How do you start your own business?
Starting your own business is something that millions do every year, yet about 80% of them will fail within the first year. In this class, Entrepreneurship, we have been studying the different parts of a business plan and how to make your business the most effective. Instead of learning all of this in a set of lectures from our teacher, we each chose a topic, researched it ourselves, and shared it with our class in a creative way. My partner, SC, and I chose marketing which is meant to answer the question 'How does your potential customer know you exist?' In our lesson, we focused on showing examples of different ads and helping our class analyze them. In this blog post, you will find our presentation, a picture of us presenting, and a reflection of how it felt to teach our own class.
It was fairly simple to prepare for our presentation, though I think it would’ve been easier if we had more of a foundation or a rubric to go on. We received a list of topics and concepts to make sure to cover in our lesson but beyond that, it was very open. Because it was so open-ended, creating and designing the format and activity was easier but it was hard to know exactly what we needed to cover. All of the topics were very wide and things that people can study for years and years, which made it hard to make sure that the most important things were being covered. I honestly think that it would have been easier for everyone to get their own topics or have more class time to work together because it was hard communicating with my partner in the limited time that we had.
I think the best way to teach and learn, especially at GCE, is learning by doing. This is why I covered the basic vocabulary for only about 5 minutes then spent the majority of the time on the activity. Even if someone didn’t totally understand a concept from the basic definition, analyzing real ads and videos can make the basics much more clear. Also, having interesting, thought-provoking questions is a great way to make sure that class discussions are relevant and go deeper than just the surface level. The people I was teaching uncovered a lot of concepts and point of views that I would not have thought about on my own. I think it is much easier to have an engaging lesson to start with rather than have a boring lesson and try to force people to listen. People will naturally want to pay attention if how you are teaching is interesting to them, which is why I included a lot of ads that were famous or recent. I am a bit nervous for college because I can easily become distracted in classes where I am not completely interested but by taking color-coded notes, I have found that I pay attention better.
If we had a second chance to do this project, I would like to go more into the activity part. Maybe having separate groups work together to analyze ads instead of everyone at once because some people weren’t participating as much as others. I would also spend more time finding ads that people didn’t know as well to make it a bit more challenging for people to analyze them. And, if there was any way to shorten the lesson, I think that may have helped keep people’s attention for the entire time. Using a PowerPoint can sometimes be boring, so it may have been better to use a different format, maybe a Prezi, but I think it was effective overall. Using the activity and the fact that everybody answered for at least one of the ads, I know that my lesson was effective. If the primary vocabulary and background section was confusing or misleading, then people likely would not have answered so many questions correctly. I could also tell that people were engaged during the activity because everyone had reactions (either positive or negative) to the different ads.
Throughout the rest of the class, we will be creating our own business plans trying to create companies that will positively affect the world and be profitable. We dove deeper into this concept by watching the documentary Real Value, which explored four companies that are examples of social entrepreneurship (the name of the class). It is important to not only be profitable but also to have a positive impact on the world. A common theme throughout the class was researching different companies for each section of a business plan and learn how successful companies can exemplify each concept- or even what not to do. One of my favorite companies that we studied was ThreadUp, a reused and recycled clothing store that is completely online. We studied different industries and how they can negatively affect the environment, and clothing is actually one of the worst industries in terms of pollution. ThreadUp was created by actress Olivia Wilde to attempt to tackle this problem by offering used clothing on an easily accessible and cheap online store, instead of in sometimes expensive or inconsistent second-hand shops. Not only is ThreadUp helping to lower pollution created by the apparel industry, but it is also incredibly profitable because they have found their home in the market.
Three of the most important questions that you must ask yourself to create a profitable and lasting company are part of what is called the Hedgehog Concept. First: "What are you passionate about?" If you don't care about what your company is doing, why did you start it? Next: "What can you be the best in the world at?" This doesn't necessarily have to be a wide concept, you can get as specific as you need to. For example, you don't have to have the best hot dog in the world, maybe you are the best in the world at providing hot dogs in your neighborhood. Lastly: "What drives your economic engine?" In other words, how are you going to make money and how are you going to keep making money? This can be ideas like relying on repeat customers like Starbucks or a subscription service like Netflix. The hedgehog concept is all about focusing your business, being the best at one thing, not okay at many things.
