Your Venture’s Unfair Advantage

Your Venture’s Unfair Advantage

Generate a list of all of the resources in your venture (produce a list of at least 10 resources that you already possess). This can include your human capital, social capital, financial capital, and capabilities. You may also discuss the organizational culture you intend to create (but, obviously, it's not a resource that you have, now.) 

Note: this list is not for my current age but probably when I am 25-30 years old, where I have already completed graduate school and have some work experience in my field (in this scenario, it would include prior work experience within the University of Florida).  

1. Highly educated, motivated, and inspired staff (all hand-picked).

2. Solid connections and contacts within the University of Florida system.

3. My education in business – includes a sizeable network of past professors, classmates, and current friends that might, theoretically, be eager to help me out in times of struggle or situations where I am lacking the necessary knowledge to complete that project.

4. Relatively low operating costs (do not have a massive office space or large amounts of inventory to handle).

5. Relaxed though structured/organized company culture where innovation and freedom of opinions are nurtured, and lack of inspiration or complacency is not.

6. My innate ability to over-analyze practically everything, which at times can be harmful, although for the most part, it helps keep me on my toes and prepared for future events.

7. My very, very competitive nature. If I genuinely enjoy what I am doing, I will do anything to maintain an advantage over my competition (this is rooted in my 11 years of playing baseball).

8. Even though social media will not play a huge factor to our growth and success, we will be connected on every social media platform so that our product can start growing an audience (which can be exploited in the future).

9.  Employee benefits and programs. For the general well-being of the company, I prefer investing more into my employees than having them paid more and dreading to come to work.  

10. New class material that can be potentially sold to outside clients (i.e. not universities).  

Conduct a "VRIN" analysis for each resource. That is, describe, for each resource, how it is valuable, rare, inimitable (how hard it is to copy by others), and non-substitutable (are there other resources that can provide the same benefits?). 

1. It is common for companies to acquire highly educated employees, although it is generally rarer for the employees to be consistently motivated. My employees would be highly motivated because they are working on something that is not ordinary. Furthermore, I would search for employees that have experienced some type of issue when living with roommates in college, and thus their prior frustrations translate into more effective innovations because they physically experienced it.

2. Because UF is my primary buyer, the contacts and connections made while working at the University of Florida will provide me with an extra boost of reputation upon pitching to them. This resource is similar Stanford graduate selling their idea to venture capitalists or angel investors in Silicon Valleys, where they might feel more inclined to help you. This would be considerable hard to imitate or substitute because UF would obviously have to employ you first. 

3. The connections I make through the course of my educational career are quite invaluable and should not be overlooked or taken for granted. My friends and professors will be substantially more proficient in certain areas than I am, for they either majored in that area or have experience in that field. Knowing this fact, I would even think of people who would be willing to help me prior to launching the start-up. Plus, they will have a vastly network different from yours and can refer you to someone else if need be.

4. For my company, the expenses will be allocated almost entirely to product development, research, and wages since we are selling an online course with few physical materials that would be administered to the students. Whereas larger companies have to handle with higher operating expenses, Roommates for Change will not be entirely affected by this until we diversify to other instructions or customers.  

5. When I imagine my company culture, I want my employees to be comfortable and not battle through the burdens of boredom or feel confined to just their job title and cubicle. Further, the office space will incorporate an open design to encourage teamwork and interaction. If a company can somehow create constructive relationships from coworker to coworker, they will be allowed to complete their best work and even suggest outside projects – apart from their job description; and thus, it is extremely difficult to imitate a company that is self-innovating from within.

6. As described in the list, it is normal for me to over-analyze situations, which can perhaps play well or be detrimental to me. With that said, this is part of who I am, and therefore the success I have experienced in life has been at least somewhat a result of this behavior. This resource would be pretty easy to imitate if the person (or competition) thinks in a similar that I do, where every little detail of a plan is considered fully.

7. This is perhaps the most shared resource among business owners and people in general, though it is still an incredibly valuable trait to possess. Logically, other resources cannot provide this because being competitive is its own separate thing entirely, whereas you can have talent and lack the hunger to win.

8. Social media nowadays is not rare, it is substitutable, and very easily to replicate. Moreover, it is the intangible value of your product reaching your customers that makes social media an opportunity that must be exploited as a business, regardless if you do not entirely need it.

9. I am sure countless firms have great incentives and employee programs, although when I walk around my father’s office (works for CenturyLink), I instantly feel a little bored. Although the cubicles are nicely sized and the break-room is well maintained, there isn’t a culture. Granted, he works in a corporate office holding more than fifty people with employees separated into different sections. Because my company would be considerable smaller, I would offer great programs for my employees, such as more vacation days, exercise programs, catering, etc. To cultivate a work environment where employees show compassion with their coworkers while still producing excellent work, now that is a challenging task to accomplish!

10. The products my company creates do not have to be limited to the University of Florida, meaning I would have the freedom to adjust to the needs of other outside customers. In doing so, we might learn new aspects of our business that have gone unnoticed and take on more creative and unique projects. Promoting this innovation grants employees the opportunity to go outside their comfort zone and feel more impactful to the firm, where this much more challenging to do in larger companies.

After conducting the VRIN analysis, determine what your top resource is. Explain why it's more important to your venture than all of the other resources.

My top resource would have to be the connections and contacts I made over my educational career (#2). This resource is the hardest to substitute or replicate because these contacts form your distinct personal network to friends, professors, and perhaps prior coworkers that will be willing to help you (depending on the person and projects obviously). These connections will be useful when you get stuck on certain aspect of your business but just need that bit of expertise or opinion I would be lacking. Plus, there is so much value of just keeping these relationships active because one day they might be asking for my help as well.