My Practicum
I took the ENES140 course for my practicum. It is an entrepreneurial class that talks about how to start a business and emphasizes important things that students may not think of. This class consisted of quizzes and simulations to better my understanding of business concepts from a conceptual level. In addition to that, throughout the semester we worked on our own business ides, not to actually create, but as a model to help shape our understanding of the things that come with starting a business.
What I learned
I learned about many practical applications of business topics. For example, as a business student we always learn about the importance of understanding your competition. However, this class placed a further emphasis on applying that concept to a business idea that we made up. That is just one concept that this class touched on, but overall, it served as a way to be forced to apply all of these concepts to one large business leadership project. For this we were forced to think outside the box and think on our own to achieve a good grade.
How I have grown as a leader
I have grown as a leader, student, and professional from this final project because it has forced me to apply the concepts from class into a real-world example, using real facts and statistics from competitors and other factors. Also, I chose this because it is really the one assignment that compiles everything we learned in class, as well as things I have learned in other classes. This assignment really made you think about the things that affect a startup and how to potentially overcome those things.
Artifact- Final Project
1. Based on your evaluations on entrepreneurial mindset, summarize your level of need for achievement, individualism, control, focus, and optimism. What strategies and tactics could enhance these in the next 6 months?
Based on my evaluations on entrepreneurial mindset, I think that there are many things that I excel in and many things that could use some work over the next six months. For starters, my need for achievement is something that can be improved. Often times I find myself telling myself that no matter what, things will play out favorably. However, I need to alter that mindset and know that if I work that much harder on something, I will have greater success. Additionally, individualism is something that I thrive in because I never want to be like other people. When I am different from others it gives me great satisfaction because I like achieving things outside of normalcy. In terms of focus I typically thrive in that area because I have many things in my life that require intensive focus such as my role as treasurer for a local political campaign. Control and optimism are two areas however that will require many strategies to help. For example, I often times doubt myself regarding my ability to do something. In order to fix that, I can use tactics such as going over what I have accomplished to reassure myself that I am capable of things.
2. Based on your evaluations on entrepreneurial motivations, summarize your level of self-efficacy, cognitive motivation, and tolerance for ambiguity. What strategies and tactics could enhance these in the next 6 months?
Based on my evaluations on entrepreneurial motivations, my level of self-efficacy, cognitive motivation, and tolerance from ambiguity is rather all over the place. My level of self-efficacy is currently the main thing I am working on within myself. I sometimes struggle from doubting my ability to do certain things but the main strategy I have found in eliminating that is by simply asking more questions. My cognitive motivation is very good, and I believe I am always working to understand more and have a higher capacity for information and intelligence. However, I can still improve that by having reminders such as a vision board to remind myself of things to keep me motivated. My tolerance for ambiguity however is something that I also need to work on. For example, just today I had a meeting with the comptroller of Maryland regarding tax form 1120 and form 500, which is very complicated. This creates a lot of anxiety for me because when people cannot answer my questions, I get lost and do not have a high tolerance for that level of ambiguity. The main strategy for this would be to seek help and not be afraid to ask questions so that when all is said and done, the ambiguity is lowered.
3. Based on your evaluations on entrepreneurial behaviors, summarize your confidence, risk tolerance, interpersonal relationship skills, and social capital. What strategies and tactics could enhance these in the next 6 months?
Based on my evaluations on entrepreneurial behaviors, my level of confidence, risk tolerance, interpersonal relationship skills, and social capital are where I thrive the most. My confidence is rather high because throughout my life, I have always been able to figure things out in the end. Additionally, my strong relationship skills transcend into me being a rather confident person. However, my risk tolerance is something that I could certainly work on. Everyone knows that entrepreneurial endeavors and risk-taking go very much hand-in-hand, which is why it is essential for this business idea. I am usually very easily uncomfortable with uncertainty, which I view as a risk. However, I can improve this over the next six months by having an understanding of the “worst case scenarios” and know that the effort will be worth whatever outcome because of all the things I learn along the way. The type of risk this is referring to is not life-or-death, which is a very important thing to get across to myself. In the end of the day, risks are risks because you can fail, but failing is only the first attempt in learning.
4. Describe an innovative business idea that you have that is the basis for the rest of these Opportunity Analysis Canvas questions.
