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My idea is to provide a mobile water bottle delivery truck for Puerto Ricans. I plan on investing around 5000 dollars into this venture. Depending on the success I may invest more. However, I don’t see this lasting for more duration than a few years. I am going to describe the opportunity, the innovation, and the venture concept. Furthermore, I plan to describe smaller elements like what my most important resource is and the future for not only my venture but also myself.

There are many opportunities in the world that people can solve. The opportunity that I ended up attempting to solve was the fact that Puerto Rican citizens and Puerto Rican grocery stores have a lack of clean fresh water to drink after the devastating Hurricane Irma. The potential customers are people that have particularly high levels of water usage and would be willing to buy clean water from any place. Furthermore, my customers will be particularly lower income because they did not have enough money to stock up on water before the hurricane. Water is needed for basic human needs like drinking and cleaning. Without water people may die or resort to unlawful behavior to get their hands on water. It appears America is not doing enough to give aid to Puerto Rico. This forces people to find solutions themselves. Currently many people drink dirty water and complain on social media about water treatment plants and running water systems not working. Shifting gears, the officials of Puerto Rico have declared months ago that water problems are diminishing. The residents beg to differ, as many complaints on social media contradict what the local government is saying. Taking what the government says is true as a conservative estimate of how big the problem is, around “72% of Puerto Ricans now [have] running water.” The population of Puerto Rico is 3.337 million people as of 2015; therefore, doing some simple calculations 934,360 people have issues with water.

My innovation to solve this water issue is to have a truck that acts like an ice cream truck for residents of Puerto Rico but selling water rather than ice cream. This is not a radically innovative idea, which is an advantage. People know what ice cream trucks are and don’t need to learn how they operate. There won’t be any learning curves associated with my innovation which translates to a quicker rate of adoption than more complex innovations. I plan to buy bottled water in bulk. I can purchase each bottle at 86 cents. I plan to buy $3,237.20 worth of bottles. If I sell the bottles at $4 a piece I can make a profit of $3.14 per bottle. I can ship the bottles directly to Puerto Rico, so there will be no costs for transporting them from the mainland. I also need to rent a truck which will be costly. If I were to purchase this, it would be around $3000-$8000. This is more capital than I currently have so I am going to rent one for as cheap as possible. I would expect this to be around $750.

I plan on being a mobile water salesman in Puerto Rico. I think that customers will switch to my product, at least for the short run, if they have an absolute need for water. My prices are high to take advantage of their inelastic demands. Someone is going to pay all the money they can if that means they protect their family. I don’t think it will be hard for them to switch in the short run, but in the long run when the water supplies are fixed I don’t see the practicality of my service. The competitors are the water utility companies, other people who have my same idea, grocery stores the have water supply in Puerto Rico. The distribution of the water is huge for my business plan. I plan on bringing water to people so it is convenient and easy for them rather than having them go out and scavenge. They will be more likely to pay higher prices if they have water right in front of them because people are risk averse. They can take a higher price now or gamble and try to find limited supplies at grocery stores or in supply drops. I plan on this company only being myself.

My most important resource will be the truck. With the truck I can find new people easily, I can transport water directly to people, and I have a safe place for my water storage

.

I don’t see this venture lasting in the long term. This is supposed to be a quick profit where I have no strings attached and nothing holding me back. I want to be in and out of Puerto Rico as quick as possible making money in a short amount of time.

In five years I want my venture to be completely finished and making a profit around $50,000. As an entrepreneur in a decade I want to continue doing small, quick, and easy to pull off ventures like I did right here because I make money for little effort. This venture helps me achieve my vision because it gives me a taste of what a fast paced business looks like.

The feedback for my previous venture concept description was generally positive, however, there were a few points that stuck out in my mind. For one, people thought that my idea was going to have lots of competition. I agree, my idea will have lots of other people doing the same as me. However, I do not plan on being in the business for long. I want to make a quick profit and then get out. An additional comment I had stated that I could expand the products I sell to include other necessities like food and electrical generators.

I did not change anything from the feedback because I do not want the hassle of buying extra inventory in bulk like food and generators.

