Grade for INDS 430

I believe I deserve a grade of A in INDS430 because i have continually improved my work according to the class specifications. My assignments reflect an increased knowledge of both technology and entrepreneurship. I have also made extensive efforts to learn as much as possible by attending extra credit lectures and continually revising assignments.

Justification:

Of the 11 HTWFIP assignments I received 7 A's, 1B, 2 did not have a grade, and 1 did not have a comment.
Employee Interaction #1
Employee Interaction #2
5 Social Interactions
Reporter Interaction
10 Social Interactions
Secret of Socrates
Reporter Interaction #2
Social Interaction
Lessons from Pt 4 HTWFIP
Being a Leader- Interaction #1
Being a Leader- Interaction #2

My Enterprise Value Assignments continually improved according to professor's suggestions. The revisions reflected a better grasp of the course material and technology. My formatting was consistently better although despite my best efforts my numbers were still off.
EV Original Assignment
EV Revision #1
EV Revision #2
EV Revision #3
EV Revision #4
EV Revision #5
EV Revision #6
EV Revision #7

My product slide revisions always conformed to the professor's suggestions. The end format "looks almost professional."
Product Slide Assignment
Revision 1 plus marketing slide
12 Month Marketing Budget
First Year Budget
Revision 1- First Year Budget
Revision 2- First Year Budget
Revision 3- First Year Budget

For Financing Sources I did exactly what the professor's comments said, using the SBA and found the Buffalo Zone.
2 Financing Sources
Revision 1
Revision 2

Other Assignments:
Additional Traffic - Grade A
Identifying a consumer on the Technology Adoption Life Cycle
Debbie Fields Essay- Grade A
Extra Credit
Debbie Fields Essay -Grade A

In addition to these assignments I also attended every class and participated regularly in discussions.

Josh Howard Incident

Above the Influence

Family Guy Clip

1980's

1930's

Extra Credit

I have FINALLY gotten around to writing about the speaker series, big day for me. Any way, I have to say that I really enjoyed hearing from an entrepreneur that began in the non-profit world. We often hear about successful entrepreneurs who went on to create massive public companies and create large profits. This was a bit different. On March 30th, Jeannie Howe spoke about the non-profit side of entrepreneurship as it exists today. She spoke about the American entrepreneur as a risk taking business person that is highly motivated, passionate, creative, committed and intelligent. She began her career with a background in theater from the University of Denver. She later left the theater and entered into human services as the campaign manager for the united way. Later, she was promoted to marketing manager in the organization. During this time she secured many business partners, expanding her social network. While at United Way she worked on a campaign with the postal service and "Family Circle" magazine to expand the marrow doner registry. Later, she left United Way and went out on her own beginning on the board of "Every Man Theater." During this time she realized that she had a passion for consulting and connecting the needs of different companies. She created a business plan and found a coach to guide her through areas of uncertainty. Through research and guidance she created a client base and consulting fee. "Every Man Theater" is now her biggest client because she established a very efficient matrix of relationships that greatly benefited the business. Howe stressed the importance of social networking and having friends in different placed with different skills. I asked how to go about approaching an acquaintance that you have not talked to for years to ask a favor. She said to show there is an interest in the personal and professional dealings of the acquaintance. This tied very well into the lessons of Dale Carnegie in "How to Win Friends and Influence People." Clearly, the personal interactions we have can greatly influence the success of our business. We might as well be friendly, it couldn't hurt. :-)

Updated Financing Sources

To fund my business the most probable sources would be the local banks. The Small Business Administration would be the primary target for a loan, especially with the state of the current economy. Venture Capitalists in the area deal primarily with technology based companies limiting their reliability. The three SBA offices in the New York region reside in Buffalo, Syracuse, and New York. The Buffalo office deals with many local banks to distribute loans. Two banks that provide SBA loans are M&T and First Niagara Financial Group.

