Week 5 Reading Reflection

1) What was the biggest surprise for you in the reading? In other words, what did you read that stood out the most as different from your expectations? 

The section about “Importing Good Ideas” was surprising because it details how large corporations and universities make their IP publicly available, as well as foreign companies possessing large amounts of products and ideas that have not made their way yet into US culture.

2) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.

I believe the “Lack of Venture Uniqueness” could use some more clarity, as it says price differentiation is the “best way to ensure customer awareness,” but doesn’t differentiate between going higher or lower than your competition. The passage vaguely states to price it higher than competitors by offering a “superior product”, but it doesn’t go into the benefits of pricing lower than a competitor either.

3) If you were able to ask two questions to the author, what would you ask? Why?

In the “eBay Entrepreneurship” section, could you go into more detail about developing relationships with manufacturers or master distributors? This was glossed over as if it was an easy thing to do, however sourcing products is probably the most difficult, especially when marketing is essentially taken care of due to eBay.

What is the best way to go about doing foreign research, as outlined in the “Importing Good Ideas”? I would imagine visiting a foreign country would probably be the quickest way to research with no background experience and seeing what ideas are present there that would work here in the US.

4) Was there anything you think the author was wrong about? Where do you disagree with what she or he said? How?

I think the “Do what you love” in the “Facing Your Fears!” section is often a misrepresented pursuit of passion. For example, if you are passionate about cat sweaters, it will be a long road of frustration and challenge, as selling of your final product will likely make it difficult to keep the lights on. I think a better thing to do is “Do what works” and then to externally tie your passions to the ultimate outcome of profitability. For example, if you love cat sweaters, but start up a technology company, you can use your passion of cat sweaters to push you through the 100 hour work weeks to get your technology company to become a success. When you sell your technology company for $10 million dollars in 5 years, you can have all the time in the world to pursue your cat sweater obsession. Parents already do this without thinking – they work miserable jobs to put food on the table for their children (passion), and it is that passion of their children living better lives than they did that keeps them driving through the bad times.