Akshay's Blog

I intend on making the concept of the Happy Beard popular and then selling it to a larger company for a big profit. From there, I will hopefully make a deal where I will get a certain percentage of the profit made on each unit sold by the company. This way, I am still invested in the product since I sti have an incentive to keep selling it, yet there is the backing of a very large company who can improve on the product. This has influenced other parts of the concept in terms of the logistics behind the product. Creatively, I can work on the product and change it as necessary. However, with the company, I can work to improve the product that can then be sold to customers who need this product. This exit strategy makes me not need to work as hard to find big manufacturers for this product since the larger company that I will sell this product to already has the contacts in place to make this product on a bigger scale. This is important since it allows me to focus pn marketing the produc...

For this Reading Reflection, I chose to read "Coco Chanel" by Lisa Chaney. I always knew of the brand, but was never aware of the designer or the story behind the brand which is why I was interested in the book. What surprised me most was that Chanel was an accused Nazi spy, which is surprising since she is held in such a high regard today and considering her business and birthplace was in France. I most admired her ability to take bad situation and make the best out of it. She never failed to stop working to make sure she is successful, even if it meant doing things that were not pleasurable. I least admired that she was ultimately a traitor to her own country and I lost a sense of respect for her. The entrepreneur definitely faced adversity and failure when she realized that she could not be a stage performer. however, she decided to make the best of the situation and become acquainted with well connected individuals who could help her start her business venture. The comp...

A time that I failed this semester was when I failed in getting the internship that I wanted. I learned that there were better ways that I could have prepared for the interviews to ensure that I would get the internship. Overall, I think that failure is a big learning lesson. Without this failure, I would not know how to then take the failure and learn from it. I learned how to better prepare for internships as well as how to have a better work ethic so that I don't have to face that rejection in the future. I think that this proved to be a great experience because I now know that perhaps I did not do everything possible to ensure my success. I handle failure in a positive light, doing my best to see this as a learning lesson rather than a way to pity myself. This class has further enhanced my perspective on failure in terms of seeing it as a learning lesson. I am more likely to take a risk now than I was before because I will take that risk and learn from it in a positive way.

Existing Market Based on the feedback I received, the most important thing to work on right now is the design of the product. In today's market, the design is very important as this product has to be pleasing to look at and entice the buyers to buy the product if they see it on the shelves of stores. This will grow the existing market because it expands the potential customers to people who want to buy the product based on looks and interest. Another way to grow the existing market is to market the product in specific stores where I can target the people that I want. The people that I see buying this product would be people who go to barber shops or are in the grooming aisle of stores which is where this product should be placed. Product placement is key for the success of this business based on the feedback that I received from my interviews. I think that placing the product in the place that it will attract the most number of buyers will lead to this product's success. ...

THE HAPPY BEARD Opportunity This product serves customers who have a need that is unmet. The need of the customers is to have clean-up easy when it comes to trimming beards and overall cleanliness. Currently, other than simply wiping the counters, there is no product that truly solves this need of there being an easier way to capture the fallen beard trimmings and have the clean-up process be easy. Simply wiping the counters is often not effective enough based on personal experience, yet this is the current way that customers are satisfying the need It is good enough for now, but not perfect as it takes longer for clean-up. The nature of this need is to have men be satisfied with a way to clean up their mess easily, as well as the people that live with them have to not deal with a messy bathroom counter with fallen beard trimmings everywhere. The forces in the environment is the fashion trend of keeping beards as well as time of year. In the colder months, it is more common...

List of resources: Financial plan Business Experience My communication skills My experience talking to people Advisor Experience Investor Backing Positive company culture Client-oriented Ability to work with each other Positive supplier/manufacturer relationships VRIN: Valuable - valuable because of the ability to give customers a product that they do not have, filling a need Rare - this product does not exist int he mainstream Inimitable - it is not hard to recreate, but if we are the first to be successful, we will also have more experience knowing how to improve Non-substitutable - this product is unique to its target market Our top resource would be the ability to communicate and have good relationships. Trust is built around relationships and the ability to give someone responsibilities knowing that they will fulfill them. Communication to customers is very important for this venture since it allows people to be able to talk to e...

I was not surprised by any of the feedback that I had received on my previous elevator pitch with the exception of the fact that I could have explained my product better. Taking that into consideration, i tried to alter my current pitch in order to fit a better explanation into the pitch of the product. I feel that this is my most enthusiastic and informative speech based on the videos I have previously submitted.

For the second reading reflection, I chose "How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big." Overall, the book talks about how Scott Adams learned the biggest lessons of life and business through his failures. The failures in life are seen as learning lessons and can be applied in everyday life. He also talks about taking risks and how those can also serve as learning lessons to be applied in life. This book connects with the class because the class is all about invoking entrepreneurial spirit in students and making them realize the process of starting a business. This book enhances and enforces those ideas. If I had to make an exercise for the class based on this book, I would encourage students to keep track of things in their day that do not go their way, or lessons that they can learn from things that go wrong. This will make students realize that a lesson can be drawn from all possible situations that go right or wrong. The biggest "aha" moment for me wh...