Riana's "holiday" entrepreneurial lessons

Individual learning: Being a group- and business member has resulted in large amounts of personal growth and learning. As an individual I have constantly been forced to act beyond my comfort zone and my usual way of getting things done. Working with many different suppliers forces an individual to grow up very quickly and not to allow others to walk all over you. I have learnt that one has to keep business relationships strict and professional...

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So How Was Your Vac?

How was the vac you ask? Well firstly it ended nearly three weeks ago. Although my brain didn't seem to work that out until last  Friday. Well at least some of the team have been keeping things going while the rest of us had a bit of an all fall down post exams. A big thank you goes out to Bianca Riana and Craig for their diligence in keeping the Azura project going. From the last month or so I have learnt that I have to be more careful with my personal resources. I burnt out rather badly at after exams and have really struggled to get...

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Reflections post-vac

Over the past two months we have been on a break from academics, which gave us the amazing opportunity to just focus on our business. Here are my reflections on my individual, group and business learnings. INDIVIDUAL LEARNINGS Over the past few months my most significant learning has been the realization of how determined and committed I am to become a successful entrepreneur and establish a sustainable Genesis business. After exams ended, all but one of my fellow group members left Cape Town or decided they were not going to work...

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Reflections from Last Semester

We are now in the second semester of our entrepreneurship course and I am thankful that I survived the first act.  As I reflect on how far I have come on this journey, I realize that the greatest lessons I have learned are not found in any text books. In the class room, I was equipped with academic tools to becoming a successful entrepreneur. For example, I learned about Steven Covey’s 7 habits of highly effective people and how to use multiple strategies to solve complex business problems. However it was outside the classroom and in the...

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Post vacation considerations

After such a long vacation break, one can only imagine the amount of reflection actually done by each team member, and I thus would like to share my experiences and resolutions that I have come to. However I would like to look at three aspects of learning, namely individual, group and business leaning. Individual Learning   During the vacation, one had much time to think and reflect on their progress during the year. It is hard to put into writing all I have gained at this moment; however there are many things that I have learnt about...

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Weekend Afterthoughts - July 20th & 21st

It's been good to get back to university this past week. I've quite enjoyed the structure and introductions to the courses that await us. As a group, we're definitely still finding ourselves and each other, and we're experimenting with a new found orderliness to the way we engage and conduct our meetings. For example, our division into departments/teams of the business and clearly defined roles and responsibilities. It seems like everyone is on board, but I hope that we've thought everything through in implementing so that there is still room...

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Laying the Table for the Muse - July 19th

Did you know that most artists don't really feel like they were the ones who 'created' their art? It's weird, but true. In the first time running course at UCT called Creativity in Business, we were taken through quotes of various artists, musicians, poets and writers, in order to explore the creative process. What was shown to be a common theme was the experience of encountering a 'muse'.  Often the muse arrives without notice, bringing inspiring sounds, thoughts and visions from a mysterious place. Almost just as spontaneously as...

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The Vibe of the Day - July 18th

Today we had two double period lectures. One called Politics of Enterprise, and the other Management Theory in Practice. I probably don't speak for the whole class when I say this, but I quite enjoyed them! Politics of Enterprise is all about ethics and law in business - at least for the first half of the course. On the other hand, Management Theory in Practice is all about the different kinds of management styles and has three sections: organisational metaphors, organisational effectiveness, and leadership. I'm pretty psyched about the MTIP...

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What They Don't Teach You at UCT... - July 17th

We live in an over-communicated world. The average person will 'see' approximately 3000 adverts a day, and virtually not a single one will be remembered. Why is that? I think it's because we're all focused on branding, instead of selling. Every formal marketing course that I've come across teaches the same thing... 'brand equity this', 'brand awareness that'... preaching what works best for large corporations like Coca Cola and McDonalds. But what if you aren't a big fancy corporation and you don't plan on working inside of one? In contrast,...

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Mysterious Courses - July 16th

I think this is the first term that I haven't been waiting in the long line outside a course convener's office door, waiting to change my electives. This semester we were given the options to choose two out of four courses as electives: integrated marketing communications (basically advertising), e-marketing, retail and services marketing, and project and operations management. People will disagree with me, but I think the obvious choices are advertising and e-marketing. Everyone wants to be a big shot CEO type-person, so has gone with...

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First Day Back! - July 15th

Hello once again, its Crazy Craig back on blog duty! Today was our first day back at varsity, and I must say that our time table (at least mine) looks waaaay more chilled. It's hard not to get excited by the later starts, earlier finishing times and sometimes, even a weekly day off... but I know it's important to use the extra 'free time' wisely and invest it in developing our group and product. It's pretty awesome where we are current at with our product. We're on track to having over 150 Azuras ready for sale in the next week or two. The main...

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