ENT Blog Emilia Gschossmann

Source: https://www.shutterstock.com/search/all+done 1) For me the course had a completely new structure which I never experienced before at my home university. It felt weird to create a blog, doing blog posts and knowing that I am responsible by myself for what I get out of this class. Sometimes I was really motivated and did several blog posts on one day, sometimes I procrastinated and did not want to think about the next interviews I had to conduct. Thus, learning how to motivate me to get all the assignments done will be one of the main takeaways of this class. 2) I think that I did not really develop an entrepreneurial mindset during this class. Although I enjoyed learning so much about entrepreneurs, their mindset and decisions, I doubt that I will be one by myself soon. Furthermore, being willing to take more risks or having better ideas cannot be learned in an electronic platform course. But all the assignments learned me one thing for sure: to be more comfort...

1) Venture concept Opportunity First, I would like to explain the opportunity my venture concept tries to exploit. Nowadays many people have a special diet, from glutenfree to vegetarian and vegan. The trend for those special diets is increasing. Around 4% of all Americans have a vegetarian diet, and nearly 50% of all Millennials say, that they eat vegetarian. A lot of those young people cannot stick to their diet when eating outside. Especially fast-food restaurants have very little to no vegetarian alternatives on their menu. Thus, customers have to eat meals with meat instead of a vegetarian dinner, or they have to go for the side dishes, e.g. side salads or fries. The market for vegetarian fast-food restaurants is limited to regions where many young and open-minded people life, i.e. cities or colleges. In those regions, a vegetarian fast-food restaurant would find enough customers to flourish. Since having special diets is a trend, the “window of opportunity” is not open forev...

1)  I don't want to sell my business in the next years. I want to employ more staff so that I can deal with the managerial aspects of the business rather than the operational aspects. Furthermore, I would like to expand.  2) Only when I achieved my goals and developed my business to a flourishing restaurant chain, I would be willing to exit and sell the business. Otherwise, it would give me the feeling of having failed. 3) My exit strategy has influenced my growth intentions for sure. If I would like to sell my business immediately, I would not need to think about growth opportunities that much. Furthermore, I would not invest that much into resources when I would sell my business soon, because I could not take advantage of the assets anymore. The outlook of selling my business soon would demotivate me, and I would not be willing to invest that much time and energy into my business anymore.

I chose “Grinding it out: The making of McDonald’s” by Ray Kroc for my third and last reading reflection. Part 1) The aspect that surprised me the most is that Ray Croc is so convinced of the fact, that you can achieve everything you want with endurance and hard work. That is also the aspect I admire the most about him. He did not have a lot of success the most time of his career, but he never gave up. And one day, he had this brilliant idea about teaming up with the McDonald’s brothers, and he put so much time and energy into this idea, that it got one of the most popular companies on earth. The one aspect I admire least about Ray Kroc is that he is known for not treating his employees very well. Part 2) Ray Kroc exhibited a huuuge portion of endurance. He sold paper cups and mixers until he was 52 years and he never gave up when he had a new business idea. Part 3) Confusing for me was, why Ray Kroc worked for a paper cup and mixer seller for such a long time. The way how...

1) I failed this semester in a few different ways: I was sick very often, but I don't know why. Maybe it' because the germs here in the US are different to the ones in Germany. Maybe it's due to the A/C s here in the US. That I was sick so often has lead to the fact that I couldn't do sports as much as I would have liked to. That is why I think I failed in my sports plans. I failed in my plans of staying in contact with everyone at home. During the exchange semester, you get to know so many new people and make so many new friends, that it is really hard to stay in contact with everyone at home. At least I managed to talk to my best friends regularly, and I hope that the others will forgive me and I can catch-up with them when I am back home again. 2) I learned to accept that you can't always meet your goals and that you have to adjust your plans based on situations. E.g., I couldn't do any sports when I was sick. When I did sports, it made everything worse...

Existing market 1) I think what's next for my business regarding products and services might be new meals, desserts, and appetizers on the menu (e.g., vegan apple pie). 2) In my interviews, the three customers told me that they would prefer having a fixed menu and certain dishes that change from day to day. Furthermore, they recommended me to introduce a lunch special, so that more students and UF employees would come to my food truck for lunchtime. Additionally, the interviewees want me to introduce ice cream and milkshakes to my menu. When I told them about my idea of adding more desserts and appetizers to the menu, they liked it and encouraged me to pursue this idea. 3) I think for my business it is most valuable to have a variety of meals that appeal to the broad mass. Therefore, introducing a fixed menu and a daily menu with changing dishes might be a good idea. New market 1) A different market where I could expand into would be the ordinary restaurant business. E...

