Assignment 23A - Your Ventures Unfair Advantage

1. Work experience: I have worked in sales so I know how to sell a product and highlight its features, which will help when I go to sell my product to universities. 

• Valuable: Yes I believe the ability to sell is a valuable one for an entrepreneur.
• Rare: It is somewhat rare. A lot of students have work experience but not all have experience specifically in sales. 
• Imitatable: the experience of working in sales can be imitated but not the exact experience I had because it was specific to me. 
• Non-substitutable: I could hire someone who has had experience or even went to school for selling/marketing. 

2. Social capital: I am in a sorority at UF, so I have connections with students who could benefit from my curriculum.

• Valuable: Yes I believe having access to my target demographic is valuable.
• Rare: At UF in particular, being in a sorority is not rare at all, but there are still people who are not apart of one, but they are apart of other organizations on campus. 
• Inimitable: This is inimitable, there are a variety of sororities and organizations at UF.
• Non-substitutable: There is no substitute for the personal connections I have formed. 

3. Social Capital: I live in an LLC, a living-learning community at UF where a lot of freshmen live so I have a lot of prospective consumers or people who could test my product.

• Valuable: Yes, living in an area with a concentrated number of your target audience is valuable. 
• Rare: LLC's are somewhat rare on campus, there are a couple dedicated to certain things like major or program, which makes it specific to certain people, not everyone is eligible to be in one. 
• Inimitable: This can be imitated but not my exact LLC, because there are multiple. 
• Non-substitutable: I could substitute it by going into freshman only classes and gather research there as opposed to researching from where I live. 

4. Media Attention: My product can help students by reducing their mental stress, which has been in the news a lot recently. This will help my product stand out in a positive light as a possible alternative to help students mental health while in school.

• Valuable: Having this situation get a lot of news coverage recently is good for my product because people will have a heightened awareness of the need for a solution to the issue. 
• Rare: This is not rare, there are a lot of buzz-worthy topics in the news every day. 
• Inimitable: Yes this can be imitated because there are a lot of topics being covered by the news every day. 
• Non-substitutable: There is no substitute for the large range and reach that news outlets have, my advertising could never match up.

5. Lack of Competitors: In all my research I have done I have not found any threats to my product,  making my curriculum stand out.

• Valuable: Having no threats to my product is valuable because it essentially gives me a monopoly in my niche market. 
• Rare: This is somewhat rare, having a product without any competitors is rare but there is also the possibility that someone has had this idea before and just not acted on it. 
• Inimitable: This could be inmitated because someone could have my same idea in the future. 
• Non-substitutable: 

6. A personal relationship with professors, I have close relationships with professors in my home town and here at UF. These network relationships have helped in the R&D process of my product since it does have to be teacher friendly.

• Valuable: This close relationship with college professors is beneficial considering they are part of the success of my product, they will be the one delivering the information to the students. And we know that teachers can really affect the student's perception of a class.
• Rare: This is rare for people to have close connections with the people who will be a very important part of the success of your product, but it is not rare for college students to have a close relationship with a professor at their university. 
• Inimitable: My personal relationship with professors cannot be imitated. 
• Non-substitutable: I could always think of another idea that someone has thought of or someone could have my idea. 

7. Management experience: I have been a manager before so if this product takes off and turns into a business, I will have some experience with managing people, time and meeting goals and demands.

• Valuable: Having managerial experience has given me the courage to be able to lead people and also see where there is room for improvement in a variety of areas. 
• Rare: This is rare, for someone at 19 to have over a year of managerial experience is not very common.
• Inimitable: My personal experience as a sales manager at 19 cannot be imitated because it is specific to what I experienced on the job in the specific store. 
• Non-substitutable: I could always hire someone with a degree in management but no one can substitute my passion and experience.

8. Support of Universities: I believe that when universities hear about the benefits my product can have on their students, which will, in turn, give the school good media presence, they will back me and the curriculum.

• Valuable: Yes, I believe having the potential support of universities is very valuable to the success of my business because they are my target customer. 
• Rare: This is not rare because there are a lot of universities/businesses that support many causes and objectives. 
• Inimitable: 
• Non-substitutable:

9. Experience in a leadership role: In my sorority, I was recruitment chair captain for the semester so I had to delegate and manage a lot of tasks at once, which is an important skill for an entrepreneur.

• Valuable: Having leadership experience is definitely valuable because I would plan to be the leader of my business so having prior knowledge of what that entails is valuable. 
• Rare: It is somewhat rare to have a variety of leadership experience at 19, but at UF it is expected for students to get involved in extracurricular organizations. 
• Inimitable: This can only be copied if someone else was working in the same niche market as my product. 
• Non-substitutable: There are no other places that would be able to give me the amount of support that the universities could, specific to my business idea. 

10. Teaching experience: I was a tutor for two years so I understand how students learn and how the curriculum is written, which will benefit me in regards to my credibility as well as the overall integrity of the product.

• Valuable: With having teaching experience, this skill rounds out the two sides of the business I am running, an actual business side and the teaching/instructional side.
• Rare: I would say it is somewhat rare for a student to have teaching experience, and as an actual job where they worked with curriculum, and not just after school or on the side help to their peers. 
• Inimitable: This could be copied, but it is rare, I could hire someone who has had teaching experience though. 
• Non-substitutable: I could hire a teaching professional, who would have more credibility. 

After conducting my VRIN analysis, I have determined that my top resource is my managerial experience. I believe that this is more valuable than my other resources because it helped me gain courage and experience with dealing with most people who were older than me and more knowledgeable. It allowed me to gain invaluable hands-on experience with fast problem solving as well as how to communicate effectively, both skills which I believe are essential to the success of any business and an entrepreneur.