The innovative business idea I have is a money transferring service that works very similar to fax machines coupled with Venmo/ Cashapp/ Paypal. How it works is I will partner with banks that have ATMs all over the world and each ATM would have a unique identification number. From there people can go to an ATM, have someone else at another ATM, and send cash directly to another ATM for someone to receive. Practically, it is for people who need to instantly transfer cash. To explain further, let’s say a student that goes to college out of state needs cash for something. Their parents can go to their local ATM, insert their card, and rather than getting cash out of that ATM, they can get the cash to come out at another ATM based on the address of whatever ATM the college student is at. The reasoning behind this idea is because in today’s world, technology is making everything significantly easier to transfer money places, instantly. However, there is no real way to send cash instantly, even though cash is still needed at many places, and has many practical uses still.
5. For your business idea, what are the knowledge and demand conditions related to this idea.
For my business idea, the knowledge and demand conditions are extremely important. The reason for this is that it would require partnering with banks that have existing ATMs, which means I have to convince them of the demand as well. In addition to that, I must be knowledgeable on finance laws and taxes based on money transferring, not just income. In terms of demand conditions, I will need to ensure that the demand is there for wanting to transfer cash. In reality, the issue with this idea is the fact that cash usage is slowly declining. However, after doing some research, there is no way that cash can actually fully go away, which means the technology must catch up with the times even with cash. Also, many people like using cash more due to the many benefits. For example, when credit cards are used, it captures a lot of data and there are privacy issues with that. “Cash, on the other hand, is relatively untraceable, as it leaves no track record of who handled it, when, and at what time” (Sullivan).
6. For your business idea, what is the life cycle stage of your industry, and the existing industry structure.
The life cycle for my industry is rather unique. The reason for this is that the financial industry will never really decline because it will never run out of demand. However, cash is something that is slowly declining. But at the same time, this technology using cash like this has not existed in the past so it may even spark a new interest in using cash with ease, especially considering the new concerns about our data being everywhere. The financial service industry as a whole, however, is on the growth stage of the industry as many services are being created (Industry). Additionally, Paypal reported that Venmo is on the path to profitability (Paypal), indicating that they are still in the growth phase. The existing industry structure is basically just companies improving Elon Musk’s original idea of Paypal, while also incorporating bank systems with accounts that allow you to spend money. This is what Venmo did by incorporating the Venmo card to allow people to spend. However, this concept is so different from all of the competitors that it almost does not even fall under the same umbrella.
7. For your business idea, what are the demographic, psychographic, technical, and societal changes as well as the political and regulatory forces in your industry.
The demographic and psychographic forces in my industry are almost non-existent because everyone uses cash. However, there is a plethora of technical forces, societal changes, and regulatory forces within my industry. For example, society is moving toward digital currencies dominating paper currencies, which is clearly an issue for this business idea. As Bloomberg reported, “In the U.S., debit cards first beat out cash as the top way to pay in 2018” (Sivabalan). However, I strongly believe it does not matter if people use cash less, because it will never fully go away and the market share of people who use cash will never be small enough to not be able to create businesses out of it. In addition to that, there are many political and regulatory forces to take into consideration. For example, there would need to be ways to alleviate the risk of fraud, hacking, and other potential dangers. Because this would be a rather new technology, there are many uncertainties about the regulation that we fall under. The FDIC article 6000 for Consumer Protection highlights the regulations for “electronic fund transfers,” but it is unclear if the transferring is the electronic part, or the money is (FDIC). However, there are definitely significant regulatory forces at play.
8. For your business idea, what factors you can your team eliminate, reduce, raise, and create. Describe why the factors that you selected for the value curve are important to customers.
For my business idea, my team can reduce factors such as people creating services that are all the same such as Venmo and Cashapp. We are reducing this because they all compete on the same types of things, but this is very similar and incorporates all new ideas. Similarly, we will create by doing the same thing and offering a service that people have not seen before. This is important to customers as “a 2016 study shows that 63 percent of customers like it when manufacturers offer new products” (13). Judging by this statistic as well as many others, it is extremely important to create innovation to drive the customer’s interest in your services. To do this I will be introducing this brand new concept, which is not only practical, but also very cool to consumers. In addition to innovation, I will be raising by raising awareness to the issue of data existing on everything in our lives. Cash is very important, and the people deserve innovation that does not solely rely on them putting their personal information into new applications and new sites. This is critical to the design of our business because it almost incorporates some of the beautiful advantages of cryptocurrency, coupled with the comfort of people using and holding cash.
