What I've learned

I have learned as an entrepreneur playing the simulation for this class that I am not good at being an entrepreneur. This aside, I see that I have the ability to become more talented at this. I have learned so much more about being an entrepreneur from this class than I ever knew before, especially about social entrepreneurship and the impact of social ventures in today’s economy. Now, more than ever our society needs the help of entrepreneurs to develop new methods of doing things and to create new markets which can propel our society in to a new tomorrow. I have also learned of the difficulties involved in starting and maintaining a social venture. I hope one day to be able to overcome these difficulties and help the world

Dreams

If I could dream, and have those dreams come true, then I would have more products like tom’s shoes in the marketplace. I envision a world in which there are products of all kinds that follow this same business plan. Shampoo and soap which is priced a little more so that we can donate to those who are less advantaged. Selling pre packaged meals that mean more food for starving children in Africa. This is a beneficial plan that can be used to help better the world, one product at a time. How much would that boost sales to be able to boast that on your packaging? It would be phenomenal.

Climbing Venture

After doing the screening process of our venture ideas. It turns out that fitness centers are a growing industry, says the IBISWorld. They were a booming industry in 2007 but profits have since slowed but any profit in the current climate of the economy is good. There wasn't a NAISC code specific to a climbing gym so we had to go with fitness center (713940). The IBISWorld also helped us to determine a location for our venture with it's segementation report. In the geographic spread there are the most fitness centers found in the South East and the least in the Rocky Mountains. So we would not put our venture either of those places because we do not want the region to be over saturated and it there could be outside factors to why there are hardly any fitness centers in a certain region. Somewhere in the middle would be a good region to locate in. Also we think our gym will be in demand because it is not a regular gym, there will be rock climbing, yoga, hot yoga, belly dance, and more ways to work out.

Creativity vs. Innovation

Is it better for an entrepreneur to have creativity or innovation? And what is the difference?
Well creativity is the ability to form something completely new and original whether it is a design or product. With innovation you are taking something that already existed and modifying it to fit your needs. It is making adaptations to existing products to function in a new or different way.
As an entrepreneur it is good to have either one of these qualities but even better to have both. You need creativity to offer something new to your market, something that no one has. This is so people will find value in it's exclusivity or design. Innovation is needed because if you do not have ideal resources to produce your product or design you need to modify your product to fit the resources you do have. Also if there is problems with the product you will need to use innovation to fix these problems or the product might be more useful with a different purpose.

Failure

A failure which has had a great effect on me is when I failed to get into my first choice of university when I left school. At the time, I thought that this was terrible and I was very disappointed because I thought that my future would be affected by this. At first I found it very difficult to think of a failure which has had a profound affect on my life. When I thought of this particular failure, I realised how at the time I thought that this was my only option and not being accepted put an end to what I had hoped for from university. If this hadn’t have occurred I wouldn’t have chosen my current university in England and as such I wouldn’t be on exchange at UNCG.

Being forced to look for an alternative path in my life forced me too look for other options that I wouldn’t have looked for otherwise. It also shows me that there is not one set path for my life and that failures can result in positive changes in your life. In entrepreneurial terms this will have taught me some valuable lessons. I beleive that I may be more willing to take calculated risks if I know that if it does result in failure there are other paths to take to success.

Social Entrepreneurship

After reading a bit about social entrepreneurship I gathered that it is new type of entrepreneurship and is about fulfilling our social responsibility and social responsiveness. These organizations can be businesses, nonprofit, or government. The social entrepreneur recognizes a social problem that can be on a local or global scale and they have created a way to solve this problem.
A huge part of social enterprise is environmental awareness. This goes along with one of the social entrepreneurships I would like to mention. The Access Fund is a nonprofit organization formed to keeps climbing areas open and conservation of those areas. The Access Fund has helped with trail building, waste disposal facilities, and educational and safety signage for climbing areas. They work on federal, state, and local levels for support on climbing policy and decision making. The Access Fund has worked with the National Audubon Society, the Sierra Club, Wilderness Society, The Nature Conservency, and National Parks and Conservation Association.
If social entrepreneurship continues and more people become involved we shall become a more conscious and responsible society.

impact of entrepreneurship on the economy

In the current economy of rising unemployment rates and falling profits, entrepreneurship gives a very innovative path to success to those who are innovative or economically sound enough to pursue it. With the unemployment rate so high, it's very easy to find qualified people to fill positions in emerging businesses. Those with the available cash to fund new endeavors find themselves in a very economically viable position to pursue options which those of few resources are left only to consider the possibility. Entrepreneurship gives our economy the ability to expand into new markets which were previously unexplored when the corporate fat cats were doing well and had a stranglehold on new markets. Entrepreneurs succeed in poor economies because they can find opportunity where others find only strife. New business endeavours allow those without jobs to find a way to support themselves and their families when traditional job markets fail. They also allow the economy to evolve and expand in new and unforeseeable directions. Entrepreneurship is one of the cornerstones of our constantly fluctuating economy and helps us make our way to a more profitable future. In this current economical climateI would start a business in the shipping industry, focusing on cheap methods of mass transportation(trucks with high gas mileage, routes which transport the most amount of product for the cheapest cost, etc.). Shipping is an industry without which all other industries would be unable to grow, due to the fact that they would have no method with which their product could reach the consumer. This makes shipping a neccessary industry which is very difficult to go without. Also, due to the costs of getting into this industry such as trucks, warehouses, and procuring clients, only those with a significant amount of capital can invest in this industry.