27A – Reading Reflection No. 3

For the last reading reflection, I chose to read Makers: The New Industrial Revolution by Chris Anderson. In this book, Chris Anderson talks about how we are currently experiencing another industrial revolution thanks to the rise of entrepreneurs and manufacturers that are known as “Makers”. The main theme discussed in this book is how advances in technology like open-source software and 3-D printing have allowed the everyday person to manufacture at a smaller scale at less cost thus allowing them to innovate and become successful entrepreneurs.  

I think that many of the ideas that Chris presents in this book are reinforced by the things, we have learned in ENT3003. For one, I think that the overall theme of risk-taking in entrepreneurship is present in both. Entrepreneurs have to take risks and as with any new innovation or change risks are associated with it. These entrepreneurs and “Makers” are driven by their ideas and take risks in order to see their products and services come to life. And because of advances in technology, they are now able to accomplish that. 

I think a good exercise that would illustrate the themes and topics covered in this book would be to encourage people to research how much of their manufacturing or development process they can now accomplish at home. With things like 3-D printers more people than ever can now manufacture products from the comfort of their home. It would be cool to see how much of the process you could do yourself and see how much money you could save by not having to use a third-party manufacturer.  

I think the aha moment for me was the inclusion of crowdsourcing as an innovation that was ushering in this new industrial revolution. To me, crowdsourcing is nothing new as we usually ask many people for their take on an idea or process. But what was surprising was how the author presented crowdsourcing in the context of modern times. With the help of technology, we can now crowdsource ideas from potentially everyone in the world. Through technology we have reached the point where anyone can voice their opinion, thus allowing for the free flow of ideas and innovation to occur on an almost global scale.

26A – Celebrating Failure

1.     One time I can say that I genuinely failed this semester was when a mistake I made delayed a project at my job. Working as a developer/programmer some of the deadlines for our projects can be pretty tight. During the semester my schoolwork began to pile up and I would get overwhelmed by my schoolwork on top of my responsibilities at work. As a result of being focused more on school and being exhausted and experiencing burnout, I made a critical error towards the end of the project that forced my team to delay it and take more time to rectify it.

2.     The big lesson that I learned from that experience was to balance your responsibilities. Starting this semester, I was overconfident and was super sure that I could handle my classes and a job at the same time. That failure was clear proof that I was having trouble handling both school and work. It was an eye-opening moment that led me to get my priorities straight and helped me reevaluate how I was working on school and work and in the end, helped me understand that I need to set aside time for both in order to succeed at both.

3.     Failure is something that has affected every person at some point in their lives. It’s something that we can all relate to and something that always stands out as a moment where real change can happen. I think that every failure, no matter how severe or bleak it may seem, is a moment from growth and self-improvement. When handling failure, I try to stay as positive as possible but that obviously is easier said than done. I think this class has shown me that to be successful in the world of business you have to take risks so I am more open to taking risks now because of it.

25A – What’s Next?

Existing Market

Next steps for my software dev company would definitely be branching out into new markets and embracing new technologies or techniques in order to stand out and become a leader in our industry. Using the capital raised by this current project we may look to use the data collected from our user base and create another application in order to fill the needs that result of the use of our current application.

Interviews:

1.     The first person I interviewed said that we should try and implement some sort of social media compatibility with our application in order to appeal to the younger demographic it is currently targeting. They also seemed to be receptive to the idea of the company moving in other directions to solve problems users face that may come up during the use of our current application.

2.     The second-person also mention connectivity with other applications. They mentioned that they like when applications are able to interface with each other and that ours should be able to. I mentioned our goal of using new technologies in order to stand out and they suggested trying to add AI in some way to make the app more cutting edge.

3.     The third person I interviewed suggested that we try and build up our app, so it becomes as good as it gets so that we build a loyal user base then try and branch out. They were interested in the idea of our company developing new applications but also went back and stated that we need to build up our users first before moving on to the next project.

Reflection:

What was very apparent from the interviews with people 18-25 was that they value social media and applications that are able to interface with their favorite social media platforms. With that in mind, one route forward might be to explore the capabilities of our app and find a way for it to interface with a popular social media like Instagram, Facebook or Snapchat. Social media is super important to this specific demographic so being able to use that to our advantage would be a big opportunity.

Realistically, it would be a big departure from our core functionality, but it might yield great results. As mentioned by one of the interviewees, people like when they can use different apps together or just in general have an app that can interface with others so it might be the right direction to move in.

New Market

The logical opposite to targeting youth would be to target the older part of the population. So, this new market would be individuals 40 and up who no longer are young and able to go out constantly but still want the benefits of using our application. These individuals usually have a higher income and more disposable income making them more inclined to spend money and not care about looking for deals or specials. We might have to adapt by targeting activities older people like to do and include that in our functionality

Interviews:

1.     The first person I interviewed suggested taking an approach similar to Groupon. By emphasizing coupons for activities older people would like more or would be more inclined to do it might grow that part of the user base. They also mentioned focusing more on restaurants for older users instead of clubs and bars.

2.     The second-person I interviews said that I could expand into providing information on other businesses not just bars, clubs and entertainment venues. They suggested offering users information about deals happening at department stores or grocery stores instead of businesses related to nightlife.

Reflection:

While they may not be the target demographic of my application, these two individuals did come up with some good alternatives that might be very appealing to people 40 and older that would still like to use my application. While I value their input, I also feel that their ideas are a bit out of the scope of what was originally planned for the application. I have a unique outlook because I know what young people want out of my app because I fit into the demographic. Trying to adapt our app to reach users outside of our target demographic could cause us to lose focus and not cater to the people that we originally built the app for.

I would say that the older market did look promising, but it might not be as profitable or lucrative as it could have been had our application not been so focused on a younger user base. I think that in order to get the number of users that we want and the amount of constant interaction and use times we would have to stick with the 18-25 age group, as they are the group that would most benefit from our application and the services it provides.