others.

-It is not a rare resource

-Much of the tech market shares the trait of having a low barrier to entry if you have the skills to create what you want.

-There really isn't a substitute. If you have a great product but enter a saturated established market it will be much harder to break in.

8) I am familiar with start up organization. Many start ups especially tech ones use the Agile framework as a way to organize there business. I have worked at businesses with this framework before and would implement it in mine to maximize efficiency.

-This is an extremely valuable resource. Many people have a great idea but don't know the business side.

-If you have worked with tech startups you have likely seen this, or you can read about it. Therefor it is common.

-Anyone can read about an imitate this.

-You could use other frameworks but this is a tried and trued method.

9) My third resource is distribution, I only have to target certain historic sites when having people use it as a supplement when visiting a site. If people want a completely virtual experience I would distribute it through an online store such as steam or a company website.

-This is valuable since it is much easier to get into an online store and distribution is not an issue.

-It is common among software companies

-No it is not imitable

-The substitute is having a physical product that requires distribution and contracts with stores

10) My final resource is the cheapness it takes to enter the first stages of a tech startup. Above I mentioned the cost and how it was expensive often requiring funding. It is expensive to reach a final product but to begin development is extremely cheap. Often the only cost to begin is the time you spend.

-This is a valuable resource because it means minimal investment is needed to get started

-It is common among software startups

-It is not imitable

-There is no substitute

The real resource and the only one that would matter for this company to exist is the tech to make realistic renderings of VR anchored to points in a video stream. This is what we would have to develop.

21A – Reading Reflection No. 2

1. The general theme of this book was that you cannot have a one dimensional approach to entrpeneurship.

2. This connected with the class because this class encourages you to think differently and look at problems and opportunities from different angles.

3. My exercise is to look at your current business idea. Point out problems with your solution and other possible solutions. How are you gonna beat those other solutions.

4.

20A – Growing Your Social Capital

Quick rant first before I write my interviews. Asking us to interview these people is excessive. If someone is a "market expert" they are probably a very busy person who does not have time to be interviewed for a class like this. I tried to meetup with many people only to be declined/ignored/have a meeting scheduled for after this assignment was due.
1. The first social contact I made is with Micah. Micah is the CEO of a tech incubator. They assist tech startups in by giving them a place to work and providing them with advice and connections. I am counting him as a domain expert, even though he does not know much about VR he is familiar with the tech startup scene. I know Micah because my dad is a part owner of the groundswell, and I have facilitated contact between himself and computer science club leaders at UF. I contacted him over email and then we talked on the phone. This person did not do a favor for me but rather I did a favor for them. I assisted in organizing a large group of UF students to attend a conference he is hosting. Including this person in my network is very valuable since they have lots of experience and connections in the tech startup area.

2. The second social contract I made was. Finding a market expert was extremely difficult and I didn't know where to start. I was not able to schedule a meeting with any VR tourism companies so I ended up settling for a hotel manager. Denny manages a large number of hotels across the US. This is not exactly my market but it is tourism so I will pursue it. I contacted Denny by getting his email address from his son who is a longtime friend of mine. I asked him about appealing to tourists, what are they looking for. Along with the process of having a hotel advertise your service to the guests for you and various other marketing tactics. I hope that I can transition Dennys knowledge of the US tourism market to the European one.

3. The third social contract I made was Owen. Owen is a tech recruiter who specializes in helping smaller companies find talent for highly technical projects. I am saying this person is my supplier since they can supply a team of talented individuals to build this product. A better supplier would be someone who actually builds VR devices but that is all done by major companies where I could not secure a meeting. I found Owen because I had heard his name mentioned before so I asked a person I knew had been recruited by him for his email. In our exchange I introduced myself and asked him to walk me through the steps he takes to discover and recruit talent. The favor he did me was taking the time to explain this process. Including this person in my social contract will help me take advantage of an opportunity because I will need programmers to assist in developing my project.

Reflect - First please refer to my starting rant if any instructor actually reads these posts. Honestly I do not see this experience changing the way I behave at net working events at all.