30 Final Reflection

30

The thing that will stick out most in my mind is the entrepreneurial mindset. Instead of thinking about how to be rich quick, think about how to solve peoples problems. If one finds an idea that is great and capitalizes on that idea, they have a chance at making significant amounts of money. For example, Facebook capitalized on the internet and humans social needs to create one of the largest business in the world.

I do consider myself an entrepreneur because I have been 'solving problems' this semester. I reached out to my apartment complex to solve their residents problem of not having a personal trainer available. I think that I am an entrepreneur because I am in the middle of this process. I am not sitting back thinking about it or reading a book about what entrepreneurs are. I am in the front line going out and making moves.

I would recommend students start thinking about the world in terms of problems that need to be solved, and then think about unique ways to solve that problem.

For the class I recommend working ahead and staying on top of the assignments.

My recommendation for the journey is to realize failure is going to happen, but it will only benefit you to fail. You learn more when you fail which leads to success later on.

28A

28A

Your Exit Strategy

I intend to leaving my business and selling all assets to people in Puerto Rico. I do not plan on employing anyone other than myself, so there will be little issues with discontinuing the company. I want to sell in Puerto Rico rather than in mainland America because I wouldn't have to transport the truck back to America.

The exit strategy has influenced my growth intentions. I purposely wanted to have a small, quick moving business that doesn't have too many employees. I wanted this type of structure because I wanted to be able to shut down my business as soon as possible whenever I want it to be shut down.

27

27A

How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, Scott Adams

1.       The general theme of the book is self-improvement through systems rather than through goals.

2.       The book connects with and enhances the startup process that all entrepreneurs go through. Every entrepreneur has failed at some point during the start up process. Over time, people may fail less because they are gaining skills from past failures. This is the crux of Scott Adams book. It doesn’t matter how many times you get knocked down, it just matters if you pick yourself back up and LEARN from that, so it doesn’t happen again. Relating more to the class, this reminds me about the point made that entrepreneurs who start off rich tend to have success in the short run, but eventually everything tends to equalize because the skills needed may not be developed in the rich entrepreneur.

3.       The design for the class would be to have everyone dream up their ideal situation in life and divide their situation into skills. For example, many people’s dream would be to become a fitness model on Instagram. This dream may be not a possibility for some (based off looks), but this doesn’t change the system that everyone must go through to achieve this. You can divide this into a few aspects. First, one must have the knowledge needed about the human body to build their body through nutrition and the gym. Secondly, one must have their basic life choices down (getting enough sleep, positive mentality, low stress levels, attitude is on point). In both scenarios one can find small wins constantly and feel good about themselves rather than being in a constant state of failure.

4.       My biggest surprise was the fact that I am in a constant state of failure without realizing it and that I could completely change this by implementing Scott’s recommendations. If I systematize my life I could change everything.

26

26A

1.       There was an assignment that asked me to talk about a time I failed and I misspelt the word fail without realizing.

2.       I learned that I need to spell check better when spelling words.

3.       It depends on each scenario how I react to failure. There are times where I fail and I am determined to succeed. Generally these scenarios are scenarios where I am emotionally attached to the outcome and I find passion in what I do. However, if I don’t feel very attached to what I am doing and I fail I do find myself giving up. I know that failure is good for learning, so I embrace it as much as possible.

25

Interview three customers who are already part of the market you have identified and ask them what they believe is next for a venture like yours. Describe to them your business, and simply ask "What should we be doing that we aren't planning to do?" Next, ask them about your ideas of what customers might want next. 

 Based on your own expectations and the feedback you received from customers, set a path for the future. In two to three paragraphs, describe what makes the most sense for your venture in terms of growing in your existing market.

I didn’t expect to get very substantive advice from people. I didn’t think that they would be as helpful as they were. They gave me advice that people would likely buy in bulk water from me, rather than one bottle at a time. They are especially likely to buy in bulk if the prices are lowered. What makes sense for the future would be also to distribute generators. I could help people with not only water in the short run but also electricity.

 Again, describe to each interviewee what your concept is. Then, ask them how they think your business might be helping to meet customers like them. What kinds of adaptations to the product/service mix do they think you should make to be successful in this new market? 

