Johnathan's Entrepreneurship Blog

The Opportunity One in ten, or roughly 3.5 million Americans suffer from severe food allergies. The population of Gainesville, Florida is roughly 130,000, so, it can be assumed that roughly 13,000 Gainesville residents suffer from severe food allergies. Now consider that the dietary restrictions of one individual in a family may dictate the dining habits of that entire family (the individual with the food allergy is considered the "veto vote" by AllergyEats, a firm which aggregates information to assist consumers with food allergies and businesses adapt to dietary restrictions). It is also estimated that the average American family spends roughly $3,000 each year on dining out. Given these figures, if we assumed that 25% of the 13,000 Gainesville residents dictate the eating patterns of their broader family (roughly 25% of the U.S. population are minors, and minors are more likely to both have food allergies and dictate their family’s eating patterns), the market of r...

1.  I do not have an explicit exit strategy, If I had to pick one of the three options listed, I would say that my plan is to continue running the business (on the side) until retirement. 2.  I do not anticipate the business generating significant, consistent cash flows and considering that I am focused on completing a college degree at the moment, I am not certain how much time will be devoted to the business. Likewise, I don't anticipate having a business to sell in 5 years or a business to hand off to my next generation. If I do decide to invest more time into the business, I could see my younger brother potentially carrying it on after I move on. 3.  I think if I intended to rely on the business for necessary cash flows into the near (or long-term) future, I would have more aggressively sought out opportunities. In other words, if I was relying on the startup to pay my bills (like the majority of entrepreneurs), I would have been waking up everyday to figh...

I read Shoe Dog , the biography of Nike founder Bill Knight. I decided to read this book because I am a big fan of the Nike brand and, as one of the most successful businesses in the world, its story interests me. 1.  I think what surprised me most about this story, funny enough, was that Nike was originally named "Blue Ribbon." I think what i admired most about Phil Knight is his ability to manage people. Throughout the book, his value of individuality and creativity in people has contributed to Nike's great success. It seemed that Phil lacked strong planning ability. Granted, when he started the business he was a young college student who stumbled upon an international opportunity, but it seems like a lot of his success can be attributed to sheer luck at times. He failed at times, but not incredibly often, it seems. One occasion where Nike failed was when attempting to secure capital from two Oregon banks that denied Knight because his firm was "too levered....

1. Early on in the semester, for one of the first assignments in this class, I attempted to reach out to potential customers by contacting local Gainesville restaurants through the contact information provided on UF's business library. I contacted close to 40 companies through the site, and for more than a handful I received error messages (meaning the email could not be sent due to an inactive account or other technical issue) and I only received a response from a couple restaurant/franchise owners. This was a very frustrating experience even though it seems small at this point in the process. 2.  Throughout the semester, I continued contacting various industry experts and any professionals who may be able to offer me insights into the restaurant/allergy friendly food industry. Eventually, I stumbled upon a firm named AllergyEats (this nonprofit aggregates allergy information for restaurants throughout the country) and left a comment in the "contact us" page on their w...

EXISTING MARKET: What’s next? The next step for me is targeting local restaurant businesses and pitching my services to them as potential customers. In essence, it’s time to make a sale. Path: I interviewed representatives from three companies: Relish, Mojo Hogtown, and The Swamp. With these businesses, I discussed that I believe my next step as a venture is simply making a sale. Each interviewee partly agreed, but was also able to add some insight into what they believe I should be doing next: Relish: Here, I learned that I should start building a “resume.” In other words, I need to get experience under my belt to work my way up to bigger clients. Mojo Hogtown: I did not get much additional feedback here. The only advice I received was to build a convincing case why a restaurant should adopt an allergy menu as opposed to just training servers and chefs to be cognizant and accommodating of individuals with food allergies. The Swamp: Here, I was advised to conduc...

The Opportunity One in ten, or roughly 3.5 million Americans suffer from severe food allergies. The population of Gainesville, Florida is roughly 130,000, so, it can be assumed that roughly 13,000 Gainesville residents suffer from severe food allergies. Now consider that the dietary restrictions of one individual in a family may dictate the dining habits of that entire family. It is also estimated that the average American family spends roughly $3,000 each year on dining out. Given these figures, if we assumed that 25% of the 13,000 Gainesville residents dictate the eating patterns of their broader family (roughly 25% of the U.S. population are minors, and minors are more likely to both have food allergies and dictate their family’s eating patterns), the market of restaurant customers in Gainesville Florida who suffer from severe food allergies is north of $9 million each year. This figure is still an underestimate given that we are still not accounting for business from  i...