Working with a team like the Blue Line and trying to run a business on our own was such a great experience and is very useful for the eventual career I hope to have one day. An accomplishment that I acquired in this course was the effect it had on my presentation skills during this time. In giving so many group presentations to the class and to a funding board, I actually became quite comfortable speaking in front of people to the point where it became an asset. The most unique part of this entire experience was presenting to the funding board during November where we truly experienced the concept of pitching our business ideas to professionals. It not only was an awesome experience but it gave me something to build on in the future. Someday I will graduate with a business degree from Butler University, and this provides such an amazing first-hand experience that can never be replaced by anything you learn inside of a textbook. As a whole the RBE experience gave me a wonderful opportunity to learn the ins and outs of running a business, and provided a nice experience to bond with teammates along the way.
~Tyler Laughlin
Running a business is far more complicated than I imagined. Managing The Blue Line was complicated because I did not foresee most of the problems we encountered along the way. These problems included: the absence of a team member, liabilities and insurance, and miscommunication. Even though this list seems rather lengthy, these are just a few of the problems we encountered during our Real Business Experience.
Our team started struggling after the loss of our CEO. Our CEO left for personal reasons and this really hurt our team because we were leaderless. Without a established CEO as our leader, we scrambled to recover during our proof of concept. His absence set us back during this time because he provided the leadership and he was a liasion to the outsiders of our business. We did recover from his absence and were still able to make ends meet by the end of the semester.
In addition to the loss of our CEO, we also discovered liability issues that were involved in our business. In order to operate our business, we had to sign numerous waivers and other forms of legal documents. This was unforseen by our group, thus we had to scramble to accomplish that task as well. As with the last hurdle, we did overcome this at the eleventh hour and were able to succeed.
Lastly, we also experienced miscommunication during our business. There were many times when a person from one department would not fully convey the message and confusion would ensue. Due to this, we had many weeks were nothing was accomplished since the departments did not express themselves well enough. Even though this seems like a massive problem, we did overcome the hurdle. To overcome this hurdle, we developed a more indirect chain of command. Since this was implemented, we expereienced a more satisfactory form of communication since each department was able to freely communicate with the other.
In conclusion, my Real Business Experience was tumultuous yet successful. This experience tested my limits with all of the adversity, yet we were still able to pull through with full funding from the funding comittee. If there was one key idea I learned from my Real Business Experience, it would be that running a business is very complicated.
~Alex Schneider
When running a business, you must expect the unexpected. While running The Blue Line our team encounter many problems that we did not foresee.These problems include: the leaving of CEO, insufficient amount of capital to acquire a golf cart and team member’s involvement. Even though we had to encounter these unexpected problems, we still came together as a team and prevailed.
Early in our POC, our CEO left the business for personal reasons. With this loss, our team struggled because we were leaderless. Our CEO held many important documents that were crucial to running our business, which set us back. Our team was able to come together and move forward during this difficult time.
On top of the loss of our CEO, we encounter the problem of not having sufficient capital to acquire a golf cart. When we started looking for golf carts to buy or rent, we quickly realized that our group did not have enough money to acquire one. This problem was not foreseen because we made the assumption that buying a golf cart was within our budget.As with the last unforeseen problem, we were able to borrow a golf cart and overcome this problem.
Last of all, we experienced the unforeseen problem of team member involvement. In the beginning phase of our business, all of our team members were able to make it to all meetings and participate. However, as the year went on, some team members could not go to some meetings due to scheduling conflict. This led to some team of the members doing more of the share of the work. Like the previous problems, our team pulled together, addressed the problem, and moved on.
In conclusion, running a business is challenging and full of unforeseen problems. By working together as a team, we worked through these problems and ran a successful business. If there is one key idea that I learned through my Real Business Experience, it would be when running a business, you must expect the unexpected.
~ John Doherty
Never Sell Yourself Short, Replacement RBE CEO Learns
Always be confident and never sell yourself short is a lesson that I have learned through my RBE experience. Starting up a business is a lot harder than I could have ever imagined. The business that I partook in was a golf cart chauffer around campus, The Blue Line. We started off strong but then hit a pretty large bump along the way. We lost a group member and were now a person short compared to all the other groups. We still had about half the semester to go and my group was very concerned on what to do now. They decided that it was best that I become the acting CEO. I had no major role for the group because I was always busy so they just had me do the small stuff. At first, I was very hesitant and not sure if I could go all the way through with it and actually thought about changing my major. Instead I decided to rise to the occasion and take over as the leader of our group. This was one of the best decisions I have made. With the positive help of my mentor and group members my perspective completely flipped. I then started looking forward to class and how I could better and advance my business. The cooperativeness of my group members was key to why we accomplished all the goals set forth. We all put in our fair share of work, especially our mentor. My overall experience in RBE was phenomenal and it’s sad that it’s over.
-Logan Brock