Venture Concept No. 2

The Opportunity: The opportunity that I have found consists primarily of the fact that pet owners are limited when it comes to the diversity and availability of medicines for their animals, and those that are available tend to have certain unavoidable drawbacks and side-effects. There are many, many different people who have this need, but the one thing that brings them all together is that they are pet owners, and in the cases of many of these pet owners, their animals are suffering from something serious, such as epilepsy. The nature of this need was mostly covered above, there is a need and desire among pet owners for medicines that will first and foremost be effective in aiding their pets, but also ones that won't break the bank and will help their pets while avoiding the side-effects that many traditional pharmaceuticals are accompanied by. The forces creating this opportunity in the marketplace are for the most part unavoidable, animals get sick, especially as they get older. Pharmaceutical companies also do not address the above issues because typically the medicines they create are the only option, so why bother, and also these medicines may be the best option on the market, despite the side-effects. This market does not have any particular geographic layout, there are pet owners, though demographically the people desiring alternatives to current medicines for their pets tend to be a bit younger, typically in the 20-45ish range. Customers are for the most part not currently satisfying this need, if an animal is sick you treat it with what is currently available, even if it is not ideal. Those that are satisfying this need are using various homeopathic treatments. Neither of these groups are particularly loyal to these options, they are just the only two that actually exist. I think this is a big opportunity, both because of the prevalence of pets in the American home, as well as the sheer amount of money that American pet owners sink into their animals, especially when it comes to their medical needs. I think this window of opportunity will be open shorter rather than longer, as other companies have already started to catch on and enter the market with similar products to mine.

Innovation: My innovation is one that is incrementally, rather than radically, innovative. This innovation is a line of CBD-based medicines aimed specifically at pets, as well as a two-pronged distribution service based on both an online pharmacy and getting the product stocked in existing brick and mortar pharmacies. I would not limit myself to pharmacies of my own creation, either, but actively seek to get my products on the shelves of mainstream stores such as the big box brands like Walmart and grocery stores like Publix and perhaps even membership-based stores like Costco. CBD is a non-intoxicating byproduct of cannabis, and studies have shown that it can be used to treat a wide variety of ailments, most significantly epilepsy and some cancers. CBD was the first form of medical cannabis to be legalized in the state of Florida. While CBD can be used to treat major ailments such as those listed above, it is also effective in treating minor things such as muscle and joint pains. The products I would be selling would be a line of tinctures, balms, and other forms of CBD-based medicines aimed at alleviating the symptoms of ailments both big and small. These products would typically fall somewhere between the $15 and $30 dollar price points, depending on quantities purchased and any associated shipping costs. After brief consideration, the company will be limited to pet products, no medicines will be marketed towards people, although they can certainly be used by them without any sort of negative effect. Future expansion would include other pet products such as foods and treats, both of which would contain some amount of CBD.

Venture Concept: The above innovation, CBD-based medicines, will address the opportunity by offering an alternative treatment to pet owners that is both safer and with fewer side-effects that traditional medications as well as being more effective and proven than homeopathic remedies. Customers will switch to this product because they love their animals like members of their families. If I offer them something that is safer and more effective than what is currently on the market, they will buy it. Those who are already using homeopathic remedies will certainly be easier to switch over than those who have not used those before, but given the increasing public knowledge of the benefits of cannabis-based medicines, I do not anticipate to much resistance to the switch, even from people who have no prior exposure to these medicines. The competitors are few and far between at the moment, but those that are around and pose a significant threat are the companies that have already cut their teeth on medicines for humans and those that are based on cannabis as a whole, both of which have grown more common and are more widely sought after than medicines for pets. These companies all have the major weakness of operating in a gray area on the federal level, even if their state has legalized all forms of cannabis. My company would certainly be struck by this as well, but dealing only in CBD insulates us far more than a company that deals with medicines based on THC as well. Distribution plays a fairly significant role in my concept, as one of the two main prongs of the concept is offering an online pharmacy as well as brick and mortar options for customers to purchase from, with the online option delivering straight to their door. I would organize a business like this similarly to how I would organize any other pharmaceutical business, with research and development, production, and all other main facets represented. The primary difference would be the presence of horticulturalists as well, which would be important to the production of quality medicine. The company would require a fairly significant number of employees on the horticultural and production side of things, but the specialized roles such as those of pharmacist would only require a few individuals.

