Reading Reflection Week 2

I actually found the second section of my reading of The $100 Startup to be strikingly similar to what we went over in the first quarter of class.  In this section Guillebeau talked about what value was and how to create it.  Like we did in class, he discussed how you want to solve a problem or better the conditions of something for the market.  He sited examples of guys who start companies to make air travel more simple, or young entrepreneurs who teach classes about how to use excel properly.  Unlike we did in class, however, Guillebeau separated the concept of the product and its value.  For example, the value of a pen is not that it is a writing utensil, but that it will help you in your job or in school.  The value of a vacation home is not that it has a pool, but rather that it allows you to escape the stress of the real world.  This caused me to rethink how we should be marketing our calendars for the 200$ project.  We shouldn't be advertising that it has tons of cool pictures.  Instead, we should be advertising that it helps you stay in touch with the Athletics community and the purchase allows you to support the high school.  Guillebeau's work forced me to look at business in a new way, and from this, I realized that we have to make the value of our product more clear to our customers.  This will hopefully help us sell more calendars in the near future.