Reflect, in two to three paragraphs, on what you learned about this new market. What surprised you the most? Were any of your expectations/assumptions correct? Does this new market, on second thought, appear to be as attractive as your existing market? And so on. 

I didn’t think that people would be interested in ‘higher quality’ water like smart water. People that have higher income are less likely to want ‘lower quality’ water. Apparently even in circumstances of dire need people are still wanting higher quality water.

24A

24A

Venture Concept Write-Up Guide

My idea is to provide a mobile water bottle delivery truck for Puerto Ricans. I plan on investing around 5000 dollars into this venture. Depending on the success I may invest more. However, I don’t see this lasting for more duration than a few years. I am going to describe the opportunity, the innovation, and the venture concept. Furthermore, I plan to describe smaller elements like what my most important resource is and the future for not only my venture but also myself.

There are many opportunities in the world that people can solve. The opportunity that I ended up attempting to solve was the fact that Puerto Rican citizens and Puerto Rican grocery stores have a lack of clean fresh water to drink after the devastating Hurricane Irma. The potential customers are people that have particularly high levels of water usage and would be willing to buy clean water from any place. Furthermore, my customers will be particularly lower income because they did not have enough money to stock up on water before the hurricane. Water is needed for basic human needs like drinking and cleaning. Without water people may die or resort to unlawful behavior to get their hands on water. It appears America is not doing enough to give aid to Puerto Rico. This forces people to find solutions themselves. Currently many people drink dirty water and complain on social media about water treatment plants and running water systems not working. Shifting gears, the officials of Puerto Rico have declared months ago that water problems are diminishing. The residents beg to differ, as many complaints on social media contradict what the local government is saying. Taking what the government says is true as a conservative estimate of how big the problem is, around “72% of Puerto Ricans now [have] running water.” The population of Puerto Rico is 3.337 million people as of 2015; therefore, doing some simple calculations 934,360 people have issues with water.

My innovation to solve this water issue is to have a truck that acts like an ice cream truck for residents of Puerto Rico but selling water rather than ice cream. This is not a radically innovative idea, which is an advantage. People know what ice cream trucks are and don’t need to learn how they operate. There won’t be any learning curves associated with my innovation which translates to a quicker rate of adoption than more complex innovations. I plan to buy bottled water in bulk. I can purchase each bottle at 86 cents. I plan to buy $3,237.20 worth of bottles. If I sell the bottles at $4 a piece I can make a profit of $3.14 per bottle. I can ship the bottles directly to Puerto Rico, so there will be no costs for transporting them from the mainland. I also need to rent a truck which will be costly. If I were to purchase this, it would be around $3000-$8000. This is more capital than I currently have so I am going to rent one for as cheap as possible. I would expect this to be around $750.

I plan on being a mobile water salesman in Puerto Rico. I think that customers will switch to my product, at least for the short run, if they have an absolute need for water. My prices are high to take advantage of their inelastic demands. Someone is going to pay all the money they can if that means they protect their family. I don’t think it will be hard for them to switch in the short run, but in the long run when the water supplies are fixed I don’t see the practicality of my service. The competitors are the water utility companies, other people who have my same idea, grocery stores the have water supply in Puerto Rico. The distribution of the water is huge for my business plan. I plan on bringing water to people so it is convenient and easy for them rather than having them go out and scavenge. They will be more likely to pay higher prices if they have water right in front of them because people are risk averse. They can take a higher price now or gamble and try to find limited supplies at grocery stores or in supply drops. I plan on this company only being myself.

My most important resource will be the truck. With the truck I can find new people easily, I can transport water directly to people, and I have a safe place for my water storage

.

I don’t see this venture lasting in the long term. This is supposed to be a quick profit where I have no strings attached and nothing holding me back. I want to be in and out of Puerto Rico as quick as possible making money in a short amount of time.

In five years I want my venture to be completely finished and making a profit around $50,000. As an entrepreneur in a decade I want to continue doing small, quick, and easy to pull off ventures like I did right here because I make money for little effort. This venture helps me achieve my vision because it gives me a taste of what a fast paced business looks like.