Independent Component: Week 2 of "Developing Innovative Ideas for New Companies: The First Step in Entrepreneurship" course in Coursera

Total Time: 

3 hours 1 minute

Independent Component: Week 1 of "Developing Innovative Ideas for New Companies: The First Step in Entrepreneurship" course in Coursera

I don't know what I was thinking, but I really put the course off until the weekend. As a result, whatever was remaining of this particular Saturday (which is usually overtaken by my mentorship) is also dedicated to Senior Project. Blargh.

I watched all the videos of the course and viewed some of the slides for further references. Took the quiz and got a 8.2 first time round. Being the perfectionist I am, tried it again until I got a 10.

Total time: 3 hours and 43 minutes

Blog 18: Third Answer

• EQ

What is the best way to profit as an independent music store?

• Answer #3

One way some independent music store can profit is to be specialized and unique.

• 3 details to support the answer (a detail is a fact and an example)

Specialized stores have a special appeal to them that would attract customers to them instead of large chain stores. For example, Matt's Boutique, a store that was talked about in one of my resources listed below, began to get more sales when they started to focus on providing high-end boutique guitars.

Specialized stores can better provide specific products then the general music store.  A store specialized in drums most likely have more drum products than the general music store.

Specialized and unique stores can benefit by being individualistic. A store with its own unique identity can be charming, as Kinney from my resource below said.

• The research source (s) to support your details and answer

Kinney, Shane. "Tips for Interior Retail Display." Musical Merchandise Review Jan. 2014: n. pag. Print.

Kailus, Katie. "Boutique Expert." Music Inc Mar.-Apr. 2014: 34-38. Print.

• Concluding Sentence

A store with a unique identity, or in addition to a specialization, can have a charm that attract customers and increase sales, therefore profit.

Blog 17: Fourth Interview Questions

1. What should a music store aim to do?
2. What is the most important in running an independent music store?
3. What kind of employees do we need to successfully run a music store? 
4. Where can we find such employees?
5. How can we best work with our employees?
6. What kind of customers should we expect in an independent music store?
7. Should there be a certain demographic to aim for when running a music store?
8. How can we appeal to customers?
9. How can we best work with our customers?
10. Should we work with our community?
11. How do we work with our community? / What are the ways we can work with our community?
12. How do we best advertise?
13. How do we compete against large chain music stores?
14. Is our only option to find a special niche? Could an independent store that only sells various instruments with no focus on certain types of instruments survive?
15. Is it important to 'keep up with the times' as a music store? Or is a music store a type of business with  basic, ageless information?
16. How do we 'keep up with the times' as an independent music store?
17. How important is it to be a musician ourselves when owning and running a music store?
18. How important are music lessons to the livelihood of an independent music store?
19. What kind of people should we network with?
20. What is the one thing that a music store should absolutely never do?

Monthly Post: February - A Time of Love... and Research. Mostly research.

Quite frankly, I didn't remember that we needed to have 3 answers at least for our presentation until rather recently. So um, if any junior is reading this, don't do this.

Regardless, I can't change the fact that I'm slightly struggling to cover all 3. My 10-minute presentation really did cover everything I thought of, and once I summarize things (which is what I did for my 10 minute presentation, which is funny because I didn't even hit time then), I struggle to put the details back in.

Still, I'm pretty sure I'll get back to my feet.

In other news, I have discovered a very wonderful published journal for my topic called 'Music Trades'. It's a journal that's basically tailor made to my topic, in that its main focus in on the music retail business. Yipee ki-yay? Absolutely. More than I imply in this blog post because text doesn't really carry tone that well.

Now the problem is that this journal is not very easily accessible using the Cal Poly Database, which is a darned shame because Cal Poly Database had served me alright up to this point. I'll have to arrange some crazy Document Delivery thing in order to get the journals I want, which I plan on doing hopefully very soon.

Or, maybe I can just try to log in into Ebsco Host Connections using User ID and Password from another library. I can try that. Either way, let's see what happens.

Blog 16: Advisory Meeting #2

Essential Question

What is the best way to profit as an independent music store?

Answer #2 (Write in a complete sentence like a thesis statement)

The best way to profit as an independent music store is to be knowledgeable in both your products and business.

3 details to support the answer (a detail is a fact and an example)

- A good part of a music store's customer base are fellow musicians and prospective musicians. In order for you to be able to answer their questions, you must know what you're talking about. If someone comes in searching for a reed for a bass clarinet, then asks you which size to get, you need to know why the size would matter in order to help the person.

- A music store is a business, and running a business always has some legal complications attached to it. So, know your legal stuff. Know what paper works you'll need to file and your rights as a vendor and your customers' rights as a customer.

- A business has many factors that could affect it, factors like the national economy or your location. So, know these factors. Know the neighbors you're dealing with when you locate your store here. Know what your competition is doing right and wrong. Know your customers and their wants and needs, so you can fully accommodate them.

The research source(s) to support your details and answer:

"Demographics And Destiny." Music Trades 161.7 (2013): 120-124. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 Feb. 2014.

Majeski, Brian T. "The Shifting Definition Of A "Music Store." Music Trades July 2013: 22. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 Feb. 2014.

POPYK, BOB. "How To Compete With The Internet." Music Trades 161.11 (2013): 68. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 Feb. 2014.
"How Tastes And Technology Are Transforming The Industry." Music Trades 161.3 (2013): 50-68. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 Feb. 2014.

Concluding Sentence
Knowledge is power. The more information you have to work with, the more advantages you have.

Blog 15: Independent Component 2 Approval

1.  Describe in detail what you plan to do for your 30 hours.

More business workshops. Maybe another college class. Or some music product reviews.

2.  Discuss how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing 30 hours of evidence.

For workshops and classes, I'll scan up papers and/or transcripts. Music product reviews, I'll post the reviews on the blog.

3.  And explain how what you will be doing will help you explore your topic in more depth.

The workshops and classes can give me further information to operating a business, just as the small business workshop and the leadership classes did.

4.  Post a log on the right hand side of your blog near your other logs and call it the independent component 2 log.