Week 14 Reading Reflection

In this weeks reading I was somewhat surprised by just how useful an entrepreneurship philosophy is to have. It makes sense when I think about it, but the extent to which it can be used to help your venture succeed was a surprise to me.  I was confused with the author's stance on nepotism, I was always under the assumption that it was a bad and ethically dubious thing to practice. If I could ask two questions of the author I would first ask if there are legal situations where nepotism could get you into trouble. I would also ask what sort of entrepreneurial 'mindsets' are most important for a fresh entrepreneur to take. There was nothing I really disagreed with this week, excluding the issues I had with the nepotism.

Google Gold

The main strategy I used in my blog posts for SEO purposes was to try to have tags that accurately describe the variety of terms someone might use to search for my blog post. This would include the name and words in the title, such as for this post Google and Gold, as well as general tags such as business and UF. I tried to use more keywords as the semester went on. They are free to use, after all and it doesn't hurt to add more tags. I tried using social media once or twice to share my posts, but my social circle on Facebook doesn't really care about my school assignments. I used the built in share functionality to share a few posts on Google+, but I don't think anyone actually uses Google+. Overall I'd say social media ignored my blog posts, which I am not really surprised by. If I was one of my friends seeing me post assignments on Facebook, I probably wouldn't read them either.

My most "viral" post was the Unfair Advantage assignment with 31 view. I think it reached this number because multiple people decided to comment on it, presumably for their assignments. I tried searching for this blog post using the name and all the tags, but there were over 30,000 results and after thumbing through around 20 pages of search results I was unable to find it.

Very Short Interview, Part 2

In my first interview with Mr. Tobin, I asked him basic questions about entrepreneurship, like what does it mean to be an entrepreneur, what does he wish he knew before he started, and what I should try to get out of this course. In retrospect a lot of his answers, like the importance of networking, seem almost obvious in hindsight. However I can remember being surprised at the time. I guess this just shows what I've managed to learn over the following months since the interview.

I set up a chat with Mr. Tobin over the phone to ask him three new questions now that I have new found perspective thanks to this course.

1. How much of your entrepreneur mindset is unique to your field, and how much is universal?

He told me that he believes a great deal of entrepreneurial skill is universal. Things like market research, interviewing potential customers, and managing your business transfer between almost every field. There are specific tricks to every trade of course, but a great deal is universal.

2. What do you think is the major point of failure for fresh entrepreneurs?

He said that is absolutely would have to be lack of understanding of the market. Many entrepreneurs have what seem like amazing ideas, but totally mismanage it when it comes to finding a receptive demographic or delivering in a way that is attractive to customers.

3. What do you think the single most important skill as an entrepreneur is?

Lack of a fear of failure. There is almost no such thing as a sure bet, and risk is proportionate to reward. Don't be afraid to fail! (But make sure potential failure won't ruin you.)


I felt a lot more comfortable conducting this interview the second time around. Partly because I had already interviewed Mr. Tobin before, but also because I have done so much interacting and interviewing throughout this course that I was used to it. He was also impressed on the quality of my questions, he thought they were very direct and no-nonsense. I attribute this to my experience in this course.