ENT 3303

Opportunity What are the forces or changes in the environment creating this opportunity?  Alongside college tuition, the price of college textbooks has risen four times faster than the rate of inflation over the last ten years. This is most likely due to the oligopoly of textbook publishers in the United States, most notably, Pearson, McGraw Hill, and Houghton Mifflin. How is this market defined geographically and demographically?  Most of the market in need of a service like this is located in the United States. For now, we will focus on students at the University of Florida in Gainesville. In terms of demographics, most who would need this would be lower-income students, including minorities. How are customers currently satisfying this need? And how loyal are they to whatever they use now?  For now, students are using the school bookstore, where books are offered at full retail price. For some older books, they are available to rent at a relatively lower cost. Other students, pa

1) Identify the exit strategy you plan to make. Do you intend to sell your business in the next 5 years for a large return? Do you intend to stay with the business for several decades and retire? Do you intend to protect the venture as a family business, and pass it down to your children? To be honest, as this is not the field that I want to spend my career in, I would be completely open to selling the company for a return. If I can find a buyer that I know will take care of its clients and employees, I will gladly sell it. 2) Why have you selected this particular exit strategy? Book publishing software is simply not the world I want to live in for the rest of my life. I found a solution to a problem that affects thousands of college students around the country, and I've done my job. I would rather spend my time doing something else that interests me. I would sell the company to someone who I know cares about the company. 3) How do you think your exit strategy has influen

1) The third book I read was Nike founder Phil Knight's autobiography, "Shoe Dog." I think the thing that surprised me most about Knight's journey was the fact that in the beginning, he was constantly fighting debt in his attempts to bring Blue Ribbon, and then Nike, to reality. He worked tooth and nail to find more investors and loaners to keep the family going. The thing I admired most about Knight was that from the beginning of the book, he explains the prototypical path that an entrepreneur is supposed to go through. This person is uncannily smart, coy, strategic. But Knight was, from his perspective, none of those things. He assures the person that every entrepreneur has their own individual path that will likely be totally different from society's expectations. There was nothing about him from the book that I did not admire. However, we've all heard the rumors of Nike using children in sweatshops in the past, and I do look at him less admirably with th

1) Tell us about a time this past semester that you failed -- whether in this class, or outside of this class. Don't spare any details! It'd be even better if there was something you tried several times this semester, and failed each time.  Earlier in the semester, I went to my hometown of Salta, Argentina for my cousin's wedding. Every time I go out of town, or on vacation, I make sure to fulfill all of my responsibilities beforehand, so I don't have to worry about them while I'm away. This is to ensure I don't find myself without time to complete assignments, or without an internet connection. So, of course, I completed my Entrepreneurship assignments as I always do, on Monday morning. I don't know if I was in a rush or what, but for some reason, I completed the assignment on Blogger, but I never submitted the links or the declare assignments. It was a total lapse of awareness, and my grade dropped about 6 points, thanks to being unable to participate i

Existing Market Person number one said they think I should expand this idea to graduate and doctorate programs, as they suffer even more than undergraduates when it comes to textbook prices. Person number two said we should look to providing the service to the entirety of the Florida public university system. Person number three said we should look to using our proprietary service to help high schools as well. They said their high school’s textbooks were old and tattered, and schools could save money by digitizing their books. New Market. Currently, the way the business is set up, we would be marketing towards schools, as they would then offer the service to students. We could provide this service to customers directly, maybe as a book subscription service, similar to what Nook or Kindle does. By being a central location for people to access any book they want, similar to Spotify or Apple Music, publishers and customers can both benefit. If it worked for music streaming, why couldn’t i

Opportunity What are the forces or changes in the environment creating this opportunity? Alongside college tuition, the price of college textbooks has risen four times faster than the rate of inflation over the last ten years. This is most likely due to the oligopoly of textbook publishers in the United States, most notably, Pearson, McGraw Hill, and Houghton Mifflin. How is this market defined geographically and demographically? Most of the market in need of a service like this is located in the United States. For now, we will focus on students at the University of Florida in Gainesville. In terms of demographics, most who would need this would be lower-income students, including minorities. How are customers currently satisfying this need? And how loyal are they to whatever they use now? For now, students are using the school bookstore, where books are offered at full retail price. For some older books, they are available to rent at a relatively lower cost. Other students, particula