As mentioned in a previous post, I think my most important resource will be approval from the FDA, because this will add a greater degree of legitimacy to my product and help it to gain wider representation in stores and veterinarians offices across the country. Future opportunities for the venture would utilize the same innovation, but it would be diversified and honed so that the medicines are more adept at treating specific illnesses as opposed to operating as a sort of cure-all type product. I think this will also aid in legitimizing the product, as well as pulling in additional revenue. In the next five years with this venture I would like to see it continue successfully, sitting at the top of the market as far as cannabis-based medicines for animals go, perhaps with additional plans based on the amount of publicity gained to move into other areas of pet care or even the opposite direction into medicines for people. In ten years I think I would remain in the same place as an entrepreneur, I do not see myself utilizing this as a springboard, but rather sticking with it to make it the best it can be and continue to change the lives of pet owners and their pets.

Feedback Summary: Although I did not receive any feedback on my original venture concept, I did receive some helpful things on my What's Next post. Both of the comments made clear they felt I was going in the right direction, and particularly highlighted my desire to get the product into mainstream stores, with one even going so far as to suggest Publix. Another comment agreed with my concern that I might overextend my company if we got into human CBD products as well as those aimed at pets.

Concept Changes: The two main changes were both direct results of the comments I received. One change I made was to explicitly state my intention to get the products into mainstream stores beyond my own pharmacies, which might only be available in larger cities. The second change was to confirm that I am going to stick with animal products, though those may go beyond medicines in the future.

Final Reflection

Throughout this course there are numerous different experiences that stand out to me, but one in particular stands out to me as being formative, memorable, and joyous all at the same time. This experience was the Special Sauce assignment. This experience was so cool to me. Once I was done with it I felt like I had learned so much about myself and how others, my friends and family, view me. The realization of how I viewed myself I thought was quite telling, while finding out how others saw me made me feel really really good. The difference between these two raised quite a few questions within me, I was and still am curious why I zeroed in on some aspects of myself while others focused on different aspects, perhaps ones that are more outwardly visible. My proudest accomplishment of this semester is probably my completion of the elevator pitches. I got off to a rough start with some technical difficulties that prevented me from getting it in before the deadline, so I was determined to do it right the second time around. It turned out fairly well, but there were still quite a few things I wanted to change, especially once I received my feedback. After lots of practice, across all three pitches, and many revisions to the pitch itself, my third pitch was one that I was exceptionally proud of. The result definitely mirrored the amount of effort I put into it.

I think that, over the course of this semester, I have definitely gotten closer and closer to having an entrepreneurial mindset. However, I do not consider myself an entrepreneur. I know that I have the skills to become one, but I think the big thing missing for me is the drive towards entrepreneurship. Although my business idea is one that I am proud of, and one that I have a personal stake in as well, it is most likely not something I would pursue in real life, and I think the same holds true for entrepreneurship in general. I have aspirations that will lead me in a completely different direction. If I do at some point stumble into entrepreneurship in my career, though, I know I will have the skills to do it right.

My biggest recommendation to students who will take this course in the future would be to foster within yourself a desire to learn entrepreneurship, and to treat every assignment as if you truly are doing it for the sake of a real company. To best perform in this course, and in online courses in general, I would definitely suggest maintaining a rigorous schedule for completing assignments, one that has you completing assignments days before they are due instead of hours or minutes. I think that taking the course as seriously as possible, buying into the idea of the course as I mentioned above, is key to fostering this success.

Reading Reflection No. 3

Book: Grinding it Out: the Making of McDonald's by Ray Kroc

1) The thing that surprised me the most about Ray Kroc as I read Grinding it Out was the fact that he started his McDonald's career so late in his life, at the age of 52. I've always told people that it's never too late to change what you're doing, and the fact that he did the same thing is something I really admire. I also admired his determination in pursuing his goals, even when things got touch, as he put it: "grinding it out". The thing I least admired about Kroc is the fact that he kind of took advantage of the McDonald brothers it seems. He recognized that they had a great idea and he took control of it to sell his own product and expand his own businesses, which seems kind of messed up. Kroc absolutely encountered adversity and failure, and like he mentions throughout he "ground it out". In the face of adversity and failure he squared his shoulders, grit his teeth, put his head down, and kept trudging forward despite everything that was going against him.