Opportunity First, I would like to explain the opportunity my venture concept tries to exploit. Nowadays many people have a special diet, from glutenfree to vegetarian and vegan. The trend for those special diets is increasing. Around 4% of all Americans have a vegetarian diet, and nearly 50% of all Millennials say, that they eat vegetarian. A lot of those young people cannot stick to their diet when eating outside. Especially fast-food restaurants have very little to no vegetarian alternatives on their menu. Thus, customers have to eat meals with meat instead of a vegetarian dinner, or they have to go for the side dishes, e.g. side salads or fries. The market for vegetarian fast-food restaurants is limited to regions where many young and open-minded people life, i.e. cities or colleges. In those regions, a vegetarian fast-food restaurant would find enough customers to flourish. Since having special diets is a trend, the “window of opportunity” is not open forever, but I think openi...

In the following I want to point out all the resources my venture has so far: 1) Passion for food - Valuable: Having a passion for food is valuable when opening up a vegetarian fast-food restaurant because it allows me to produce high-quality food and not low-cost/low-effort food as most ordinary fast-food restaurants do. You need a passion for what you do, otherwise, you won’t do it well. - Rare: This resource is rare because not everyone has a passion for food. Others have a passion for cars, finance, etc. - Inimitable: Passion is very hard to copy. If you don’t have it, you will most likely not develop it. - Non-substitutable: Passion is non-substitutable, if you don’t have it you might do your work just for money. And then your results will definitely be not the same. 2) Endurance - Valuable: Nothing is perfect from the beginning. Thus, it takes hard work and endurance to improve it until you’re satisfied with the result. - Rare: Not everyone shows endurance, most o...

Below you can find my third attempt to record an elevator pitch promoting my business idea of a vegetarian fast-food truck. Reflection: I got a lot of positive feedback for my last pitch regarding the facts I mentioned about vegetarianism. That is why I kept the content of my pitch kind of the same. One aspect that I was recommended to change, is the light. That's why I lightened up the room this time. Basically, that is the only thing I changed from the second to the third elevator pitch.

I selected “Thinking fast and slow” by Daniel Kahneman for my second reading reflection. 1) General theme/argument of the book The book investigates how our brain works and comes up with a theory about two systems: one automatic and impulsive system (system 1) and one very conscious and considerate system (system 2). While system 1 is a remnant from our past and crucial to our survival, system 2 is a rather recently “added” to our brain. Kahneman found out that our brain works according to the law of least effort, which means that our brain uses the minimum amount of energy for each task. Therefore, our brain does not use system 2 if it thinks that system 1 can make the decision too. This leads to serious mistakes and errors sometimes. 2) Link to ENT3003 I think the book “Thinking fast and slow” and the class “Principles of Entrepreneurship” match perfectly together. As we learned during the course, entrepreneurs need to exploit opportunities. The book showed me how many e...

1) Anna Müller is the owner of a restaurant in Germany. She fills the slot of being a domain expert because she serves food as I do in my business. I found the person with the help of my parents, who know her very well and thus could easily connect us. Anna did the favor of telling me how it really is to work in a restaurant and to cook all day long. She told me about the advantages and disadvantages and what I can expect from the work. The contact with Anna will help to the extent that I will always have someone who I can go to when I have a question regarding my fast-food business. 2) Luis Gallagher is an employee in the marketing area of a major fast-food chain. I got in contact with him on Heavener Business Week and asked him if he had time for a few questions regarding my business. He fills the slot of the market expert, because he knows everything about the customers of fast-food restaurants, what their preferences and characteristics are. Luis Gallagher did me the favor of an...

1) Me I am Emilia Gschossmann, a third-year international business student at UF. When I think about my talents, the first things that come to my mind are that I am quite good organized and that I can manage things very well. Those are very general talents that help me along my way. I am very interested in Tax and Accounting and did three internships in this area of business, in order to gain more experience. My aspiration in life is contributing something to a more sustainable future. This goal is also one of the reasons why I started to eat vegetarian because it is much more economically-friendly. Thus, my business idea would fit very well into my life and it could help me achieve my personal goals. 2) What I am offering to customers I offer customers a fast-food restaurant/food-truck, where they can choose between vegetarian meals and food with meat. In addition, all food options are supposed to be very healthy, e.g. instead of a hamburger with an ordinary bun, I would offer...

