30A - Final Reflection

What sticks out to me most looking back at old assignments is that I came up with a ton of ideas for my bug list that became vague ideas for innovations I could create, but the one I chose (the vegetarian app) became such a clear vision. This process brought a fuzzy idea in my brain into a specific venture idea that looks pretty darn good on paper. I'm proud of how far my idea has come and the nurturing it took to get where it is- it kind of blows my mind.



Now, I see myself as having an entrepreneurial mindset. I understand now that you don't have to actively seek out becoming an entrepreneur in order to be one. Before this class, "entrepreneur" was just a code word for unemployed on dating apps. Now, I see that it doesn't have to be your official occupation in order for it to be your reality. I can still pursue sustainable interior design as a career but have supplemental entrepreneurial sources of income- therefore, I'd actually be an entrepreneur.

One thing I would advise future students in this class is to have fun with it. Go all out, actually put effort in the class, come up with the crazy ideas you'd never want to admit to your friends or parents because you were scared of ridicule. This class is the chance to come up with those crazy ideas and test if they could actually work out practically. Also- use GIFs when possible, because it makes the blog posts more fun for your peers to read and makes the posts more fun to write. I always get bored reading even my own words for too long without a nice visual interruption every now and then.

Goodbye forever, ENT3003.

29A - Venture Concept No. 2

1.) Venture Concept:

Opportunity

What is the need?

The opportunity I’m focusing on is the problems vegetarians
and vegans have while shopping for groceries or eating out.
The FDA only requires food labels to list the ingredients in a
food, but not the ingredients within those ingredients. So, for
example, if a food product says “gelatin” not everyone may
realize that it contains animal hooves and is therefore not
vegetarian (common products that contain gelatin are Jell-O,
marshmallows, and gummy worms). Products like these may
seem vegetarian upon first glance, but actually aren’t, and
the FDA does not require food labels to specify if a product
has animal meat, broth, or parts in it. This means that
someone could be vegetarian for years and never realize a
food product they’ve been eating doesn’t meet the
qualifications of the diet. There are no existing apps that
address this problem- current food apps are aimed towards
losing weight or knowing the caloric contents of food. This
window of opportunity will be open until someone else
comes up with this idea and successfully executes it.

Who has the need?

Vegetarians and vegans. Even people who aren’t strictly
vegetarian or vegan might have this problem if they don’t
know which products may have animal parts or products in
them and they simply want to cut down on those products.
The people who have this problem tend to be people who are
new to the diet (a market that is expanding more and more
each year). This is because people who have been
plant-based for a long period of time probably won’t download
an app for it, since they probably think they already know
everything there is to know about the diet. What this market
uses currently is mostly Google to look up individual
ingredients, but this is tedious and not everyone actually
wastes time at the grocery store Googling every single
ingredient on every product they buy, so some misleading
products still end up slipping into a vegetarian or vegan’s
basket.

Innovation

My innovation is an app that would scan a QR code (with
augmented reality) on a product’s label and be able to
immediately tell a person if a product is vegetarian or vegan.

I would use a scale based on if a product has traces of animal

products in it, actual animal products in the ingredients, and
actual meat in the food. What’s considered vegetarian is a sort
of gray area (for example- is something cooked with chicken
broth considered vegetarian? There is some debate around
this), which is why I would use a scale and not a hard yes/no.

The app would also have a calendar feature to keep track of how
long you’ve been plant-based, and would also have a community
section where people can share recipes and tips on staying
plant-based.

In order to make money, I have two options that I’ve thought of that could be combined into one at a later point possibly. I would either
rely on making a deal with the grocery stores- they print the QR
codes on their products, and I put advertisements for their store in
my app- or I could just sell the app for an up-front fee of $5.00. I
think doing both would be too much, because when someone pays
for an app they generally expect it to be ad-free.

Venture Concept

My app would solve the problem I identified because a consumer
would be able to pick up an item, scan the QR code, and
immediately know whether an item fits their own personal version
of a plant-based diet. Consumers would be willing to buy my
innovation because health and food are markets that people put
money down for. Whether someone’s plant-based because of
animal cruelty, sustainability, or for health, a person who is willing
and committed to eating a plant-based diet will go to great lengths
to stick to that diet which reflects that strong personal choice. I
don’t think it would be hard for them to “switch” to this product at
all. As long as it’s in the app store it would appear under related
keywords, so the product would literally be at customers’ fingertips
and could be downloaded within minutes. My competitors are other
health apps, but their major weakness is that they don’t target
plant-based consumers. I’ve tried downloading every food app I
could find, and there seem to be two kinds: those that are based on
calorie counting and knowing the amounts of fat, carbs, etc that is in
a food item, and those that are marketed towards vegetarians but
only provide recipesU (which you have to pay for). Packaging - the
graphic design of the app - would play a major role, because it
communicates worth and plays a major role in how a person
perceives a product. The other food apps on the market look juvenile
and crowded, but with a green color scheme slapped on to convey
that the app is for vegetarians. I can easily do better. Customer
support and the customer experience also play a large role in the
success or failure of an app, so I’d also have to make sure I tweak the
product a lot in beta before the official launch.