2) The core competency that I noticed of Kroc's was his ability to recognize great opportunities before anybody else. His first he recognized was the disposable cup and the turn towards disposable products, a prediction which turned out to be very true, though with a lot of help from the man himself. He also recognized the potential in the restaurant that the McDonald brothers ran, both as a way to revolutionize dining and as a way to sell his own product.

3) I was kind of confused when reading about Kroc's contracting with the McDonald Brothers and with the milkshake machine company before them, the specifics of the contracts were obviously important because they shaped what he went on to do instead and how he took McDonald's forward, but they were not super clear to me how that actually worked.

4) The first question I would ask of Mr. Kroc is if he could have ever seen McDonald's becoming as big as it became, with restaurants all over the world. I would be interested to hear his outlook on the company's success in the 21st century. I would also like to ask him about the role of McDonald's in popular culture and what he thinks of that. I am a history major, and the role that cultural institutions such as McDonald's have played in major historical events such as the fall of the USSR really interests me.

5) Ray Kroc's opinion of hard work definitely seems to have been that it would pay off in the end, as long as you really put yourself towards your goals in spite of the opposition you might face. Hard work is what got him to McDonald's in the first place, and it is what made him able to turn it into the worldwide phenomenon that it is. Kroc's principal of "grinding it out" wouldn't be possible without hard work, and I think that really tell's you all you need to know of his opinion on the matter.

Your Exit Strategy

1) My exit strategy could go one of two ways, depending on which way I take my company and how successful I am in that venture. If I decided to expand into a new market with a related idea as we discussed a couple weeks ago, I would stick with the company to guide it through the changes it would undertake, see my expansion come to fruition, and reap the benefits of said expansion. If I decided not to go this route, I would sell the company for a large return sometime in the next few years. Although the company itself is important to me, running a business is not something that necessarily interests me in the long term, my aspirations lie in different areas. These would be my two primary exit plans, but I recognize that if my attempts at expansion were to fail, it could affect the valuation of my company and might make selling it a little more difficult. A cost-benefit analysis of these options would be absolutely necessary to come to an educated decision.

2) I have selected these strategies because like I said, ultimately, my interests and aspirations lie outside of the realm of entrepreneurship. I would use the money I acquired from the sale of the company or from its continued success whilst at the helm to aid causes that are important both to me and to our country, such as climate change and the like. Selling the company would give me the chance to personally lobby for the causes I would champion, as opposed to going through a lobbying firm, the likes of which tend to be motivated largely by profits and returns of investment. My ultimate goal throughout this would be to aid in the removal of corporate money from politics altogether, unfortunately it is necessary to play the game according to the current rules rather than those you wish to see implemented.

3) I definitely think my exit strategy has played a significant role in many of the decisions I have made regarding my company throughout the semester. One area in which I do not think it influenced me was in deciding opportunities, I feel I would have gone the way I did regardless because the cause that my company seeks to assist in is one that is close to my heart, and first and foremost I want to help people and their pets. I do, however, think that my exit strategy influenced my expansion plans and my plans for acquiring the resources I need to make the company successful. Like I mentioned above, ultimately whether or not I expand will decide which exit strategy I go with, but because I have been thinking of these exits as potentials the whole time they have definitely influenced my consideration of expansion as an option. The exit strategies have also influenced my investigations into resources, to a certain extent. Many of my resources that I pointed out are long-term, slow burn type things, integral to the company but not something that I need to remain involved with to ensure their success. With the resources I have deemed the most important, I can set them up and then sit back and relax or leave altogether because they are almost completely self-sufficient.

Celebrating Failure

1) Academics have always been an important part of my life, and never has that been more true than while I have been studying here at UF. It should come as no surprise then that, although it did not occur in this class, my instance of failure was academic in nature. In addition to this online class I am taking Beginning Arabic 1 and an upper level political science class online for my major. Arabic has been going extremely well, but I feel as if I have failed on a number of occasions in my political science class. The failure I have experienced in this class, and continue to experience in this class, is my failure to adequately complete the readings and lecture videos for the course. I have completed all of the assignments with great success, but I find myself disinterested in the lectures and readings, something I have never experienced with one of my major classes before, which I usually enjoy. These failings came to a head with the midterm, which I thought I would just be able to skate through despite neglecting much of the course content. I ended up with a C on the midterm, bringing my grade down to a low B. Despite this experience, I have continued to fail in my attempts at keeping up with the content for this course.