9. For your new business idea, discuss how the learning curve influences your success, the complementary assets that are critical to develop for your venture, and the reputation of your competitors.
The learning curve of this business influences the success because there are many factors to understand before this is feasible. For example, I will need to understand how banks are profitable and how I could help them (so they want to partner). In addition to that, I need to understand a lot more about taxes. While I understand the general guidelines for how businesses handle taxes, it is still a rather tedious subject. “Taxes for businesses come in several varieties: federal, state, and local” (Murray), which means that there are many things to account for. In addition to that, I will need to understand about all of the advertisement side of things because the revenue depends on how much people use the service. To do this, I will need to focus on all of the reasons to use cash and make it a household name. The complimentary assets I will need are a website and possibly even my own ATM locations at some point. In terms of competitors, they offer slightly different services, so it almost does not even matter the reputation. However, Venmo, the greatest competitor is highly regarded. That being said, there are many concerns with the limits as sometimes people can have limits as low as $999 to transfer to your bank (Campbell).
10. For your new business idea, summarize why the problem is real, how your team's solution creates value for stakeholders, the types of advantage that you all possess, and your ability to build the right team.
As a student that does not have a paying job, there have been numerous instances where I need cash quickly from my parents and them venoming me will not work. The technology that exists today eliminates the issue of needing to obtain digital currency quickly, but the only way to obtain cash quickly is by transferring money via Venmo, transferring that into your bank account (which takes time and has fees) and then going to an ATM to get money out, which takes too much time and has costs associated with it. If there was a way to simply and instantly transfer cash and skipping the middleman/middlemen, it would help in a lot of situations. In order to create value of stakeholders, I will need to monetize the idea. To do this, I will take a very small fee per transaction, but it will remain instant. The team will be comprised of people that possess two main characteristics: communication and appreciation (Nordstrom). The reason for this is that if everyone is bought in, and communicates when they need assistance or additional resources, the team dynamic will be perfect. Also, as a leader, I will have to detail the goals in order to express that to the team so they can buy into the vision (Bryant).
Based on my evaluations on entrepreneurial mindset, I think that there are many things that I excel in and many things that could use some work over the next six months. For starters, my need for achievement is something that can be improved. Often times I find myself telling myself that no matter what, things will play out favorably. However, I need to alter that mindset and know that if I work that much harder on something, I will have greater success. Additionally, individualism is something that I thrive in because I never want to be like other people. When I am different from others it gives me great satisfaction because I like achieving things outside of normalcy. In terms of focus I typically thrive in that area because I have many things in my life that require intensive focus such as my role as treasurer for a local political campaign. Control and optimism are two areas however that will require many strategies to help. For example, I often times doubt myself regarding my ability to do something. In order to fix that, I can use tactics such as going over what I have accomplished to reassure myself that I am capable of things.
2. Based on your evaluations on entrepreneurial motivations, summarize your level of self-efficacy, cognitive motivation, and tolerance for ambiguity. What strategies and tactics could enhance these in the next 6 months?
Based on my evaluations on entrepreneurial motivations, my level of self-efficacy, cognitive motivation, and tolerance from ambiguity is rather all over the place. My level of self-efficacy is currently the main thing I am working on within myself. I sometimes struggle from doubting my ability to do certain things but the main strategy I have found in eliminating that is by simply asking more questions. My cognitive motivation is very good, and I believe I am always working to understand more and have a higher capacity for information and intelligence. However, I can still improve that by having reminders such as a vision board to remind myself of things to keep me motivated. My tolerance for ambiguity however is something that I also need to work on. For example, just today I had a meeting with the comptroller of Maryland regarding tax form 1120 and form 500, which is very complicated. This creates a lot of anxiety for me because when people cannot answer my questions, I get lost and do not have a high tolerance for that level of ambiguity. The main strategy for this would be to seek help and not be afraid to ask questions so that when all is said and done, the ambiguity is lowered.
3. Based on your evaluations on entrepreneurial behaviors, summarize your confidence, risk tolerance, interpersonal relationship skills, and social capital. What strategies and tactics could enhance these in the next 6 months?