M&T Bank Contact Info:
Alfred F. Luhr III
Senior vice president
M&T Bank Corp. group manager for business banking
750 Main Street
Niagara Falls, NY 14301
Phone- 716-285-1285
Fax- 716-284-8656
E-mail Through Website

The second bank that provides SBA loans is First Niagara Financial Group.

First Niagara Contact info:
Steve Brennan
Vice president/ SBA manager
7350 Niagara Falls Blvd
Niagara Falls, NY 14304
Phone- 716-283-0749
Fax- 716-284-5296
E-mail Through Website

The Statewide Zone Capital Corporation (SZCC) has a program in the Western NY development region. The Zone is located in Niagara Falls at:

Niagara Falls Empire Zone
745 Main Street
P.O. Box 564
Niagara Falls, NY 14305
Fax: 716-286-8836

Ms. Clara Dunn, Empire Zone & MBE Coordinator
Phone: 716-286-4481
Email: clara.dunn@niagarafallsny.gov

Updated Enterprise Value

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Updated First Year Budget

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Being a Leader Interaction 2

This weekend the UMBC softball team went to Boston to play our second conference series. I was to room with another upperclassman and a freshmen. In the world of sports the rookie, or freshmen, takes in the brunt of manual work and jokes. I have found that people dont really respond well to this technique. Year after year however if there is a job that needs to be done the call of "freshmen...do___" is almost inevitable. Uperclassmen are given first choice for pretty much everything and the freshmen have last choice. The beauty is that nobody remains a freshmen forever. That is the typical hierarchy of collegiate athletics. This weekend there were three people in the room, two full beds and a cot. Naturally the two upperclassmen (myself included) would have the full beds and the freshman the cot. When we got to the room, the other upperclassman took one full bed already, leaving another bed and the cot vacent. I looked at the freshman and used the principle from chapter 4 of HTWFIP, "nobody likes to take orders." I could have just said "seniority, i have the bed, so you take the cot." I chose however to take the Dale Carnegie approach and said "oh man these cots are really short and my feet will probably hang off, would you mind if I slept on the bed?" She said, "nope its all yours." I think she really appreciated the lack of dictatorship.

Being a Leader Interaction 1

This week I employed the chapter 9 principle of HTWFIP entitled "making people glad to do what you want." I am currently enrolled in the class Speech 210- interpersonal communication. This class is infuriating. There is absolutely no purpose to the things we do in class and the professor is impossible to talk to. Attendance is worth half of our grade in this course. Unfortunately, the spring is also softball season and I miss a significant amount of classes through the course of the semester. In addition to this damaging my grade I received a very low score on a paper I had recently submitted. I picked the paper up during her office hours and this gave me a chance to speak with her one on one. I received the grade and was very irritated however I analyzed the situation and used principle 9. I began by expressing my desire to do well in the class and how important interpersonal relationships are in every day life. As she is the professor of the class, she strongly agreed with this statement. (This is actually the yes yes approach.) She nodded her head as if to say yes, this is important, and yes, I also want you to do well. I then led into my poor grade and said this paper was not a true reflection of my work. How would I be able to better express myself in the context of this assignment? My goal was to be able to somehow add some points onto my paper. She told me that my personal life was missing from the paper (god-forbid I did not talk about my personal life during a reading response-I simply responded to the reading, how foolish.) To better express myself I could plan a presentation (for the entire class) about how the reading relates to my personal life. Well I got what I wanted, the SPCH 210 class will soon be fortunate enough to listen to an entire presentation about how poor interpersonal communication physically harms the body. Somehow it turned out to be a good thing that my sister currently has four ulcers.

Updated Enterprise Value 4/6

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Financing Sources

To fund my business the most probable sources would be the local banks. The Small Business Administration would be the primary target for a loan, especially with the state of the current economy. Venture Capitalists in the area deal primarily with technology based companies limiting their reliability. The three SBA offices in the New York region reside in Buffalo, Syracuse, and New York. The Buffalo office deals with many local banks to distribute loans. Two banks that provide SBA loans are M&T and First Niagara Financial Group.