Minor Elements

My most important resource will be the rapidly-growing market of
plant-based consumers.

The next opportunity I would want to tackle is rating different foods

based on how sustainable and environmentally-friendly the product

is. This might be a companion app, or possibly a feature within the

same app. In the next five years I’d like for my app to become a

household name within the vegetarian community that becomes an

essential app for the market, with my own team of employees who

work on the bugs and make improvements to the app’s features. It

would also be amazing to be partnered with grocery stores all over

Florida so that anyone can walk into a grocery store and know that

the QR codes will be there.

2.) Feedback

The feedback I received on my last Venture Concept post was mostly praise, and the only criticism I really received was about the

formatting of my blog post- but nothing about the idea itself.

3.) Response to Feedback

I took it upon myself to ask my roommate and my mom if they saw

anything I can improve, but they also only had praise for the idea.

So, I decided to keep my idea the same until someone gives me

constructive criticism for the actual product idea. I know this

assignment was supposed to be about adapting the venture

concept to be better or change it in some way, but I've been truly

at a loss about what I should change about it. If it isn't broken, why

fix it? Right now I can't think of any huge improvements or changes

I could make, even just by my own choice. I guess I've expended

all of my ideas for this innovation for now.

4.) Pictures

QR code scanning:

Meat Meter:

Days Vegetarian/Vegan Tracker:

Community posts & Recipes:

28A - Exit Strategy

1.) The exit strategy I'm choosing to take is selling my idea to someone else who could capitalize on it more and execute the design and programming of this app better than I could.



2.) Honestly, I have very little interest in owning and managing a business. It doesn't seem like a job I'd enjoy- I like coming up with ideas but not so much executing them. I'd rather be the idea person and make a profit up front and let someone else transform my idea to be even better than I had imagined, with resources I don't have yet (networks, funds to program+design+launch it). I know I could make the app happen if I focused all my efforts into it, but I don't want to focus all my efforts into it. I'd rather focus on my major, Sustainability, and spend my energy getting my education and learning about architecture and interior design and how we can build sustainable cities. That's what I really care about at the end of the day.



3.) I think it has influenced certain decisions I've made. I think because I knew I didn't actually intend to pursue this idea myself, I dreamt big and tried to make the app without my personal limits. I would have to go through tremendous work and hustling to make this work out and become successful, but someone else could do this thing pretty easily, and I think I had that in the back of my mind when going through this entire process.

27A - Reading Reflection No. 3

For this week, I chose to read Mindset: the New Psychology of Success (from the second half of the book list).

1.) The general theme of the book was that if you change your outlook on what success means, then you'll be happier and feel more rewarded in both success and failure (in every aspect of life). The general message was that most people have a fixed mindset, where successes and failures are tallied and one measures oneself in those accomplishments compared to others. The fixed mindset also says that a person is born with fixed talents and abilities, like physical abilities and a limited artistic ability. The growth mindset says otherwise. The growth mindset says that we should look at each experience and evaluate how it can help us to grow and become better, through failures and successes alike. This allows a person to stop keeping score of perceived successes and failures, and stop comparing oneself to others. This also means that every single ability can be enhanced or learned, including things like physical skills and creativity/artistic ability. Anything can become a learning experience; even fights in relationships become an opportunity to communicate and grow closer in overcoming that fight.

2.) The book connected with ENT in the outlook on failure. The other assignment for this week was about celebrating failure and gaining something from the experience, which is basically exactly what this book was also saying. Taking every experience as an opportunity to make myself better should be a priority, not just for my success but also for my sanity and happiness.

3.) If I had to design an exercise based on what I learned from the book, it would be applying this advice to something in your life. It could be an academic failure, a personal failure, a fight you're in with your SO or someone else important to you, a recent learning opportunity or risk you took, or some other experience. In the activity you would have to talk about one of those experiences and talk about how you could change your outlook on that experience, good or bad, and how it can help you grow a particular skill or ability in the future.