2) At first glance it would seem that I have not learned anything from this experience, especially since I continue to exhibit the failing behavior. I do, however, think I have learned a couple important things from this. The primary one is that online classes, unfortunately, are not for me. I have enjoyed this class quite a bit, and found the assignments more and more engaging as the semester went on, but my experience in the other course has put me off of them as a whole. I think this is indicative of a couple different things for me. One is that the act of being in a physical class and interacting with classmates, something that I enjoy very much, is very difficult to replicate in an online course. I also think that being in a physical classroom is a big part of engagement in the first place, for me at least. While studying here at UF I have found that I am really good at making myself go to class, even if I am not necessarily feeling great or interested in the class, and I think that would be useful given my disinterest in this course content and the way it is being taught.

3) Failure for me has always been difficult, especially academic failure, especially because much of what I consider failure is me holding myself to standards that are unreasonably high and then not meeting those standards. I have found failure to be embarrassing on numerous occasions, often for the same reason I noted above, it's a failure to meet peoples' expectations of me, or my expectations of myself. I think my emotional handling of failure is usually okay, though sometimes I let it get to me more than I should, instead of just moving past it and changing things. I think this is a quality of mine that extends beyond failure, though, I think I have problems with overthinking things in general. Behaviorally I think I handle failure a bit better, but even then it's not particularly good. My example with the political science midterm is an excellent example of this. This class has almost certainly changed my perspective on failure. I may not be more likely to take risks than I was before, but I feel like I doubt myself less when beginning something that I have a chance of failing, and I think overcoming that is half the battle.

What's Next

Existing Market: I think the future of my venture lies in a continued effort to make the cannabis-based pet care market my own, expanding from medicines to foods and other products that can be produced with cannabis byproducts that I will already have access to from production for the medicine, such as hemp for rope-based dog toys. I also might consider moving into medicinal treatments for humans as well, although that market is already pretty packed with rapidly growing companies.

From my interviews with customers, none of them expressed the idea that I should move from pet products back into medicines aimed at people, it seemed like the novelty of the pet aspect sent them off in that direction completely. When I mentioned that I had considered going that way, I was met with massive amounts of enthusiasm, especially with regards to foods and toys. Customers seem to like the idea of organically-sourced and made products for their animals, regardless of what those products are or how much being organic actually affects their quality as products. Based on the interviews, and on my own thoughts, my plans for the existing market would be to shore up and fend off competitors in the realm of cannabis-based medicines for pets, while growing my brand and brand recognition among the public, before moving into lines of products such as toys and foods. Although the products that are directly derived from cannabis might never see the shelves of a Target or Petsmart, toys and foods based on the concept might have a chance of breaking into those and similar stores.

New Market: The new market I considered would be culinary products, various oils and the like that can be used in cooking that are based off of cannabis. My current venture might be able to create value for people in this market by creating products that add new and unusual aspects to the dining and cooking experience, something that those who are particularly interested in food would certainly eat up, pardon the pun.

Upon interviewing customers in this market I was met with as much enthusiasm as before, but these people were a bit more experienced in the general state of the market, and so were able to provide me with some information that I did not previously have regarding this potential venture. They both, though in slightly different ways, suggested not just producing cooking components but also completed foods and beverages that incorporate cannabis byproducts into them. To a certain extent I expected this suggestion, given that it is the natural conclusion to my initial idea, and I was also not surprised to hear that companies have already started breaking into this sector. Despite this, I think that this new market is still potentially profitable and attractive, especially if I were to work off of the brand recognition that I gathered through the production of the line of animal medications, though I would certainly want to steer clear of any direct association.

