Journal Entry #2

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How’s it going?

  • Great, my school work load this quarter is not that bad, I spent the Christmas break getting everything prepared for my E5 venture and it feels to be all set up. With your team

With your team

  • Everything is fine so far, we lost a team member, but that is alright.

With the evidence-based entrepreneurship skills

  • pretty good, just the same stuff as every other quarter. Ask the right questions and collect data to justify your case.

With discovering a new brand opportunity?

  • Excellent, we found a great opportunity to take advantage of for this rebrand.

Outside of E&I this week

  • I did a lot of school work this past weekend and then went down to Palm Springs with my parents and girlfriend for the 3 day weekend.

Journal Entry #1

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  • Share about your vision board. What did you observe?

For my vision board I put 2 photos. One of people graduating, and the other of someone pushing a big boulder up a hill. I posted these two photos because I am just at the end of my WWU career and I really need to push forward and finish strong.

  • How do you define the word entrepreneur and what is your role in it?

For me, an entrepreneur is anyone who finds a problem and then creates a solution for that problem through whatever means possible. My role in entrepreneurship is to look for things that people struggle with everyday and try to fix it, or find ways to better something already existing.

  • This week outside of e&i

My birthday was on January 5th which was fun and I am just getting settled back into my house in Bellingham.

Kombucha Creations E4 Venture

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Hello! My name is John McCullugh and as an E4, I was tasked this quarter to create my own venture that I will carry through my E5 and E6 quarter. After some ideation I came to the conclusion I would brew my own kombucha. Kombucha creations is a Bellingham local company founded by myself, my strategic approach to this venture is to deliver a great tasting kombucha that meets store quality standards for a bargain price. The operations of Kombucha creations will be handled by Kombucha town here in Bellingham, sales and marketing will be handled by myself.

Here is a link to my google drive if you would like to see my work done this quarter! https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19LigLTSj9J0qtOybUlKMRmENP-TWHvAy?usp=sharing

Journal Entry #10

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How did this quarter go for you?

I thought it went great, I ended up pivoting from my Kombucha Creations venture, but I feel that I learned a lot and it served a very valuable lesson to me.

What did you love?

Being able to work on my own and pursue my own venture, I am more of an independent worker.

What do you wish would have gone differently?

I wish I could have made a venture work this quarter to carry out with the next 2 quarters.

How has your definition of an entrepreneur changed since the beginning of the quarter?

I don’t think it has changed too much, I feel that I have a good understanding on the definition of entrepreneurship being an E4.

Something outside of E&I this week

Lots of work preparing for finals and wrapping up some projects! I had a fun week before at home spending time with family and friends.

Journal #9

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What did you see that you loved at pitches this week?

I really liked hearing the E1s pitch and I was glad to finish my pitch!

What went well this quarter?

I thought traction for my project went great. I started off strong and figured out what I wanted to do, started to work towards my goals. Then in the end realized it was not going to work out. Learned a lot this quarter.

Outside of E&I

Had a great week back home with my family celebrating thanksgiving, got to see my grandparents for the first time in a while which was nice and got to hang out with my friends back home!

Journal #8

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Between now and Final Pitches, what traction steps do you need to make?

Not much, I am pitching tomorrow and feel prepared. One thing I will be changing is to make the expenses section more detailed so it is easier to digest for the audience. Then after pitches I just need to do a little more drive work.

Outside of E&I this week

This week was pretty good, didn’t do anything crazy during the weekdays just a lot of work and school work. I have been doing a lot more work with NFT trading which has been a lot of fun. Then on Friday and Saturday I hung out with some friends and housemates!

Change Leadership (AASK for Change)

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This quarter as an E4 this change leadership was more about proving I am learning the E&I skills. I helped the class by doing an workshop on how to trade stocks, and then did two activities to further my professional development, then finally did an interview with another fellow classmate to better understand what I am doing right and what I need to work more on. Click here to learn more. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1v8QS6OGeSLSPnogEVvQkdmlo88P6e8gbDr6S3G5Nbnw/edit?usp=sharing

Journal Entry #7

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 What are you going to do to exceed the standards this quarter?

  • I am going to focus on finishing strong. I think a lot of people feel this way and I certainty do, that you start the quarter strong and start to get overwhelmed as the quarter progresses and then you fall of track a little. That is why I think it is just real important to focus up the last month of each quarter.

Why does it matter to you?

  • Why does finishing strong matter to me? I care a lot about my work and I like to follow through with my commitments, weather its school or anything in life.

What jumps out to you in the VP2 rubric?

  • I guess not having to do a BIC is nice.

Where could you use support?

  • Not too sure where I could use support, If I ever have a question the teaching team is very helpful.

What did you learn in shift and share- what did you love, what would you have loved to see?

  • I did my presentation on stock trading which I enjoyed to do, and I also enjoyed hearing Lacoya’s presentation.

What did I do this week outside of E&I?

  • Not too much, was really busy with school work and kombucha town, got to go out Friday night with some friends which was a lot of fun.

Journal Entry #6

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What did you love this week?  

I enjoyed the fellow presentations on Wednesday! I also liked going over my POA on Monday, it was reassuring to see I was ahead of my plan.

What resonated with you in workshops?

Listening to Jono talk about his journey during the fellow presentations, he had a lot of setbacks in his journey, but it did not discourage him from pushing forward.

How might you apply this week’s learnings to your venture?

I will look into setting higher standards for myself in the winter quarter POA.

Outside of E&I this week

I kept myself busy this week with work and school. I created an Instagram for my venture, kombucha_creations, and I got a lot of positive feedback from my friends and peers. I have also developed a full business plan to follow through with next quarter to start selling my kombucha, currently in the talks with Chris from Kombucha Town to work out a deal in which I can list the Kombucha Town facility as my “Plant Location” on the food processing license, if I can do this then that will be my most important advancement in this venture, so far.

Journal Entry #5

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What did you love this week?  

I enjoyed class on Monday with the random pitches, I also enjoyed the guest speaker.

What resonated with you in workshops?

Getting better at pitching in person, always good practice.

How might you apply this week’s learnings to your venture?

Did not learn anything new for the most part, so if anything I would just carry that momentum from pitching in class into my final pitch.

What did you learn in shift and share- what did you love, what would you have loved to see?

(N/A) We didn’t do shift and share this week

Something outside of E&I this week

I started a new part time job at kombucha town to further progress my fermentation skills, also had a lot of fun this weekend dressing up for Halloween.