4.) The biggest surprise in the book was when it talked about relationships and how they are also relevant to taking growing opportunities. The book talked about how no relationship is perfect, and how no one should strive to be in a relationship with no disagreements and no struggle, because then your connection has never truly been tested and strengthened. When a couple disagrees or faces a hardship, they can overcome it together and resolve it to become stronger and closer than before. This is something I've always believed in, and was a fundamental difference in thinking between me and my most recent ex. He had the fairytale mindset that everything should be perfect, and if anything goes wrong (not necessarily with the relationship, but with timing and circumstances) then the relationship just wasn't meant to be. I see it like the book describes, where any hardship just becomes an opportunity to overcome it together and become stronger as a result. So, that part of the book really resonated with me and struck a chord. 

26A - Celebrating Failure

1) This semester, I dropped my first class. I've always been pretty good at math, so when I realized stats was NOT clicking with my brain, for the first time I panicked and had no idea what to do. Studying, having my friend tutor me, and relentlessly watching Khan Academy videos usually work for me but didn't in this case.

2) What I learned from it is that when I retake stats I should focus on building the foundation. The reason I struggled so much was because I didn't understand the basic concepts of stats, which the rest of the class builds on. So what I think I would do differently next time is definitely focus from the get-go and make sure I never miss a lecture.

3) This particular failure was devastating to me because when you drop a class you have to pay for it. I have the top tier of Bright Futures, which covers 100% of my tuition for classes. However, when I dropped stats, I had to agree to pay back Bright Futures for that coverage. SO, I had to call my parents, admit to them I was dropping a class (my dad is an immigrant, and if you have parents who are immigrants you'll understand that this does NOT go over well. Failure is not an option). This was not only embarrassing but I felt back because of the money. Now I'll have to get a job to save up and pay off that debt because my parents said that since it was my failure, I'm the one who has to pay for it. I don't think I'm more likely to take a risk because of this- I think I'm less likely to. This experience has made me more hesitant to take on a lot of demanding classes at once, which may be a good or a bad thing. I guess if anything this experience has made me realize that not every class will be a cakewalk and I have to take them more seriously from the start before realizing it's actually a really tough class.

25A - What's Next?

Existing Market

What I think is next (when I say next I mean in the next few years, not int he far off future) is an increase in grocery stores and restaurants that only sell plant-based food, and also food delivery services like Hello Fresh that are catered to plant-based diets. These products seem to be on the rise right now and are especially popular in cities, which tend to lead with trends that trickle over to the rest of the country.

I talked to three vegetarians/vegans who are still relatively new to the diet (to to two years) and the three ideas they gave me based on what they think is next in the industry were these:

- A service for the elderly to maintain a healthy plant-based diet while also keeping track of vital nutrients (since the elderly need more nutrients daily to be healthy). 

- A government institution that regulates the sustainability of the food products we produce and import, eventually eliminating meat from mass production altogether. 

- A robot that prepares a specific meal plan (plant-based) for the consumer for every meal, which automatically regulates the diet to be balanced and contain all the daily recommended nutrients. 

New Market

A radically different market would probably be meat-oriented consumers who like barbecue and would never consider going vegetarian. A way I could possibly market towards these people is with barbecue substitutes (like jackfruit) and then basically trick them into realizing that meat substitutes are viable. Maybe this could mean partnering with vendors selling jackfruit pulled-pork sandwiches at a farmer's markets, music festivals, or county fairs, and then once the person falls in love with the sandwich then maybe those vendors can advertise for our app with a business card or something. We could include a discount code for those people so the app is half the price, and give them the jackfruit BBQ recipe as soon as they set up their profile.

I interviewed two omnivores, one who I knew was more open-minded and one who seems like the type of person who thinks eating meat makes them more masculine and cool. The first person, as I expected, said they would be more likely to download the app if they fell in love with a specific vegan recipe and then got a discount code for the app. This person said they wouldn't be likely to actually go vegetarian, but would consider using the vegetarian and vegan recipes if they were good. The second person had never heard of jackfruit and said that you need meat in your diet to be healthy, so they wouldn't even consider getting the app (and added that meat and dairy substitutes are "gross" and "a waste of money"). 

I wasn't surprised by the answers I got since I already knew the people I interviewed and has an idea of how close-minded they were to the whole plant-based diet. This new market could be profitable if the person is open minded and would be willing to use plant-based recipes, but some people are so against plant-based diets that they would never consider it. Those are the people who say "being vegan is for p****** and hippies" or "I like how meat tastes so why would I stop eating it". I get these reactions all the time when I tell people I'm vegetarian, so I wasn't surprised at the reaction of the second person. Honestly, I think this market would be too much work than it's worth. I could just stick to my original market and still be violently successful. 

