a) Boxes would be located on college campus's and serve nutritious foods like cold and hot sandwiches with sides like pickles, fruit, and baked chips.

b) Flavius Burbulea, Megan Ramsey, and Chad Richeson

I would lean toward creating a heterogeneous team. I believe it is important to have a variety of backgrounds, talents, and ways of thinking when developing a new venture team. Having variety will help encourage new ways of completing tasks and will discourage getting boxed in to one idea.

I am a creative person that enjoys almost anything “artsy.” I tend to do well when project include creativity. I also write well. I am not as quick when it comes to technical information and math, I find it a little more complicated. I am detail oriented however and would bring this to the team myself. I would look members that are analytical and business minded.

Name:
Boxes

Slogan:
Cheap --> Fast --> Healthy

Target Market:
Students

Where would “Boxes” be located?
Boxes would be located at universities in various places all over campus. The goal would be to be in the malls or major walking paths of the campus.

Purpose:
To provide “Cheap --> Fast --> Healthy” food for college students.

Menu:
Boxes would serve cold and hot sandwiches with sides like pickles, fruit, and baked chips. We would also serve bottled water and juices. The food would
be nutritious.

Pricing:
Nothing at Boxes would cost more than $3.00

Hours:
10:20am – 4:30pm (Times may vary depending on campus, class times)

A Little More Information:
Everything would be pre-made so the lines would move fast. Many students only have 10-15 minutes in-between classes and may not have time to walk

There are many dangers any business can run into by not keeping careful track of budgets, income statements, and other financial information. First of all, if a person does not keep track of their finances properly, they do not know if they are making money, losing money, or breaking even. A person will also not know who they owe and how much they owe. Many businesses end up bankrupt because they were not managing their income properly.

If you manage income properly then you can generally see problems approaching and can adjust accordingly. This way you can fix the potential issues before they actually cause you substantial trouble and worse of all have to shut down your business.

There are many reasons for entrepreneurs to model good ethical behavior. One reason is various laws that are written to protect companies from unethical practices. Copyright laws would be an example of this. As was discussed in the “What went wrong?” section of chapter 7, one crucial error Green Planet Juicery made was not being original and taking someone else’s idea. While this was not the only mistake they made, it did play a large role in their failure. They had to focus attention on their ethical misconduct and correcting that error, rather than being able to give their full attention to other problems, like trying to grow too fast. Ethical misconduct can cost greatly, if it breaks laws.

Context is an important part of any entrepreneurial enterprise; however, I would not go as far as to say “context is all.” I believe this statement takes away from the many other factors we have already discussed. If “context is all,” then there is no need to develop your product and make it better because it will become known or remain unknown regardless. Also, if “context is all,” then there is no reason to spend a lot of time or money on marketing. Having a good marketing plan and implementing it will not make a difference, so just wait until the right context comes along.

An entrepreneur has to think about more than just their product. For the last few weeks we have been talking about the importance marketing and how if the right people do not hear about the product (clientele), then it will not sell. If an entrepreneur does not consider ways to create a “a barrier to entry” for their product, the market may be overrun with knock-offs in a relatively short amount time. On page 138 of the book nontraditional barriers of entry were discussed. It is important to have a unique business model for multiple reasons. First, it is important to catch and keep the attention of investors of customers. Secondly, it is important to make it more difficult for someone else to copy. It is also important to have a strong and passionate management team and employees. The more confident the people working the product are in their merchandise, the harder they will want to work.

As we read in the book only 31% of 600 entrepreneurs surveyed had business before starting their business. I would say the first mistake that many beginning entrepreneurs make regarding business plans is not making one in the first place. For those who have written them, often times they are not detailed enough and need more information. The plan may not be thorough enough on the idea or it could leave out a portion of the financial areas involved. Another common mistake is that new entrepreneurs are more likely to overestimate the demand for their product to get others to in invest in them. This is a mistake for several reasons. As we discussed in class, many investors are part time, if they are not happy with the results (sales) they can pull out in a year or so. If you set yourself and your product up not to meet expectations, your investors are going to be disappointed, even if it did well, just not as well as you said it would. Their expectations will not be met.

Gladwell discusses the importance of the “Stickiness” factor when related to business. A company’s product needs to be memorable or “stick.” In order for you to sell a large amount of a product, people need to not only see it, but remember it AND what it is connected too. I cannot even remember how many commercials I have seen where the commercial was memorable, but I could not remember what the advertisement was for. I could quote the funny lines, I could play the commercial through my head, however I could not remember what they wanted me to buy. If I was lucky, I could at least remember what type of product it was, but not the brand.

The advertisement was not effective for me because I could not recall what the product was for, it did not stick. Sometimes advertisement can be so entertaining that it takes away from the product itself. If the product does not stick, how will people remember to buy it?