The customer segment I chose two assignments ago is characterized by 18 to 25 years old students who pursue a sporty lifestyle and care a lot about their nutrition. In this assignment, I would like to go a bit further and describe a very specific type of customer, i.e. to create a customer avatar. Customer Avatar The prototypical customer I want to describe is a 22-year old girl, who is a second-year student at a US university. Her major is law. She is very ambitious in her studies and strives to finish her bachelor with a very good grade. She is very open-minded and loves to travel – she even made a trip to Europe last summer. After she did an internship at a law firm in Britain, she decided to explore the European continent and made a road trip for one month on her own. Besides traveling, she loves to hang out with her friends, to cook and to do a lot of sports. From going to the gym to swimming to playing ultimate frisbee – she can’t decide what to prefer more.  When han...

Below you can find my second elevator pitch. Reflection on the feedback from my first elevator pitch The recommendation of including some numbers or facts in my elevator pitch was very helpful. I think that it will help the audience to understand how big the problem really is. Additionally, the listeners might take my elevator pitch more seriously because they might that I am really deep in the subject. One classmate told me that he liked the beginning of my elevator pitch a lot. He thinks that I was really good at putting the listener into the shoes of my customer. What I changed Based on the feedback, I included a statistic saying that 12% of all people between 18 and 29y identify themselves as vegetarians. Furthermore, I kept the beginning of my second elevator pitch very similar to the first one. The only thing I changed at the beginning is to address my main target group, students, directly.

Part 1: My human capital 1) I think I am quite straightforward when it comes to a task. I am a person who wants things to be done very quickly and as soon as possible. Sometimes that leads to the fact that I am very impatient with others. But I think others can always demand the same speed of me as I do of them. 2) I am very organized. When I have a huge task or multiple things at the same time in front of me, I always try to organize myself first and then put hands on the tasks. Although it takes me a while to organize and manage everything, it’s definitely worth its time. Because once I managed and arranged everything, I am much faster in getting the things done. 3) I am very ambitious. I always have a goal in mind which I want to achieve; whether it is having good grades at university or getting an internship at a company, I always wanted to work for. I always try my best and don’t give up unless I reached my goal. 4) I am very persistent. If something does not work, I alway...

Interview Summary Laura (22, International Biology Student at UF) When I asked Laura about what matters most to her when thinking about different alternatives for fast-food restaurants, she told me that she prefers healthy fast-food options, with high quality and a good price. But especially the combination of price and quality matters most to her. Furthermore, Laura would prefer going to a fast-food restaurant instead of using a delivery service. But in some situations, she would also like to be able to order online, e.g. when she doesn't want to leave her room later in the evening. When I asked Laura about her feeling after she ate at an ordinary fast-food restaurant, she told me that she would not feel bad, but rather filled. The problem with this feeling is, that it only lasts for an hour. Additionally, she always has the need to eat healthy the next days after having eaten at a fast-food restaurant. When asking her, whether she would feel different when having eaten at a...

1) I think I am very ambitious and organized. Those two personality traits definitely helped me through this course so far, because you have to do a lot of assignments and keep a lot of deadlines in mind. 2) There was no point where I thought about giving up. Sometimes I had a lack of motivation, especially when it comes to the assignments where you have to interview other people. But I just tried to remember, that I decided to take this course and to give my best. And then I just did the assignments and was quite happy about the result 3) It is difficult to give three tips to a person who does not have a lot of power of endurance naturally, but I will try my best: Try to be as organized as possible. When you manage your assignments you will get everything done, which shows tenacity. If you find an idea, that you are really convinced of, you will develop a tenacious mindset without doing something, because the assignments will support you developing your idea. Just never give u...

For my reading reflection No. 1, I picked the biography of Elon Musk. I think the one thing surprising me the most was, how Elon Musk relies on himself and his estimations. That is also one of the things, I admire the most about him: He has such a strong belief in himself, which is really difficult to develop for myself. The thing I admire least is the way he treats employees. Sometimes he is insulting and unfair. There are even headlines about his style of handling employees in the recent news. Elon Musk experienced adversity and failure when he was kicked out of his own company twice. I think what was most interesting to me, are the three lessons Elon Musk gives to improve your life: 1) Answering questions is easy, asking the right question is what’s hard 2) Use a succeed-through-determination approach to accomplish your goals 3) Unify all of your work under the roof on one giant goal to have a bigger impact on the world I think Elon Musk exhibits a strong competency ...

