28. Your Exit Strategy

After five years I intend to sell the company for a large return. When I envision myself in the future I don’t have a clear path. I many fields in academia and wish on using them in various industries and sectors to create solutions for problems. I would love to create multiple companies over my lifetime and learn from every single one creating a better one every time. I don’t wish to tie myself to a singular company. I don’t want to have a profession in one field I want to have a profession of ideas and creativity looking for problems and crafting solutions no one has thought of before. As a result, when I craft decision in my concept that is mostly solution-oriented and rather short term, I have not thought about my solutions with me being there to guide them in ten years time. My growth intentions and resource management have stayed rather similar however, I typically view my ideas in 1 to 2-year increments wanting to have flexibility within my company. As soon as my company garners attention from outside investors who wish to take the reigns if the time is right, I will gladly sell.

27. Reading Reflction No. 3

Book: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

The part that surprised me the most about Steve jobs is that I had not known that he was fired from Apple in 1985. Instead of sitting back he decided to start new ventures, NeXT and Pixar. Pixar giving him the highest return on investment actually being the investment that turned him into a billionaire, not Apple. I admired his tenacity to decide to move on from the company he built. Steve Jobs encountered adversity but did not let that hinder his path to success. If I could ask Steve Jobs, I would ask him about what other people thought about the skills which he possesses, which others coined the Reality Distortion Field. I would ask for a thought process which he goes through when utilizing this skill. Is it an active thought or just a way of thinking which he does passively, almost as an instinct, and if so how did he come to this way of thinking. No part of the biography confused me, I found interesting all the things that Steve Jobs had accomplished which I wasn’t aware of. His creativity and perseverance is a guiding example that many people should learn something from.

26. Celebrating Failure

The activity in which I experience the most failure is cooking. I was forced to learn how to cook as soon as I came to college. My first time cooking in my dorm, I activated the fire alarm, because I overcooked the chicken. With time, however, I realized the mistakes I was making and adjusted my techniques and preparation to improve the final outcome while simultaneously saving time cooking. Through this, I learned that no matter how many times you fail, you can either stop and never reap from your benefits or you can try again until you succeed. In the case of cooking, I used each failure as a learning experience and decided to keep trying until I succeeded, this was mostly motivated by my need to eat. From this, I learned that most success comes from trials and tribulation when you want to succeed at something that is a worthy accomplishment you have to prepare for failure and acknowledge that success will not come unless you keep trying. I try to implement this in the majority of skills that I try to improve from programming to cooking and from sports to video games. Failure will breed success if you aren’t afraid to try.

24. Venture Concept No. 1

My venture will focus on is the availability of clean water for drinking or other use as many locations around the world have begun or have announced that they may experience restrictions in the availability of water. One way that the solution to this problem could go is through the production of cheaper and more efficient desalination processes in order to utilize seawater or other sources of saltwater for public use. The product would gather water from various different sources such as seawater, lake water, and process the water to be prepared for daily use. The product will primarily be used as a secondary measure in the event that water availability becomes scarce. Another route that water cleansing could follow is by focusing on the recyclability of wastewater. By focusing on this route many countries would be able to become self-sustaining rather than depend on imports which could fluctuate and result in a dependent country on one of, if not the most, important resource in modern society.

Essentially, as stated before, as the population increases demand for water increases as well. Therefore, improvements in the water industry must be made, which is where our opportunity arises. The market would be all over the world, I would focus primarily on modern countries to begin with such as North American countries. The industry would primarily focus on targeting governments of cities and countries so that they can fulfill the needs of their citizens. As people all over the world need water this is a worldwide opportunity and as populations increase and the availability of water remains the same demand for my service will increase. I envision allowing countries the option to be completely sustainable off of their own sources of water rather than depending on importing the majority of their water from outside sources.

23. Your Venture's Unfair Advantage

Resources:

I have access to human capital in the form of connections in the construction industry as well as someone who works with drainage systems.(knowledge of construction is valuable,not rare, not inimitable, other workers exist, could be substituted by others)

Access to modern discovery within the industry(discoveries are valuable as they propel progress, rare within the industry, valuable, but not inimitable.)

