Assignment 28a - Your Exit Strategy

Assignment 28a

Your Exit Strategy

Personally, I think I would sell the business in a couple years, according to its success level. Once it is established and doing well, I’d hand it off to someone else and go find another project to start working on. However, I do feel that all this depends on many factors and can change incredibly while working. If, after several years of working with this business and it being successful, I might decide to keep going and working with it since it is my creation and I would have a sentimental value to it.

The reason why I would sell it after working on it for several years would be because I don’t want to get too greedy and keep it for myself. I want to bring new people in, with their ideas, to make the business grow in ways I would have never been able to. I also want to do many things and don’t like being tied down to a project I have already successfully completed.

I think this has had an influence. It’s influenced the way I’m planning and how long I envision it to be. Since I want it to grow and be successful as fast as possible, my networking efforts and hunting for resources is very elevated. This would help me develop the business as fast as possible and really establish it.  I also think this is true because the market for it is available right now and maybe not a couple years. That’s why planning for it and developing it as soon as possible would be most beneficial. Then selling it several years later would be a good return and a new introduction of ideas into the business.

Assignment 27a - Reading Reflection No. 3

Assignment 27a

Reading Reflection No. 3

How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams

The general theme of this book is about how an individual can learn from their failures and really change their perspective of them, helping them improve their lives. He explains how people need to focus on certain things and find the right schedules to find the right energy. It is how people plan out their paths and the way they react to changes, such as failures, which defines whether it becomes a positive failure or a negative one.

This book connects with what we are learning in class because a big part of entrepreneurship is going through many failures before finding the right formula. This class teaches about coming forth with an idea and testing it out until it doesn’t fail. If an entrepreneur is unable to cope with failure, then they will end up giving up on something that could’ve ended up being an incredible idea. This book wants the reader to understand that failures are good learning experiences and help individuals find their optimal selves. It helps create a more perfect version of what you are setting out to do. This book explains how individuals can take advantage of these failures as learning experiences and really move forward in their lives.

If I had to design an exercise based on this concept of failure, I’d ask my students to take part in one activity which they have never imagined doing. I’d like them to tell me about their feelings and how everything went. I want to see how they cope with the stress of failure and whether they learned something from it.

One thing that surprised me was the fact that Adams believes we shouldn’t be focusing on goals since they’re in the future and create disappointment. I always thought creating goals was effective. However, he says that building a system which helps you stay motivated and minimizes potential disappointment is more effective.

Assignment 26a - Celebrating Failure

Assignment 26a

Celebrating Failure

A time when I failed this semester has to be when I was struggling in the class for Financial Accounting. This class is known by many in the business school to be very challenging and somewhat of a weed-out class for certain majors. In addition to having challenging material, it is a fully online class, something which I have not been able to stay on top of and causes problems for me. Knowing all these factors coming into it, I tried very hard in the first months to stay on top of lecture and the material, studying and reviewing all the time, in preparation for the first exam. I did many practice problems and went over the material several times and yet I still struggled with it. However, I thought it wouldn’t be that bad and took the exam. As you can probably guess, I didn’t as well as I would have liked. With that, I decided to change it up for the next exam. I studied for the quizzes as much as I would have for the exam, got Study Edge, and doubled the amount of time spent studying. This proved to be effective because I improved greatly on the second exam, sparking a comeback in my grade, something which had me worrying.

From this, I learned several lessons. First of all, I learned the importance of time management and how one should organize themselves accordingly in order to achieve results. In addition, I learned that sometimes changing how things are being done could end up being extremely beneficial. I also learned my capabilities and how much I can achieve if I really pushed myself and motivated myself.

After experiencing failures this semester, I’ve grown more into being able to accept it better. I’ve always been competitive and would cringe at the thought of failing. However, once I got to college and found this new responsibility, I had to learn how to cope with failure, something which would end up being inevitable. I usually internalize my problems and deal with them personally. I did learn that talking and having people around you who are dealing with the same problems helps alleviate the stress and anxiety that may come with failure. Now, I feel I’d be less afraid of doing something if I thought failure would be the end result.