Before starting this assignment, I would like to inform you, that I changed my business idea slightly. Instead of selling vegetarian products to fast-food restaurants, I would like to switch to the B2C market. My new business idea is, therefore, opening a fast-food restaurant with a huge vegetarian menu (but also including meals with meat) with a lot of healthy meals. Segment For this exercise, I want to concentrate on the buyer segment of 18 to 25-year-old college students, which have either a vegetarian diet or live very nutrition conscious. Interviews 1. Anne At what time do you become aware of your unmet need for a fast-food restaurant with more vegetarian and healthy meals? (in stressful situations, on the road, in the city, after clubbing) -> When I am going out or when I am on the road. But I feel the need especially when I am very busy, and you just want to pick up a meal Are there specific situations, in which you typically think about it?  -> Wh...

1) Me I am Emilia from Germany. My major is Business Administration, and I would like to go to the area of taxation later. Besides being interested in accounting and taxation, I have a special interest in every topic concerning our environment and environmental pollution. My business concept of more vegetarian alternatives in fast-food restaurants fits perfectly in my life because it supports my wish for a more environmentally-friendly economy. 2) What I offer customers I offer customers vegetarian meals-not directly by selling it to customers but via the B2B way. I would like to sell vegetarian patties, vegetarian sausages, etc. to fast-food restaurants so that they can use it to prepare vegetarian meals. 3) Whom I offer it to I would like to provide it to fast-food restaurants. At first small ones, and then strive to get bigger fast-food chains to buy my vegetarian alternatives. 4) Why they care Customers, i.e., fast-food restaurants will care because they can increase ...

My Elevator Pitch No. 1 can be found under the following address: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h29Zkm6IqkE

Summary first interview: Anna-Maria, 23, German law student Who When asking Anna-Maria whether she has any special diet, she told me that she tried to eat vegetarian for the last two months, but that she gave up. Now, she still trys to eat healthy and pays a lot of attention to her nutrition, e.g. she always eats a lot of veggies and fruits and limits the amount of meat she takes in. Although she cares a lot about her nutrition, she goes to fast-food restaurants sometimes, especially when she is on the road and has a long ride to make or when she is in a hurry. What When she would be at a fast-food restaurant which mainly serves burgers, she would go for a normal burger with meat (she mentioned that she loves cheeseburgers). Sometimes she would also go for a vegetarian meal, if the restaurant offers some good vegetarian alternatives, but she would never leave the restaurant just because it offers too few vegetarian meals. Why When asking Anna-Maria why she would not choo...

I chose the opportunity for more vegetarian food in fast-food restaurants because I think that it is definitely an unmet need among many people. My solution is very simple. Fast-food restaurants could just expand the menu for more vegetarian alternatives. But what sounds so simple is maybe not that simple for fast-food restaurants. In order to make it easier for fast-food restaurants to offer more veggie food, I could produce veggie products and sell them to fast-food restaurants. For example veggie burger patties, veggie hot dogs, veggie salami, veggie chicken breast etc. Those products could consist of soy, tofu, beans, rice, etc. The production had to be large scale since fast-food restaurants tend to be franchise restaurants and thus have many locations where they sell their food. But in order to start somewhere, I would just try to find smaller fast-food restaurants and sell them my veggie products. When smaller fast-food restaurants accept my products and are happy with it, I wo...

1) Picking an opportunity I picked the opportunity for more vegetarian food in fast-food restaurants. 2) Hypothesis Who: vegetarians What: They can’t find much to eat in fast-food restaurants Why: high costs of producing vegetarian food separately from meat products 3) Testing the hypothesis Questions about the “who”: - Are there other people who can’t find anything to eat in fast-food restaurants? - Are there other people who don’t want to eat meat at fast-food restaurants? - Are there other people seeking more vegetarian alternatives at fast food restaurants? Questions about the “what”: - Can they find nothing at all to eat or is there just not a big offering in vegetarian alternatives? - Does the vegetarian offering of a fast-food restaurant depend on the kind of food the restaurant offers? - Are there just some fast-food restaurants without vegetarian alternatives or is kind of every fast-food restaurant “vegetarian unfriendly” Questions about the “why”: - Why do you t...