Based on my evaluations on entrepreneurial behaviors, my level of confidence, risk tolerance, interpersonal relationship skills, and social capital are where I thrive the most. My confidence is rather high because throughout my life, I have always been able to figure things out in the end. Additionally, my strong relationship skills transcend into me being a rather confident person. However, my risk tolerance is something that I could certainly work on. Everyone knows that entrepreneurial endeavors and risk-taking go very much hand-in-hand, which is why it is essential for this business idea. I am usually very easily uncomfortable with uncertainty, which I view as a risk. However, I can improve this over the next six months by having an understanding of the “worst case scenarios” and know that the effort will be worth whatever outcome because of all the things I learn along the way. The type of risk this is referring to is not life-or-death, which is a very important thing to get across to myself. In the end of the day, risks are risks because you can fail, but failing is only the first attempt in learning.
4. Describe an innovative business idea that you have that is the basis for the rest of these Opportunity Analysis Canvas questions.
The innovative business idea I have is a money transferring service that works very similar to fax machines coupled with Venmo/ Cashapp/ Paypal. How it works is I will partner with banks that have ATMs all over the world and each ATM would have a unique identification number. From there people can go to an ATM, have someone else at another ATM, and send cash directly to another ATM for someone to receive. Practically, it is for people who need to instantly transfer cash. To explain further, let’s say a student that goes to college out of state needs cash for something. Their parents can go to their local ATM, insert their card, and rather than getting cash out of that ATM, they can get the cash to come out at another ATM based on the address of whatever ATM the college student is at. The reasoning behind this idea is because in today’s world, technology is making everything significantly easier to transfer money places, instantly. However, there is no real way to send cash instantly, even though cash is still needed at many places, and has many practical uses still.
5. For your business idea, what are the knowledge and demand conditions related to this idea.
For my business idea, the knowledge and demand conditions are extremely important. The reason for this is that it would require partnering with banks that have existing ATMs, which means I have to convince them of the demand as well. In addition to that, I must be knowledgeable on finance laws and taxes based on money transferring, not just income. In terms of demand conditions, I will need to ensure that the demand is there for wanting to transfer cash. In reality, the issue with this idea is the fact that cash usage is slowly declining. However, after doing some research, there is no way that cash can actually fully go away, which means the technology must catch up with the times even with cash. Also, many people like using cash more due to the many benefits. For example, when credit cards are used, it captures a lot of data and there are privacy issues with that. “Cash, on the other hand, is relatively untraceable, as it leaves no track record of who handled it, when, and at what time” (Sullivan).
6. For your business idea, what is the life cycle stage of your industry, and the existing industry structure.
The life cycle for my industry is rather unique. The reason for this is that the financial industry will never really decline because it will never run out of demand. However, cash is something that is slowly declining. But at the same time, this technology using cash like this has not existed in the past so it may even spark a new interest in using cash with ease, especially considering the new concerns about our data being everywhere. The financial service industry as a whole, however, is on the growth stage of the industry as many services are being created (Industry). Additionally, Paypal reported that Venmo is on the path to profitability (Paypal), indicating that they are still in the growth phase. The existing industry structure is basically just companies improving Elon Musk’s original idea of Paypal, while also incorporating bank systems with accounts that allow you to spend money. This is what Venmo did by incorporating the Venmo card to allow people to spend. However, this concept is so different from all of the competitors that it almost does not even fall under the same umbrella.
7. For your business idea, what are the demographic, psychographic, technical, and societal changes as well as the political and regulatory forces in your industry.
The demographic and psychographic forces in my industry are almost non-existent because everyone uses cash. However, there is a plethora of technical forces, societal changes, and regulatory forces within my industry. For example, society is moving toward digital currencies dominating paper currencies, which is clearly an issue for this business idea. As Bloomberg reported, “In the U.S., debit cards first beat out cash as the top way to pay in 2018” (Sivabalan). However, I strongly believe it does not matter if people use cash less, because it will never fully go away and the market share of people who use cash will never be small enough to not be able to create businesses out of it. In addition to that, there are many political and regulatory forces to take into consideration. For example, there would need to be ways to alleviate the risk of fraud, hacking, and other potential dangers. Because this would be a rather new technology, there are many uncertainties about the regulation that we fall under. The FDIC article 6000 for Consumer Protection highlights the regulations for “electronic fund transfers,” but it is unclear if the transferring is the electronic part, or the money is (FDIC). However, there are definitely significant regulatory forces at play.
8. For your business idea, what factors you can your team eliminate, reduce, raise, and create. Describe why the factors that you selected for the value curve are important to customers.