For my own business plan, I am planning to create a second-hand clothing store specifically for LGBT people. I am excited to tackle the project, though I am a bit nervous about fleshing out my own economic engine and the more numbers-heavy parts of the business plan, as these are not at all my strong points. If this were a real business, I would take some advice from the E-myth revisited our unit textbook. Michael Gerber, the author, says that it is important to know where your skills lie and where you might have to hire someone.
What do you need to make sure is covered?
How do you make sure that people know your company exists?
Starting your own business is something that millions do every year, yet about 80% of them will fail within the first year. In this class, Entrepreneurship, we have been studying the different parts of a business plan and how to make your business the most effective. Instead of learning all of this in a set of lectures from our teacher, we each chose a topic, researched it ourselves, and shared it with our class in a creative way. My partner, SC, and I chose marketing which is meant to answer the question 'How does your potential customer know you exist?' In our lesson, we focused on showing examples of different ads and helping our class analyze them. In this blog post, you will find our presentation, a picture of us presenting, and a reflection of how it felt to teach our own class.
It was fairly simple to prepare for our presentation, though I think it would’ve been easier if we had more of a foundation or a rubric to go on. We received a list of topics and concepts to make sure to cover in our lesson but beyond that, it was very open. Because it was so open-ended, creating and designing the format and activity was easier but it was hard to know exactly what we needed to cover. All of the topics were very wide and things that people can study for years and years, which made it hard to make sure that the most important things were being covered. I honestly think that it would have been easier for everyone to get their own topics or have more class time to work together because it was hard communicating with my partner in the limited time that we had.
I think the best way to teach and learn, especially at GCE, is learning by doing. This is why I covered the basic vocabulary for only about 5 minutes then spent the majority of the time on the activity. Even if someone didn’t totally understand a concept from the basic definition, analyzing real ads and videos can make the basics much more clear. Also, having interesting, thought-provoking questions is a great way to make sure that class discussions are relevant and go deeper than just the surface level. The people I was teaching uncovered a lot of concepts and point of views that I would not have thought about on my own. I think it is much easier to have an engaging lesson to start with rather than have a boring lesson and try to force people to listen. People will naturally want to pay attention if how you are teaching is interesting to them, which is why I included a lot of ads that were famous or recent. I am a bit nervous for college because I can easily become distracted in classes where I am not completely interested but by taking color-coded notes, I have found that I pay attention better.
If we had a second chance to do this project, I would like to go more into the activity part. Maybe having separate groups work together to analyze ads instead of everyone at once because some people weren’t participating as much as others. I would also spend more time finding ads that people didn’t know as well to make it a bit more challenging for people to analyze them. And, if there was any way to shorten the lesson, I think that may have helped keep people’s attention for the entire time. Using a PowerPoint can sometimes be boring, so it may have been better to use a different format, maybe a Prezi, but I think it was effective overall. Using the activity and the fact that everybody answered for at least one of the ads, I know that my lesson was effective. If the primary vocabulary and background section was confusing or misleading, then people likely would not have answered so many questions correctly. I could also tell that people were engaged during the activity because everyone had reactions (either positive or negative) to the different ads.
 |
| Teaching our Lesson, MN (2019) |
Three of the most important questions that you must ask yourself to create a profitable and lasting company are part of what is called the Hedgehog Concept. First: "What are you passionate about?" If you don't care about what your company is doing, why did you start it? Next: "What can you be the best in the world at?" This doesn't necessarily have to be a wide concept, you can get as specific as you need to. For example, you don't have to have the best hot dog in the world, maybe you are the best in the world at providing hot dogs in your neighborhood. Lastly: "What drives your economic engine?" In other words, how are you going to make money and how are you going to keep making money? This can be ideas like relying on repeat customers like Starbucks or a subscription service like Netflix. The hedgehog concept is all about focusing your business, being the best at one thing, not okay at many things.
For my own business plan, I am planning to create a second-hand clothing store specifically for LGBT people. I am excited to tackle the project, though I am a bit nervous about fleshing out my own economic engine and the more numbers-heavy parts of the business plan, as these are not at all my strong points. If this were a real business, I would take some advice from the E-myth revisited our unit textbook. Michael Gerber, the author, says that it is important to know where your skills lie and where you might have to hire someone.
Comments
Post a Comment