Josiah Mackenzie

I usually try to avoid personal blog entries in this blog. Unless what I’m writing could help any entrepreneur, I try to avoid recording my day-to-day experiences. But since I have been more or less absent from many of my online business ventures the last couple months, I figure that I owe my readers an update on what I’m doing.

In case you don’t know, I’m currently attending Cedarville University. My time here has been both very enjoyable and very frustrating at the same time. Due to classes and other things a college student is expected to due, I have almost zero time to devote to my business ventures. It seems like I’m always busy preparing for an exam or writing another paper. Then when I have some time off, I need to take a break from working. So not much entrepreneurship took place.

The positive part of college is that you meet great business contacts. Lots of them. I’m trying to make the most of that aspect, and meet as like-minded people as possible.

In order to meet new business contacts and aquire new skills, I’m involved in several extra-curricular activities:

• Sales Representative for U99.5FM, Cedarville University’s student radio station. I am responsible for selling advertising on our station to small businesses. I have to call the business owner, meet with them, then propose an advertising campaign that would fit their needs. The whole experience has given me an appreciation for the selling process. The skills that I gain through this I hope to use for other business ventures I start.
  What I’m learning through this: the selling process
• Project Leader for the Cedarville University chapter of SIFE. This involves me leading a group of 10 people in creating a directory of businesses that students run (like haircutting, computer repair, etc). Yesterday I purchased the domain we’ll use, and hope to start the backend coding soon. We’re going to first create an online version of the directory, then hopefully have a printed version ready for the winter semester. There are big advantages for working with SIFE: you get access to promotional opportunities that you otherwise wouldn’t have. For example, we are allowed to show a slide annoucing the directory before our chapel (3,000 students).
  What I’m learning through this: team leadership skills, project management, advertising & promotions
• Founder of the Cedarville University Stock Competition. This is a semester-long game played on Investopedia. We start out with $100,000 in “money,” and then invest in stocks. The person who has the largest portfolio value and the end of the semester wins this prize package. The market has been pretty volatile during the last few months, so my portfolio isn’t doing so well. But it is still a great learning experience for all of us!
  What I’m learning through this: stock investing
• Starting two top-secret websites that will be marketed to the Cedarville student body. I won’t make any money directly through these — I’m not selling anything — but I have high hopes for both websites. More information on these will be available in the near future.

And that is what is occupying me currently. It’s hard to condense 3 months into one entry, but I hope that gave you an idea of what I’m involved in.