ENT3003 Matthew Repke

For this assignment I read  The Wright Brothers, by David McCullough. 1 What surprised me the most is it took them ten years to develop the airplane. It is amazing that they were able to stick with it and pursue their dream of building one for that long without completely giving up. I admired that they were able to build the airplane using knowledge they learned themselves instead of from going to college. This was seen when Wilbur observed birds flying for hours at a time, and used the knowledge he gained from that to create the wing design. He also used the mechanics he learned from operating a bike shop in the mechanics of the glider. One thing I least admire about the Wright Brothers is their legal battles with other early aviators. The Wright brothers believed they owned the right to many of the aeronautical principles that they discovered and charged competitors with intellectual property theft. They were mostly unsuccessful in this due to the patents only relating to ...

1. To keep up with the requirements of this course, I have made a schedule of doing the assignments the day they are due. I feel like this isn’t the best way to do things, but I usually wake us at eight in the morning on Fridays and Mondays, giving me four hours to complete everything. I do like doing it this way because it keeps me from procrastinating while doing it, because there is the time factor keeping me motivated of only having a couple of hours to do it. If you don’t work well under stress, then I do not recommend doing this. 2. There’s been times where I haven’t felt like watching the lectures and doing the assignments, but I just think of how every assignment matters towards my grade and just pull through and do it. The elevator pitch is definitely an example of this, where I knew it wouldn’t be to difficult to do, because I have made many elevator pitches before, but I was just feeling lazy and had a lot of work from other classes to do. I just kept thinking about my gr...

Interview 1: I choose to interview mt roommate Trevor and his girlfriend, because they are students here at the University of Florida, and go out to eat a lot in the surrounding area. They said they do not like paper straws and would definitely consider going to other business that offer better solutions. They did say they do not care as much for when they are drinking sodas or water because they just don’t use a straw but for stuff like milkshakes, they do care. They said they get their information for restaurants to eat from google and yelp. Interview 2: I interviewed my friend Ashley, because she is also a student here at the University of Florida. She gets iced coffee everyday from Starbucks or Dunkin, and she said that she feels she needs a straw for her drinks because she is used to it and now it just feels right. She goes pretty much evenly between the two places and occasionally other local place, but said if one offered a better solution then she would definitely con...

1. I am a third-year finance major here at the University of Florida. One of my skills I have is I am good at talking to people and always like meeting new people. This will come in handy for my business because I will be able to go around the Gainesville area to different restaurants in order to try and sell better straw alternatives. My aspirations have always been to one day own a company, so for my business idea, I would like to be able to serve all the local Gainesville restaurants, and then maybe one day grow and build to other cities. 2. I am offering a service to distribute better alternatives to paper straws to Gainesville businesses. Here in Gainesville I have talked to many people who are tired of paper straws and how they simply do not work as intended. Putting other alternatives can get expensive, so I am proposing a distribution service that buys these alternatives in big bulk quantities from producers, and can sell them for cheaper prices to local business. Have these...

Interview 1: I interviewed my friend Letty, who works at Relish. She told me that everyone complains about the new paper straws and how they wish they offered a different solution. She even believes that people would not even realize a small change in price of a few cents to cover the switch to a better alternative such as bamboo straws, and even believes it would drive a lot more business with people coming just for that. She told me my idea to set up a distributor for these alternatives would probably attract her business. Interview 2: I interviewed my roommate Angelo, because I saw him come back from McDonalds with a paper straw. I asked him if he would pay an extra few cents for a different straw and he definitely agreed. He also agreed he would choose a place with better straws to eat over a place with paper straws. This made me curious to see how much bamboo straws were, and found some bulk orders for straws costing only a fraction of a cent a piece. This means that up ch...

I feel like a good solution to the problem of the plastic straw ban in Gainesville would be setting up a distributor that can offer better alternatives.  This can include papaya leaf straws, bamboo straws, glass straws, stainless steel straws, straws made from wheat straw, biodegradable plastic straws, edible straws, and silicone straws. If a distributor could work with local companies to offer better options, Than companies may not resort to the paper straws. Paper straws could be a viable option if their design was improved, and made more durable. I also feel that restaurants could make a profit by selling these alternatives, such as if someone forgets their stainless steel straw, then a restaurant could sell them one.

1) The opportunity I would like to pursue would be the city of Gainesville switches to banning plastic straws. 2) The Who: People living within Gainesville and cities with similar bans. The What: Plastic straws being banned with no good replacement options being offered. The Why: Regulation changes due to environmental concerns. Only solution offered is paper straws, which disintegrate during use. 3) Testing the who: I feel that everyone in my current who shares this problem. For some things such as sodas people don’t mind using no straws, but for things such as milkshakes, something needs to be invented to solve this issue. Testing the what: All things that use plastic straws are included in this. This includes restaurants, fast food places, food trucks, or anyplace selling drinks with straws. Testing the why: The why is for environmental concerns, so people with these concerns might support banning plastic straws. I feel there needs to be a better solution to this to reduce ...

First Local Opportunity: Title: Tampa Bay man stuck paying for deceased wife’s medical alert and security service Link: https://www.wfla.com/news/tampa-bay-man-stuck-paying-for-deceased-wifes-medical-alert-and-security-service/ Description of Story: A 71-year-old man’s wife died, but he is stuck paying the $45 a month bill for her medical alert and home security service. The company keeps billing him despite him requesting to cancel it, and since his wife signed the contract, it is now void with her death. Description of Problem: Companies taking advantage of seniors, and unfairly taking money because the person is older and does not know how to fight them legally. The contract is void but the company refuses to stop charging the man, despite the service not being needed anymore, due to the wife passing away. Description of who has the problem : The senior citizen man has the problem in this story. This shows that senior citizens are taken advantage of by companies and ne...

Economic Trend One: “Are U.S. Stocks On Their Way Out?” a) https://www.forbes.com/sites/investor/2020/02/06/are-us-stocks-on-their-way-out/#7837467ea7a9 b) This economic trend suggests that US stocks may lose value in the future and other forms of investment may out perform the stock market in the future. US large-cap funds are at the highest risk for loosing value in the future. The This shows an opportunity exists for financial advisors to help clients navigate their investments, into looking into other places to invest. Some investors may be comfortable investing in the US stock market, but will need help with other investments once the stock market begins to drop, such as investing in foreign funds a small to mid-cap funds. c) I feel like older people in retirement will be the most likely customers. Many people have a lot of their retirement savings tied up into the stock market, so when the market drops they can loose a lot of their savings. I feel like financial advisors co...