Identifying Local Opportunties

Hey folks!

These past few weeks have been flying by! It's so cold in Gainesville (as cold as Florida can ever be), good time for cuddling and doing next to nothing. But first, homework. This week, I'll be looking through local newspapers to identify opportunities, or unmet needs. The February 2015 Palm Beach Post, from my local county, will do nicely. Enjoy!

Opportunity 1.

"Florida tops U.S. in fraud, ID theft; Region's complaints far exceed those of second-place Seattle. area"

http://bi.galegroup.com/essentials/article/GALE%7CA403438593/bf1f50817d0b1aec3b10c00677ee8a8a?u=gain40375

Synopsis: Florida leads the U.S. in fraud and identity due to scammers targeting those least knowledgeable about giving information over the phone - which is generally our elderly and non-English speaking demographics.

Problem: people are having their identity stolen and used to commit crimes which can be difficult and uncomfortable to solve. Also the banks have to recover most of the money that gets stolen.

Who has the problem? People who get their identity stolen and used to commit crimes. And the Banks.

Opportunity 2.

Hotel room crunch greatest in Wellington

(You don't say?)

http://bi.galegroup.com/essentials/article/GALE%7CA403438595/f6666c68d69a90136b02a081102cdfdc?u=gain40375

Synopsis: LET'S BUY SOME PROPERTY IN WESTERN WELLINGTON. Lots of horse people come to Soflo during the winter for pony related activities and there are very few hotels to accommodate them during the peak of season.

Problem/Who: I won't know what to do with all of my money. But actually rich Snow Birds don't have places to stay in the predominantly farm dominated area of Wellington during pony season.

WHO WANTS TO BUY SOME PROPERTY IN WELLINGTON

Opportunity 3.

Condo owners feel trapped: Sober house operator may be community's only hope
http://bi.galegroup.com/essentials/article/GALE%7CA403679910/77918f7815101560afe485e5eef58035?u=gain40375

Problem: A developer is charging insane HMO fees to force out inhabitants of an apartment complex so that it can be sold.

Who: the problem for the inhabitants is that they're being forced to pay high fees for homes in terrible disrepair. For the developer, he's trying to get out of a failing investment but is stopped by the residents of this housing complex.

Opportunity 4.

New prisons chief pushes for less public access to investigative info
http://bi.galegroup.com/essentials/article/GALE%7CA401149909/6c68dafa1574e6eb222ff350031d4493?u=gain40375

Problem: The new chief of the Florida Department of Corrections office is trying to block employees investigating abuse and misuse in the prison system from speaking about it to people outside of their organization.

Who? Outside forces who would be interested in publicizing abuse in the prison system and the family's of those who could be victims in the system can't get information about their loved ones cases.

Opportunity 5.

Fla.'s Medicaid for children needs money

http://bi.galegroup.com/essentials/article/GALE%7CA397048462/d1e1f4d728b6c97ecf8cc0ddf967bf06?u=gain40375

Synopsis: The demon Gov. Rick Scott would rather pay $2.7 million to lawyers to have a federal judge repeal his declaration that children on Medicaid do not receive adequate healthcare. Florida's children's state run healthcare is terrible.

Problem: Medicaid for children needs to change and become more efficient because it is negatively effecting our state's poor children.

Who: children on Medicaid and the parents who go to extreme lengths to help their kids.

Week 3 Reading Reflection

My reflection on our weekly reading!!

1) What was the biggest surprise for you in the reading? In other words, what did you read that stood out the most as different from your expectations? 

The biggest surprise for me about this reading was the notion of the "internal locus of control." I usually associate entrepreneurship with risk-taking, confidence, creativity, innovation, etc., but I never really thought of the control that goes into to being an entrepreneur. It makes sense. To be successful one needs to have control over their own impulses and prejudices to unbiasedly look at your venture and grow it in the right direction.

2) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.

One part of the reading that was confusing to me was section on Type A personalities. Do type A's make exceptional entrepreneurs? Or do their characteristics make them more susceptible to burning out?

3) If you were able to ask two questions to the author, what would you ask? Why?

What characteristics differentiate an entrepreneur from a business person exactly? Interesting to tell the difference.

Would the author say that an entrepreneur is motivated more by external support or internal support? Like is a successful entrepreneur move motivated internally or externally? I would like to know for internalizing criticism or compliments.

4) Was there anything you think the author was wrong about? Where do you disagree with what she or he said? How?

I would disagree with the idea that entrepreneurs motivation is based on sustaining their ventures. I imagine that most plan on making their ventures sustainable but there are also those ventures that are based on speculative business models so as to sell them off whenever they become really profitable.

