Week 3 Reading Reflection

1. The thing that stood out to me the most in Chapter 2 of “Entrepreneurship” by Donald Kuratko is the characteristics often attributed to entrepreneurs. There were 42 listed attributes related to entrepreneurs including things like dynamism and aggressiveness. It just stood out to me because you never realize how much an entrepreneur has to be able to do. 

2. The thing that not so much confused me but bothered me was the section entitled “The Dark side of Entrepreneurship.” In this section Kuratko points out the negative attributes that an be attained by Entrepreneurs including financial risk, career risk, family risk, and even psychic risk. It just goes to show that entrepreneurship has its downside as well.

3. Two things I would ask the author is why he didn’t make the dealing with stress section bigger, because he has four sources of stress and then a very small section addressing all of these sources. Another thing I would ask is how to control the entrepreneurial ego that Kuratko descries.

4. Honestly, there was nothing in this chapter that I could really disagree with. I found this chapter very interesting and an eye opener to the different struggles behind entrepreneurship. 

Very Short Interview No. 1

For my Interview with an Entrepreneur, I had the pleasure of interviewing Craig Wilburn. Craig is the CEO and team leader at Keller Williams Realty who started Team Dynamo, Gainesvilles number one residential real estate team. Craig is a multi million dollar producer and has been in Gainesvilles top 1% of realtors since 2003.

1. What does it mean to be an entrepreneur?

So, essentially in my opinion what it means is that you are a visionary. You are someone who has the ability to see things that other folks don’t see and you have the people skills and communication skills to communicate the vision to others. You recognize that a true entrepreneur can’t do anything on their own and have to have other people who understand the vision.

2. What do you think I should learn in an entrepreneurship course?

Probably one of the most important things to learn is you want to learn how to structure, learn systems, and how to be a good communicator. So I think those are probably the most important things. You have to learn communication skills, time management skills, to be successful in whatever your business venture is.

3. What do you wish you had been taught in school before setting out on your own path as an entrepreneur?

Aw man, so much! Because the reality is that most of the things I've learned I didn’t learn in school. The most important thing I didn’t learn in school is learning about yourself. The psychology of people and really learning about yourself is so important in my opinion. Being educated by seeing other people who have taken risks and studying other peoples failures and successes from their own personal risk taking is something I didn’t do a lot of in school but as I grew up and learned these things. These concepts have really helped me be an entrepreneur. Learning and understanding other people also help in management skills, which is a skill as an entrepreneur. Also, you don’t learn the value and importance of networking, and how important that is at being successful at what you’re doing. Networking is everything.

My reflection on this interview is just looking at entrepreneurship differently. Entrepreneurship isn’t just owning your own business, its all these things discussed in this interview combined with that to help people, and then the money follows. 

Identifying Local Opportunities

http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article51565890.html

Title: Traffic: Still bad, but ideas are flowing
Description: This story is about the officials in Dade county and their plans to fix traffic. While they originally thought they would need the FED’s to step in and spend tons of money to fix the situation, they instead took matters into their own hands are trying to come up with “smart solutions that depend more on ingenuity than spending millions.”
Problem: This problem presented in this article is about how bad the traffic in Miami is and what the county is trying to do to fix it.
Who: The problem is directly related to the officials in Miami, like mayor Carlos Gimenez and commissioner Esteban Bovo Jr.

http://business.blogs.gainesville.com/10290/vellos-closed-landlord-seeking-better-concept/

Title: Vellos closed, landlord seeking “better” concept
Description: Vellos Brickstreet Grill, a local Gainesville restaurant, closed downtown after 6 years in business and the owner is trying to lease the space to someone with another concept.
Problem: The owner of Vellos was tired of doing mediocre business and didn’t want to run the restaurant anymore.
Who: The problem is related to Billy Scheel, the owner of Vellos.

http://www.gainesville.com/article/20160105/ARTICLES/160109863/1150/news09?Title=County-asks-attorney-for-fracking-ordinance

Title:  County asks attorney for fracking ordinance
Descrption: The Alachua County Commission has asked the county attorney to create an ordinance than bans fracking.
Problem: Alachua County clearly doesn’t want to be an oil county and is more of a tourist/agricultural county, so they want to put a ban on fracking.
Who: This problem related directly to the Alachua County Board.

http://www.gainesville.com/article/20160107/OPINION01/160109840/1076/opinion01?Title=Editorial-Buying-the-biomass-plant

Title: Editorial: Buying the Biomass plant
Description: GRU is attempting to buy the Biomass plant in Gainesville florida
Problem: Because GRU made a mess of the contract, they are having trouble buying the plant. It seems as though GRU is trying to change the terms of the contract to lower the cost.
Who: This problem relates to GRU, the purchaser, and GRE, the owner.

http://citylimits.blogs.gainesville.com/17359/gainesville-gets-d-on-naacp-economic-development-report-card/

Title: Gainesville gets D on NAACP economic development report card
Description: Gainesville got a D from the NAACP after they closely looked at the records of the city both public and private.
Problem: The city got an “F” for both small and minority business spending and in minority advertising and marketing.
Who: The city of Gainesville