Regulatory change #1: more transparency regarding wages in Germany This change happened in Germany on the 6th January 2018 and thus very recently. I read about it at the website of the German Parliament (https://www.bundestag.de/dokumente/textarchiv/2017/kw52-gesetzesaenderungen/535170). I think this change leads to an opportunity for entrepreneurs because it gives individuals the right to get to know about the processes and criteria, which were used to determine their wage. Because many people don’t have time to compare their salaries and investigate the reasons and methods that lead to their specific wage, they might want to use help from a third party. This third party could offer a service of finding out the criteria and processes leading to their wage. The prototypical customer would thus be every worker who is interested in those criteria and procedures or is unsatisfied with its pay and can afford a service like this. I think this opportunity is relatively challenging to exploit...

Article 1: Florida surfer in ‘serious condition' after shark bite The article is about a surfer in Florida who suffered a shark bite. The problem described in the an is that Florida is one of the states with the most shark attacks in the US. Most of the time, surfers are victims of shark attacks and thus suffer under this problem of a high number of shark attacks. -> Link: https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/document-view?p=WORLDNEWS&t=pubname%3AMIHB%21Miami%2BHerald%252C%2BThe%2B%2528FL%2529/year%3A2018%212018/mody%3A0907%21September%2B07&f=advanced&action=browse&format=text&docref=news/16E4Assignment 5: Identifying Local OpportunitiesD091937CC118 Article 2: A year after Hurricane Irma, South Florida is better prepared for the Big One — finally The article is about hurricanes in Florida and addresses the problem, that many people were not prepared well for the hurricane season in the last years. All people living in Florida and especially those, who live ...

1) My beginning point I am a Vegetarian for a already 4 years now and I never have a problem with my diet when I am able to cook for myself. But as soon as I am on the go and I have to get food in restaurants it oftentimes becomes kind of difficult. Since I am in the US (maybe you should know that I am an international student and originally from Germany), I think about vegetarian food quiet often, because it is really difficult to get vegetarian food in fast food restaurants. That is why I think, there might be an opportunity for more vegetarian food in fast food restaurants or maybe even a vegetarian fast food chain. 2) Describing my belief The unmet need is vegetarian or vegan food in form of fast food, like vegetarian burgers. I think most of the people who are conscious about their nutrition or eat vegetarian/vegan would wish to have more vegetarian alternatives at fast food restaurants. Simply, because it’s more healthy than the fat meat provided by most fast food chains. A...

My first entrepreneural experience When I was younger, my sister and I wrote a newspaper magazine for our neighbourhood. We thought that a newspaper which is customized for our neighbourhood would be definitely something everyone wants to have. So we included news from our neighbourhood, but also interviews with different persons from the neighbourhood as well as a page with jokes and riddles. After we finished the newspaper we went from door to door and asked our neighbours if they would like to buy the newspaper. And it worked out better than we had thought (although that might be lead back to the aspect that we were children and looked way cuter than we do now). That was my first entrepreneurial experience. Source: http://www.hrlact.org/stay-date-hrla-news-q3-newsletter/good-news-newspaper-headline-25776802/ Why I enrolled in ENT 3003 I enrolled for ENT 3003, because at my home university, we don’t have courses like this. We always learn a lot of theory but never a...

Bug list Bug #1: Opening hours at the Florida Pool on Campus (it is only open for one hour in the morning and then it opens at noon again) Why it exists : In order to keep the pool open the recreation center needs lifeguards, which costs a lot of money. There might be not enough guests in the morning, so that it won’t be worth paying a lifeguard. Bug #2: Long queue at Walmart (2900 SW 42nd St, Gainesville, FL 32608) in the evening Why it exists: A lot of people buy groceries before they return home from work. Although this Walmart has a lot of check-outs, there are still not enough for rush-hour and in addition checking-out takes a lot of time. Bug #3: Empty shelves at Walmart (2900 SW 42 nd St, Gainesville, FL 32608) in the evening Why it exists: There are so many people going to Walmart during rush-hour that the employees do not have enough time to fill the empty shelves again. In addition there might not enough employees engaged during rush-hour. Bug #4 : Poorl...