Venture Concept No. 1: CannaPet

The Opportunity: The opportunity that I have found consists primarily of the fact that pet owners are limited when it comes to the diversity and availability of medicines for their animals, and those that are available tend to have certain unavoidable drawbacks and side-effects. There are many, many different people who have this need, but the one thing that brings them all together is that they are pet owners, and in the cases of many of these pet owners, their animals are suffering from something serious, such as epilepsy. The nature of this need was mostly covered above, there is a need and desire among pet owners for medicines that will first and foremost be effective in aiding their pets, but also ones that won't break the bank and will help their pets while avoiding the side-effects that many traditional pharmaceuticals are accompanied by. The forces creating this opportunity in the marketplace are for the most part unavoidable, animals get sick, especially as they get older. Pharmaceutical companies also do not address the above issues because typically the medicines they create are the only option, so why bother, and also these medicines may be the best option on the market, despite the side-effects. This market does not have any particular geographic layout, there are pet owners, though demographically the people desiring alternatives to current medicines for their pets tend to be a bit younger, typically in the 20-45ish range. Customers are for the most part not currently satisfying this need, if an animal is sick you treat it with what is currently available, even if it is not ideal. Those that are satisfying this need are using various homeopathic treatments. Neither of these groups are particularly loyal to these options, they are just the only two that actually exist. I think this is a big opportunity, both because of the prevalence of pets in the American home, as well as the sheer amount of money that American pet owners sink into their animals, especially when it comes to their medical needs. I think this window of opportunity will be open shorter rather than longer, as other companies have already started to catch on and enter the market with similar products to mine.

Innovation: My innovation is one that is incrementally, rather than radically, innovative. This innovation is a line of CBD-based medicines aimed specifically at pets, as well as a two-pronged distribution service based on both an online pharmacy and getting the product stocked in existing brick and mortar pharmacies. CBD is a non-intoxicating byproduct of cannabis, and studies have shown that it can be used to treat a wide variety of ailments, most significantly epilepsy and some cancers. CBD was the first form of medical cannabis to be legalized in the state of Florida. While CBD can be used to treat major ailments such as those listed above, it is also effective in treating minor things such as muscle and joint pains. The products I would be selling would be a line of tinctures, balms, and other forms of CBD-based medicines aimed at alleviating the symptoms of ailments both big and small. These products would typically fall somewhere between the $15 and $30 dollar price points, depending on quantities purchased and any associated shipping costs.

Venture Concept: The above innovation, CBD-based medicines, will address the opportunity by offering an alternative treatment to pet owners that is both safer and with fewer side-effects that traditional medications as well as being more effective and proven than homeopathic remedies. Customers will switch to this product because they love their animals like members of their families. If I offer them something that is safer and more effective than what is currently on the market, they will buy it. Those who are already using homeopathic remedies will certainly be easier to switch over than those who have not used those before, but given the increasing public knowledge of the benefits of cannabis-based medicines, I do not anticipate to much resistance to the switch, even from people who have no prior exposure to these medicines. The competitors are few and far between at the moment, but those that are around and pose a significant threat are the companies that have already cut their teeth on medicines for humans and those that are based on cannabis as a whole, both of which have grown more common and are more widely sought after than medicines for pets. These companies all have the major weakness of operating in a gray area on the federal level, even if their state has legalized all forms of cannabis. My company would certainly be struck by this as well, but dealing only in CBD insulates us far more than a company that deals with medicines based on THC as well. Distribution plays a fairly significant role in my concept, as one of the two main prongs of the concept is offering an online pharmacy as well as brick and mortar options for customers to purchase from, with the online option delivering straight to their door. I would organize a business like this similarly to how I would organize any other pharmaceutical business, with research and development, production, and all other main facets represented. The primary difference would be the presence of horticulturalists as well, which would be important to the production of quality medicine. The company would require a fairly significant number of employees on the horticultural and production side of things, but the specialized roles such as those of pharmacist would only require a few individuals.

As mentioned in a previous post, I think my most important resource will be approval from the FDA, because this will add a greater degree of legitimacy to my product and help it to gain wider representation in stores and veterinarians offices across the country. Future opportunities for the venture would utilize the same innovation, but it would be diversified and honed so that the medicines are more adept at treating specific illnesses as opposed to operating as a sort of cure-all type product. I think this will also aid in legitimizing the product, as well as pulling in additional revenue. In the next five years with this venture I would like to see it continue successfully, sitting at the top of the market as far as cannabis-based medicines for animals go, perhaps with additional plans based on the amount of publicity gained to move into other areas of pet care or even the opposite direction into medicines for people. In ten years I think I would remain in the same place as an entrepreneur, I do not see myself utilizing this as a springboard, but rather sticking with it to make it the best it can be and continue to change the lives of pet owners and their pets.