Week 12 Reading Reflection

     In chapter 13 of Entrepreneurship: Theory, Process, and Practice, I was interested to learn about the stages needed to achieve growth. Before reading this chapter I was already familiar with strategic planning because it was covered in the introduction to management class I took last semester. I personally like Professor Archambeau’s explanation of the strategy matrix model better than Kuratko because I felt that she was more clear and used symbols to illustrate each box in the matrix.

     I found some of the unique managerial concerns of growing ventures to be a little confusing. I understood the first part of the chapter best since I have previous knowledge in strategic planning, but Kuratko lost me a little when he started talking about growing ventures. Overall I really liked the use of tables in this chapter to help summarize some of Kuratko’s talking points.

     I would be interested in knowing how to avoid the one-person-band syndrome. Sometimes I find it easier to do something by myself instead of delegate tasks to other people because I know that I can count on myself to get things done. Something else I would be interested in knowing is which form of failure is hardest to overcome. When I first read this section the different types of failure intrigued me. I imagine that uncontrollable failure might be the hardest to overcome since it is uncontrollable but I think personal failure would impact the individual the hardest.

     In this chapter I didn’t disagree with anything that the author said. I thought that for the most part it was very straightforward and easy to comprehend. I only had trouble following one section but overall the tables helped to clear things up.

What's Next

     To be a little more familiar with my concept check out my latest elevator pitch, http://cxgoss.blogspot.com/2016/03/elevator-pitch-no-3.html, or my venture concept, http://cxgoss.blogspot.com/2016/03/venture-concept-no-1.html. For this assignment I interviewed three customers originally from small or suburban towns, where one was my dad who is the Planning Director of Ormond Beach. I thought that he could give me some insight if I decided to open Mugged in a suburban town like Ormond Beach since he’s familiar with businesses that have failed and succeed in the area.  

     Existing Market:

     My current market is college-aged people in college towns. From the people I interviewed it seems that I need to continue to come up with ways to foster not only the experience that I’m trying to provide but also find ways to expand the experience to people not necessarily in my original market. I loved the suggestion that the first girl I interviewed gave, about bringing in your own mug, because I really do think that it could help to bring people closer together and support the small town feel that I’m going for. My dad suggested to really focus on my menu more, as I move forward, which makes since because the menu will be one of the things that brings people through the doors in the first place.

     Everybody thought that adding a to-go option could be beneficial to the café; however, my dad thought that the people who visit my café wouldn’t care as much about quick service as they would about having a comfortable place to sit and relax. Since the people I interviewed were a little torn on the issue overall, I think that adding a to-go option would be something that I would explore once my café is open so that I could get actual costumer opinions.

     New Market:

     For the new market I was interested in seeing if people from suburban areas thought that a place like Mugged could survive there versus only being able to survive in towns with a high student population. The two girls in my first interview are from a suburban town in Wisconsin while my dad lives in Ormond Beach, FL, also a suburban location.

     Overall they had different opinions on whether they thought Mugged would be successful in their town, which I think stemmed from being in different age groups. I learned that it isn’t enough to think that your business could survive in a suburban area; you really need to look at the demographic of the area. Therefore, I wouldn’t say that my new market is less attractive, it just would require more research into finding the right suburban area to established the café in, which means that it would take more time in the beginning of the venture development. I was surprised to find out that Mugged could be successful in a suburban area, according to the first two girls, and happy because if I was to carry out the concept and actually establish the café, I don’t think I would want to do it in a city with a high population.