30A - Final Reflection

Final Reflection

Most formative experience: The experience I had in this class that has had the most profound impact on me is the pitch video. Learning the key elements of a proper pitch has helped me succeed outside the classroom, specifically in a company I am starting right now.

Experience I'll remember years later: The experience that I think I will remember years later is the venture concepts. Learning how to explain a venture concept and all the elements that make a business successful will be stuck in my mind forever.

Most joyous experience: My most joyous experience from all of my posts is the growing your social capital assignment.

Most proud of: The experience I am most proud of is also the venture concept again. It took me a lot of thought to piece together exactly how I would go about selling a cooling controller and I am proud of myself for it.

I do see myself as an entrepreneur now and I have definitely moved closer to developing an entrepreneurial mindset.

One recommendation I would make to students going down this journey in the future would be to stay on top of due dates and to make sure you fully do every assignment to get the most out of it. To perform best in this course, I recommend you read the instructions carefully and just make sure you take the most out of each assignment. To foster the mindset, I recommend that you take on every assignment like it is a real life business venture.

29A - Venture Concept No. 2

Venture Concept No. 2

After playing video games for 16 years of my life, I recognized there was an untapped opportunity that if correctly exploited could be very profitable. This opportunity arises out of a pain point in gaming and something that has always been a problem, the fact that there is no way to limit the amount of sweat you release on to gaming controllers. Playing video games has always been fun but when you have to wipe off the controller every time you use it or someone passes it to you, it takes away from the phone. The force in the environment that created this opportunity to create a gaming controller with an internal cooling system is the fact that too many people get frustrated from sweaty controllers and no other company has fixed this problem yet. The market is defined demographically rather than geographically. Our target market is basically anyone who plays video games and uses gaming controllers. However, the prototypical consumer for our product tends to be males aged from 10-21. Customers currently attempt to satisfy this need for a way to reduce sweaty controllers by either just wiping off the sweat with their shirt or towel, or they buy controllers that have grips. Although these grips make it easier to hold on to the controller while you sweat, it does not actually limit the amount of sweat there is. They are not very loyal to these grips because it is not that efficient. This opportunity is huge solely because there is such a need for it and no other company has created a controller with an internal cooling system yet. The window of opportunity will be open until someone creates the actual controller.

Our product is a controller with an internal cooling system specifically designed to limit the amount of sweat that gets released from one's hand to the gaming controller. It basically works when the sensor inside the controller senses it is getting overheated and then the cooling system gets to work. By making the cooling system start with a sensor, we are able to save money in production because you can use a smaller battery. We will sell the cooling controllers for 75 dollars.

Our innovation will solve the problem of sweaty hands while playing video games. Customers will definitely switch to this new product because there is currently no product like ours out there. They will easily switch over from using grips to using our product when they hear that our product will completely solve the problem rather than just attempt to make it a little less worse like grips do. There are no direct competitors but companies that put grips on controllers would be the closest competitor. They are very weak and vulnerable because grips just make it easier to hold sweaty controllers, it does not actually make you sweat less. Packaging plays a huge role because the customer should be able to clearly see what our product is and how it works from the packaging. I would rent out a big factory and pay employees to make the product. I would probably need about 50 employees for production. I would need about 25 employees to package the product and then another 25 to distribute the controllers to retailers.

I think my most important resource will be my human capital. My perseverance and hard working nature will make my company successful because I will never give up on my product until it is is successful. It is impossible to match someones personality and that gives us a leg up on competitors.

Our next venture will be to get our technology, the internal cooling system, in to any small device that gets overheated such as iPhones or even computers.

In five years, I want to be the leading gaming controller company and as an entrepreneur, I want to have had started another company in a different segment to diversify my portfolio. This venture helps with my vision because it gives me valuable experience on how to run and start a company.

I received some feedback on my last venture concept that was very helpful. I received feedback from people asking me how it would be possible to have a cooling system inside of a controller without it making it heat up and actually make you sweat even more. We would have to make a system inside the controller with a fan, using technology already developed today like someone told me in one of my feedbacks. This would make it cost less to design the controller as we would not have to spend as much on R & D. This is the only way I would change my venture concept because now we could charge less for the controller and make it more affordable for the average consumer.