Very Short Interview No. 1

So today I had the great pleasure of interviewing an entrepreneur - who also happens to be a friend of mine - CEO and founder of Gainesville startup, Keep It Simple Technologies, Benjamin King. Over the last 10 years, Ben has started four different companies. The spark that set him on the path to founding his last company came from hearing how hard it was for his brother, a Car Salesman, to keep track of all the people he had talked to and needed to followup with during the day. Sensing an unmet need, Ben developed a useful and simple-to-learn app (hence the name of the company) that allows sales people to catalog who they speak to as well as provides reminders to followup with them. Ben is a really cool guy with a lot of insight into entrepreneurship, but i'll let you see that for yourself in the following video:

For the record, here are the questions I asked Ben:

Question 1: As an entrepreneur, if someone were to ask you for your input in creating a course plan, what would you want to teach to students in an introductory entrepreneurship class? Or what would be the most important things that you think need to be taught in an intro course?

Question 2: What does it mean to you to be an entrepreneur? And, to continue, have you heard or do you think that other entrepreneurs would describe themselves differently? And why?

Question 3: What do you wish you had learned, or what experience do you wish you had, when you you were in school and hadn't yet set out on the path to become an entrepreneur?

Reflect:

Ben's answers to my questions were really insightful. I could tell that their was a difference between actually living the life of entrepreneur and what we're taught in class. School, as it stands today, can't possibly prepared you for all the realities of running your own company. Having to fire someone and having to accept and grow from failure seem very difficult to teach. Maybe someone could teach failure by designing an impossible assignment that's designed to freak out students. Or that could get a professor fired... Firing someone doesn't sound teachable. Maybe watching the Apprentice would be the best option for that. And even then, I don't that Trump really feels anything when he fires Steve Buscemi or any other celebrities.

So what are the World's Biggest Problems?

Hey folks,

So for this next assignment I have to write down what I think are the world's biggest problems and come up with solutions to them. This is due in 26 minutes so here goes nothing!

1. Human beings contribution to climate change through industry and domestic energy consumption that produces excess greenhouse gases, which get trapped in the atmosphere and cause accelerated global warming. 
• Solution: Satellites that orbit the Earth monitoring CO2 levels in the atmosphere and somehow filtering the gases to a healthy level, thus reducing the greenhouse affect and slowing global warming.
2. Groups of people being discriminated against and hunted down for their views or experience extreme prejudice and thus turn to terrorism to raise awareness of their injustices or bring about some regime change in their own region or internationally.
• FUCK. Um. Address the grievances of the discriminated groups and remove the conditions for which terrorism is fostered. Don't try to change existing political order in the areas sponsoring terrorism but change the minds of the people aiding terrorist but empowering the economically and raising their standard of living.
3. The harmful side effects of globalization due to the spread of free trade and reduction in barriers to trade throughout the world. Harmful side effects include loss of small businesses and usage of cheap labor as bargaining tools to open more areas of trade and drive down wages. Not even talking about the humanitarian side effects of these implications.
• Empower people working in destitute conditions and those who lose their livelihoods to outsourced work by teaching them all entrepreneurial tactics in different industries then the ones they currently/used to work in. Start their own businesses, take away workers who were working for nothing and raise the wages across vast areas.
4. Varying perceptions on gender and the associated societal standards that harm people by forcing them to conform through social pressures to something that they don't want to be or preventing them from doing the things they want to do but that aren't socially acceptable.
• Provide non-mandatory in school training on the harmful effects of gender roles and create discussions on how everyone can be better then what our parents taught us. Then wait for old people to die.
5. Donald Trump and any and all demagogues like him who prey on people's insecurities to incite hatred for their own accumulation of power and prejudice agendas.
• Label him as a fascist and draw continuous parallels between past dictators who have spread similar propaganda.
6. Differing perceptions on standard of living throughout the world.
• Improve education of the world to students that accurately describes what its like to live in another country and stop playing up democracy and American exceptional.
7. The unaccountably of the world's banking systems.
• Create a nonprofit international regulatory committee that checks banks and is apolitical.
8. Finding happiness and fulfillment in life, and understanding how definitions of both concepts differ from person to person and culture to culture.
• More and better unbiased education of other cultures in a non-discriminatory and Western-centric way.
9. Corporations taking over the music scene and producing crap.
• Foster music and the music education in schools and throughout the world. Recognize that there is more than just pop.
10. Racism and prejudice throughout the world.
• Teach people to take an honest look a themselves and own up to racism and prejudice and to grow rather than shrink from the shame of being judgmental.