Will create a team dedicated to finding new discoveries to patent and improve facilities(valuable, rare, and inimitable while the patent lasts, non-substitutable)

Ability to create facilities from scratch rather than incorporate into already existing facilities(valuable because I won’t be restricted by past infrastructure,not rare, non-inimitable as others could start as well, not substitutable)

Future ability to recycle forms of water such as urine(valuable as it will increase recyclable forms of water, rare as many facilities don’t have this capability, non-inimitable, non-substitutable)

My most valuable resource will be the team I will create in order to discover further techniques to recycle forms of wastewater.

Elevator Pitch No. 3

I wasn't told to change anything in my video, so I tried to keep the same delivery and added in some more information.

Reading Reflection No. 2

Book: How to Fail at Everything and Still Win Big

Failure is the greatest teacher. What the book is trying to get across is that failure is not something that you should be afraid of, being one of the most valuable teachers, by failing you are learning a lot that you wouldn’t learn if you never tried. This is especially apparent in my elevator pitches. Although sometimes I don’t want to finish them because I don’t feel as if they would turn out good. By posting them I can get valuable feedback and become more comfortable in manipulating mistakes as to make them unnoticeable. One exercise that I would create for the class would be to create a “system” like the one that they talked about in the book rather than a goal. Perform an action either once a day or once a week without a specific goal in mind in order to create habits. This is actually what surprised me the most, primarily because in high school I was taught to always think in specific short term goals. Then here come Scott Adams saying you don’t have to. Instead, we should act in systems, which I enjoy more because it allows for more flexibility and spontaneity.

Growing Your Social Capital

Person 1: Valentin Marin
He is the owner of a construction firm leasing many vehicles to aid in the construction of buildings as well as partake in the construction of the buildings. They will aid me in supplying the necessary tools to build the water treatment facilities. I found the person through my father who has ties in the construction industry and contacted them through email. I asked them to explain to me some of the various steps that go into the construction aspect of a water treatment facility.

Person 2: Eva Gallegos
She works in marketing in Tampa for a local beverage company. She could help me in marketing my new facilities to the public and cities. I found her through LinkedIn and video chatted with her over skype. We talked about marketing water recycling in a modern sense.

Person 3:
Jake Ricker: Works for the local government in Tampa overseeing aspects of the sewage system making sure that it operates well and inspects for repairs when needed. I met him through my father and we spoke over email. I asked him about the various intricacies of the drainage system. He can help me in determining the best sources of water to begin in recycling.

I have not networked to this extent in the past. Typically in the past when I networked I didn’t have a specific reason in mind or a specific goal in mind when speaking to people who I would like to work with or know in a professional sense. By having a goal in mind it became easier to talk to them in a professional sense.

Idea Napking No. 2

I am Jonathan Lopez, a computer science student with some background in entrepreneur classes, being in the catalyst competition last year and earning 2 out of 6 of the awards being granted. I am also minoring in innovation through the Innovation Academy. I could use this in order to build a more innovative wastewater treatment facility using new discoveries than the ones of the past.

I am offering to customers a revamped way to gain the valuable resource of water, primarily for irrigation in the agricultural facilities and for municipal uses such as filling in local lakes and ponds.

I am offering this primarily to modern societies which are in need of increased sources of water such as California and Cape Town which have struggled with water shortages and restrictions.

Water is a necessary resource, which if not adequately acquired could lead to societal collapse. Therefore, when resources drop, renewable means of acquiring the resource will be needed.

Unlike current water treatment facilities, I am not limited by the infrastructure of the past, I could construct a new facility optimized and using modern discoveries to recycle wastewater previously unrecyclable and do it more efficiently.

Elevator Pitch No. 2

Video Link: https://youtu.be/mSDU_5J9tTc

Feedback Response: I did not upload the previous elevator pitch, so I did not receive feedback. The feedback I received regarding my idea, however, was that I should focus more on the improvements that the facilities would offer which I talked about in my elevator pitch. 

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Everybody needs drinking water, so my prototypical customer includes every living person on the planet, but I wanted to primarily focus on the population of people in modern societies which have been experiencing water shortages around the world. Therefore, my prototypical customer lives a normal life in modern society except that they experience water restrictions. Like the customer avatar, I also need water in order to survive, which isn’t necessarily a coincidence as it is one of the fundamental components necessary for life. We live similar lifestyles in the sense that water has been openly available in the past but in recent times our location of living has either gone through droughts or other events leading to water restrictions. Similarly, like the customer, I didn’t realize the direct need of the resource until restrictions were initiated.