24A - Venture Concept

Opportunity

What is the need?

The opportunity I’m focusing on is the problems vegetarians
and vegans have while shopping for groceries or eating out.
The FDA only requires food labels to list the ingredients in a
food, but not the ingredients within those ingredients. So, for
example, if a food product says “gelatin” not everyone may
realize that it contains animal hooves and is therefore not
vegetarian (common products that contain gelatin are Jell-O,
marshmallows, and gummy worms). Products like these may
seem vegetarian upon first glance, but actually aren’t, and
the FDA does not require food labels to specify if a product
has animal meat, broth, or parts in it. This means that
someone could be vegetarian for years and never realize a
food product they’ve been eating doesn’t meet the
qualifications of the diet. There are no existing apps that
address this problem- current food apps are aimed towards
losing weight or knowing the caloric contents of food. This
window of opportunity will be open until someone else
comes up with this idea and successfully executes it.

Who has the need?

Vegetarians and vegans. Even people who aren’t strictly
vegetarian or vegan might have this problem if they don’t
know which products may have animal parts or products in
them and they simply want to cut down on those products.
The people who have this problem tend to be people who are
new to the diet (a market that is expanding more and more
each year). This is because people who have been
plant-based for a long period of time probably won’t download
an app for it, since they probably think they already know
everything there is to know about the diet. What this market
uses currently is mostly Google to look up individual
ingredients, but this is tedious and not everyone actually
wastes time at the grocery store Googling every single
ingredient on every product they buy, so some misleading
products still end up slipping into a vegetarian or vegan’s
basket.

Innovation

My innovation is an app that would scan a QR code (with
augmented reality) on a product’s label and be able to
immediately tell a person if a product is vegetarian or vegan.

I would use a scale based on if a product has traces of animal
products in it, actual animal products in the ingredients, and
actual meat in the food. What’s considered vegetarian is a sort
of gray area (for example- is something cooked with chicken
broth considered vegetarian? There is some debate around
this), which is why I would use a scale and not a hard yes/no.

The app would also have a calendar feature to keep track of how
long you’ve been plant-based, and would also have a community
section where people can share recipes and tips on staying
plant-based.

In order to make money, I have two options that I’ve thought of that could be combined into one at a later point possibly. I would either
rely on making a deal with the grocery stores- they print the QR
codes on their products, and I put advertisements for their store in
my app- or I could just sell the app for an up-front fee of $5.00. I
think doing both would be too much, because when someone pays
for an app they generally expect it to be ad-free.

Venture Concept

My app would solve the problem I identified because a consumer
would be able to pick up an item, scan the QR code, and
immediately know whether an item fits their own personal version
of a plant-based diet. Consumers would be willing to buy my
innovation because health and food are markets that people put
money down for. Whether someone’s plant-based because of
animal cruelty, sustainability, or for health, a person who is willing
and committed to eating a plant-based diet will go to great lengths
to stick to that diet which reflects that strong personal choice. I
don’t think it would be hard for them to “switch” to this product at
all. As long as it’s in the app store it would appear under related
keywords, so the product would literally be at customers’ fingertips
and could be downloaded within minutes. My competitors are other
health apps, but their major weakness is that they don’t target
plant-based consumers. I’ve tried downloading every food app I
could find, and there seem to be two kinds: those that are based on
calorie counting and knowing the amounts of fat, carbs, etc that is in
a food item, and those that are marketed towards vegetarians but
only provide recipes (which you have to pay for). Packaging - the
graphic design of the app - would play a major role, because it
communicates worth and plays a major role in how a person
perceives a product. The other food apps on the market look juvenile
and crowded, but with a green color scheme slapped on to convey
that the app is for vegetarians. I can easily do better. Customer
support and the customer experience also play a large role in the
success or failure of an app, so I’d also have to make sure I tweak the
product a lot in beta before the official launch.

Minor Elements

My most important resource will be the rapidly-growing market of
plant-based consumers.

The next opportunity I would want to tackle is rating different foods
based on how sustainable and environmentally-friendly the product
is. This might be a companion app, or possibly a feature within the
same app. In the next five years I’d like for my app to become a
household name within the vegetarian community that becomes an
essential app for the market, with my own team of employees who
work on the bugs and make improvements to the app’s features. It
would also be amazing to be partnered with grocery stores all over
Florida so that anyone can walk into a grocery store and know that
the QR codes will be there.