Final Blog Post
What a semester!
This was a definitely an engaging and arduous course given the backdrop of online only, but overall I believe that through the materials and assignments of the past 4 months, my entrepreneurial knowledge and ability has exponentially increased. Although the course began on sort of a sour note, it has evolved throughout our time together and our group accomplished our goals despite the many issues we faced.
I came into the course dead-set on a particular venture I wanted to progress, with the help and direction of the instructors and the course. After week 2 or 3 though, despite garnering the full support of my group, the instructors shut down the idea due to the target market being a certain demographic (college students who are apparently all broke, an assumption I still see as outdated). Either way, our group refocused on a new idea, which had our collective support. After weeks of working together, trying to manage the drastic time zones differences we had between members (9+ hours), almost half of our group dropped the class. This left the group at only 3 of our original 5 members, with one of the people dropping class being the “owner” of the idea we were working on. With a large damper on our available group members as well as a blurry vision of the future of our company given the founders departure, we began the restructuring process of our startup. At first, we were almost completely lost, with communication and productive planning at an all time low. We had worked together with the peer mentors to establish some direction and had begun to bounce back in the weeks following our group’s mass exodus.
In the final month or so of our project, I think that as a group Bug Bites really shined. It was extremely difficult to gather a consensus and finish work we all agreed upon and loved, but towards the end we had grown closer as a group and all became much more active in the project. It seemed that especially with how little we could meet we were all doing separate parts of the project, but at the end it really came together and we began adding to each other’s sections. I think that was honestly my favorite part of the class, seeing how my final 2 group members evolved with me throughout the process and how we all adapted to a really difficult situation, and being able to count on each other by the end to complete the presentation.
As for next steps regarding my career and entrepreneurship, I plan to continue pursuing finance, hopefully passing the Series 65 exam in the following months to achieve the RIA certification. Once I have the comfort level and resources needed to complete my startup, I will pivot to doing that full time (given no one has taken my idea by then). Either way, I believe this class has brought me a true insight into that world which I hope to join one day, and with the knowledge and experience I gained through our time together, I feel that much more prepared.
Thank you!
Nile