For my business idea, my team can reduce factors such as people creating services that are all the same such as Venmo and Cashapp. We are reducing this because they all compete on the same types of things, but this is very similar and incorporates all new ideas. Similarly, we will create by doing the same thing and offering a service that people have not seen before. This is important to customers as “a 2016 study shows that 63 percent of customers like it when manufacturers offer new products” (13). Judging by this statistic as well as many others, it is extremely important to create innovation to drive the customer’s interest in your services. To do this I will be introducing this brand new concept, which is not only practical, but also very cool to consumers. In addition to innovation, I will be raising by raising awareness to the issue of data existing on everything in our lives. Cash is very important, and the people deserve innovation that does not solely rely on them putting their personal information into new applications and new sites. This is critical to the design of our business because it almost incorporates some of the beautiful advantages of cryptocurrency, coupled with the comfort of people using and holding cash.
9. For your new business idea, discuss how the learning curve influences your success, the complementary assets that are critical to develop for your venture, and the reputation of your competitors.
The learning curve of this business influences the success because there are many factors to understand before this is feasible. For example, I will need to understand how banks are profitable and how I could help them (so they want to partner). In addition to that, I need to understand a lot more about taxes. While I understand the general guidelines for how businesses handle taxes, it is still a rather tedious subject. “Taxes for businesses come in several varieties: federal, state, and local” (Murray), which means that there are many things to account for. In addition to that, I will need to understand about all of the advertisement side of things because the revenue depends on how much people use the service. To do this, I will need to focus on all of the reasons to use cash and make it a household name. The complimentary assets I will need are a website and possibly even my own ATM locations at some point. In terms of competitors, they offer slightly different services, so it almost does not even matter the reputation. However, Venmo, the greatest competitor is highly regarded. That being said, there are many concerns with the limits as sometimes people can have limits as low as $999 to transfer to your bank (Campbell).
10. For your new business idea, summarize why the problem is real, how your team's solution creates value for stakeholders, the types of advantage that you all possess, and your ability to build the right team.
As a student that does not have a paying job, there have been numerous instances where I need cash quickly from my parents and them venoming me will not work. The technology that exists today eliminates the issue of needing to obtain digital currency quickly, but the only way to obtain cash quickly is by transferring money via Venmo, transferring that into your bank account (which takes time and has fees) and then going to an ATM to get money out, which takes too much time and has costs associated with it. If there was a way to simply and instantly transfer cash and skipping the middleman/middlemen, it would help in a lot of situations. In order to create value of stakeholders, I will need to monetize the idea. To do this, I will take a very small fee per transaction, but it will remain instant. The team will be comprised of people that possess two main characteristics: communication and appreciation (Nordstrom). The reason for this is that if everyone is bought in, and communicates when they need assistance or additional resources, the team dynamic will be perfect. Also, as a leader, I will have to detail the goals in order to express that to the team so they can buy into the vision (Bryant).
How I can apply this to my life moving forward
I can apply my practicum experience to my life and career moving forward and I certainly will because in the business field, all of these concepts are truly important. In addition to that, I am very interested in being an entrepreneur and one day starting my own company. However, this also helps my daily life today, as I am basically involved in a start-up already. The campaign I am working on experiences all the same issues with how to target audience and how to compete with established competitors when we are just starting up.
My plans for the future
My plans for the rest of my time at UMD consist of getting good grades as a newly declared finance student, as well as continuing to learn and apply what I have learned to help me achieve my goals outside of school. Post-graduation, I would like to continue many things such as working on campaigns and being involved in financial law. Politics has always interested me but so has finance, so this is the best of both worlds. However, I will continue to keep an open mind and capitalize on whatever opportunities that present themselves to me following graduation.
How I will incorporate PL into my future job search
I will incorporate what I have learned in PL and my practicum into my job search by focusing on what I have found interesting and applying that to what I will want to do. In addition to that, it has helped a lot with professional interpersonal skills between collaborating with other members of PL, as well as overall learning how to behave and speak to others professionally.
Elevator Pitch
I participated in a program called Public Leadership within the UMD Scholars program. This has allowed me to learn many things that go into being a good leader, and a good overall professional. I have learned things from how to be collaborative in a team, to how to identify characteristics of my own personality to advance the productivity of teams. In addition to that, I have studied many leaders, not only emphasizing their great characterizes, but also their negatives so that I could learn from the whole person. However, the most important thing that I learned throughout my time in the Public Leadership program was how growing as a leader and a person never stops and if you think you have ever learned it all, you clearly have more to learn.