M&T Bank Contact Info:
Alfred F. Luhr III
Senior vice president
M&T Bank Corp. group manager for business banking
750 Main Street
Niagara Falls, NY 14301
Phone- 716-285-1285
Fax- 716-284-8656
E-mail Through Website

The second bank that provides SBA loans is First Niagara Financial Group.

First Niagara Contact info:
Steve Brennan
Vice president/ SBA manager
7350 Niagara Falls Blvd
Niagara Falls, NY 14304
Phone- 716-283-0749
Fax- 716-284-5296
E-mail Through Website

Revised First Year Budget

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Lesson From HTWIP Part 4

Part four of How to Win Friends and Influence People taught many important lessons about how to be a good leader. One principle that I personally employed was "ask questions instead of giving direct orders." I am currently working on a group project for my management class. There are two main parts to the assignment:
1.) Interview a manager about their experiences
2.) Talk about how these experiences relate to the course material we have covered.
One of my group members, Adam is in a circle of friends that I sometimes hang out with. We had planned on doing the interview Friday evening when our manager was done with work. There was also a large party planned for Friday night that I knew Adam planned to attend. On Thursday afternoon he asked me if I were going to the party and asked if I wanted to go to a movie with some friends before. It was evident that he had forgotten about the interview which was worth half our grade. Instead of yelling at him for his carelessness and ordering him to forget the movie I asked if there would be time between the interview and the party. The look on his face confirmed that he had forgotten, but he saved face and his pride wasn't hurt. He tried to play it off by saying "not sure how long the movie is, ill check it out and let you know." Later that night he text me and said there would not be enough time...duh!

Revised First Year Budget 3/30/09

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Two Sources of Financing

In an effort to seek funding I would first turn to angel investors to avoid debt. My business is in Niagara Falls, NY and it is more probable to get funding from a local financier. The HSBC Plaza is only 45 minutes from my location. Information about the Rochester Angel Network is found below:

Option One: Rochester Angel Network
Address:
Rochester Angel Network
100 Chestnut Street
HSBC Plaza - Suite 1910
Rochester, NY 14604

Contact Person:
James Senall
Director of Rochester Angel Network
Phone: 585-546-8477
Email:Takes Place Through Website

I understand however that acquiring this financing from RAN is highly improbable because their previous clients were mostly technology based companies. I therefore found two other sources to borrow the money through loans. Friends and family would not provide the necessary start-up capital.

Option Two: Bank of America:

Address:
1263 Military Rd
Niagara Falls, NY 14304

Contact Person:
Frank G. Giogas
Assistant Banking Center Manager
Telephone: 716-283-8783
Fax- 716-283-6462

Information about small business loans was found on the Bank of America Website. Bank of America is my personal bank and Frank manages my current account. I called and talked to him and he said that he would be responsible for the initial phases of getting a loan.

Option Three: First Niagara Financial Group:
Address:
7350 Niagara Falls Blvd
Niagara Falls, NY 14304

Contact Person:
Angela Robinson
Loan Officer
Telephone: 716) 283-0749

In order to attain this information I had to call the bank and personally ask who I would contact.

Updated Enterprise Value 3/30/09

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Social Interaction

After our games on Sunday two of my room mates and I went to Friendly's. In previous trips to this restaurant the service has been extremely poor. When we were seated I smiled at the waitress, and while using her name, said hello. Throughout the greeting I asked her how she was and she responded with the typical "im okay how are you?" I said that I was hungry and asked what entree was her personal preference. I took her advice and while waiting for a friend to make up her mind I asked "don't you hate it when people take forever to order?" She laughed and said it was no problem. This is slightly dissimilar from the secret of Socrates, but I think the humor eased the silence. Later in the meal she brought out the food and she served me the wrong entree. I asked her if this were the entree that she recommended and she said there must have been a mistake in the kitchen. Instead of taking the food and correcting the mistake she gave it to our table to eat. This was a nice gesture and unnecessary because I have been in similar situations where I had to wait another twenty minutes for food. The service that night was very good and I think it was partly due to Dale Carnegie and the book How To Win Friends and Influence People.