Assignment 30A

Assignment 30A- Final Reflection 

1) What sticks out to you as the most formative experience? The experience that you'll remember years later? What was your most joyous experience? What experience are you most proud of yourself for accomplishing?

I think that my most formative experience is having to interview so many people during the semester. I think it really helped my communication skills and helped me realize how easy it is to just talk to someone that you don't know that well. I think this will definitely help me when I join the workforce after I graduate. The experience that I will remember years later would be to fill an elevator pitch. This really took me out of my comfort zone and it taught me how to be able to entice someone into hearing what you have to say about a product that you are passionate about or just in general something that you really enjoy. I'm really proud of myself for being able to turn in the 3 elevator pitches because I was very uncomfortable with having to film myself. 

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

I think that I have moved closer to developing an entrepreneurial mindset. This class has helped me set goals for myself and being able to accomplish them is great. I also think that creating an idea from scratch was very hard and coming up with something that people would find helpful was very challenging. I think that was what helped me the most to develop that mindset of being able to potentially start a company in the future.  

3) 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? What would you recommend they do to foster that mindset?

One recommendation I have for students in the future is to make sure that they stay on top of the assignments that are due in the class. I think each assignment helps you develop a lot of necessary skills that will help you in the future.  I would recommend just making a draft during the week and finishing the idea up later, that way the can work on the assignments throughout the week. To foster the mindset I would just say to make sure that you are putting a lot of thought into each assignment and treating it as if it were a real company. 

Assignment 29A

Assignment 29A- Venture Concept No. 2 

Opportunity. 
 I believe that there is an opportunity to find lost children and other people that you go with to the park. Even if people aren't necessarily lost, it would be easy to keep track of people in your group. The potential customers for this product would be children starting from ages 7 and adults of all ages. The forces or changes creating this opportunity is mainly children who get very easily distracted and don't follow their parent's orders when they are at a young age. The market for this product is mainly for Magic Kingdom since this is their more popular park. However, this need also applies to any other amusement park. Customers are satisfying the need right now by just using their phones and making their children memorize their parent's phone numbers. I've seen that groups of people also assign a certain spot of the park as their meet up spot. There is also a solution that is provided to meet this need in the park. Disney has a place in the front of the park designated for children who get lost to go there. I think that this opportunity is very big because it would be beneficial to a lot of people. I think the window of opportunity is pretty big because this need isn't something that will go away.

Innovation. 
To solve this unmet need, I would use several items that Disney already sells and provides. The first item that I would use would be the magic band. This band can be bought at any of the parks as well as online. This band can be linked to the tickets and all of the information you need if you are staying at any of the hotels in the park. In addition to all of the information that it provides you with if you stay at one of their hotels, you would get one for free. To solve this unmet need I would create a GPS device that would have to be installed into each magic band. With this magic band, you would be able to scan them in a machine. The machines that Disney already provide as their fast pass system would be changed into a map of the park and it would be able to show you your current location and also the location of the people that you came with to the park. In other words, I would be selling the new magic bands with the tracker in them. I would be making money by selling the magic bands at a slightly higher price than they were before. The price of the magic bands depends on the design that's on them, so the price would increase slightly accordingly to what their price is.

Venture Concept. 
My product would solve the unmet need of lost children and just wanting to know the location of your friends and family in a park. It is a very simple solution to a problem that many parents may encounter while going to the park. Even though technology is very prevalent in today's society, phones can run out of battery. The magic band would never run out of battery and it is a quick way to access the location. With Disney's extensive resources the device can be as accurate as possible with no glitches. Customers would switch to this product instead of resorting to their phones because it is something that they have very easy access to. With this device, they don't have to worry about losing their tickets. All the information that they would need during their stay at the park is accessible through their wristband. I don't think it would be hard to switch to this alternative because so many people have the magic bands already or want to purchase them. As of right now, there are no competitors to this product. Some weaknesses or vulnerabilities that the product might have would be the accuracy of the locations. I think that design, price as well as customer experience play an important part in my business model. Since the magic band is a kind of accessory I think the design is something that people are bound to care about. Price is a given since magic bands are not something that is absolutely necessary it is important to keep the price attainable for customers.  I also think that customer experience is important because they must be able to use the product successfully for it to continue to sell. Customers must see this product as something helpful to them or else they won't purchase it.

The three minor elements 
I think that my most important resource is that this product is very accessible. For a product to succeed, customers must be able to buy the product anywhere they would like. It is easy for them to purchase it while they are at the park. It is also sold online and they ship internationally so this makes it easy access for everyone.

The next step for this venture would be to expand to the different parks that Disney has. If it becomes a success at magic kingdom and if the product is developed well and it works then that would most likely be the next step. 

In 5 years if this venture were able to launch successfully I would like to keep working for Disney. I really like their company and I think that since I was part of something that launched at their parks I would want to continue to work for them developing new concepts and ideas.

2) All of my feedback on the venture concept was positive. No one said anything that was negative about it and they all said they liked my idea. I then went to look at my what's next feedback and a lot of people were intrigued by what my new market was. They said that it would be interesting to have some kind of GPS system for emergencies. I really didn't know what to do next because I didn't receive any kind of constructive criticism on my assignment.

3) Overall, since I didn't receive any negative feedback on my venture concept I really didn't change it. I do believe that maybe one of the negative things about this product is still the accuracy of the location and the price point that Disney may put on this band.