22A – Elevator Pitch No. 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fQS2BAY5Y8&feature=youtu.be

On my last elevator pitch, I received mostly positive feedback and some negative feedback as well. It seemed pretty consistent that my peers really like my attention getter. They also mentioned how I was very descriptive which allowed them to paint a mental picture of my solution/problem in their head. The negative feedback was that I should just choose one solution and hone in on that one. I also need a better, less abrupt ending.

I tried to do all the positive things that I did in my last class and I tried to incorporate some of the other things that my peer said I could improve upon, such as choosing one solution to hone in on rather than multiple. I also tried to add a better, less abrupt ending.

21A – Reading Reflection No. 2

How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, Scott Adams

1) What was the general theme or argument of the book?

This book tries to allow you to think of life in a new perspective. It gives many life lessons that allow you to grow as a person, and ultimately as an entrepreneur. Some lessons taught from this book include do creative work first, the most important form of selfishness, changing your mind, don’t read the news for the truth, fake it till you make it, systems trump goals, and more. Overall, this books meaning is told in its title. Success comes from failure.

2) How did the book, in your opinion, connect with and enhance what you are learning in ENT 3003?

Both this book and ENT 3003 teach basic but general skills on how to be an entrepreneur. Both focus more on basic personal skills rather than actually becoming and entrepreneur, so they both go hand in hand. In ENT, we learn basic skills such as how to identify the market, how to connect with the market, and how to identify opportunities. The book, however, focuses primarily on yourself and your outlook on life. With the combination of the lessons taught from this book, as well as the lessons taught from ENT 3003, someone could have a very strong basis for one day becoming a very successful entrepreneur.

3) If you had to design an exercise for this class, based on the book you read, what would that exercise involve?

Something that Scott Adams hones in upon is the idea that systems beat goals. He mentions how goals have two problems: they are in the future and they’re specific. Systems, however, leave room to adjust your plans and make timing irrelevant. For this assignment, I would have every student write up three systems to help with their new startup/company/product.

Another one of the key takeaways from this is the lesson of changing your mind. Adams mentions how the ability to change your mind is probably one of the best life skills you can ever hope to develop. For an assignment, I would ask to hear about something you were set on and then changed your mind completely and why. Give two examples.

4) What was your biggest surprise or 'aha' moment when reading the book? In other words, what did you learn that differed most from your expectations?

The craziest moment of the book for me is when he completely redefines the connotation of being selfish. We’re taught that being selfish is bad, but it all depends on how you look at it. Being selfish can be good. Adams mentions how “the most important form of selfishness involves spending time on your fitness, eating right, pursuing your career, and still spending quality time with your family and friends.” You can’t be generous to others if you’re not in a good place. Adams argues that once your needs are met, you can focus on the needs of others. I have always been taught that being selfish is a bad thing, but when looking at it from this viewpoint, it is not bad at all, but in fact good.

20A – Growing Your Social Capital

1.     Mark Zuckerberg: An American computer programmer, internet entrepreneur and philanthropist. Zuckerberg is known for co-founding and leading Facebook (a social networking site). He is currently Facebooks namesake social networking website as its chairman, chief executive officer, and controlling shareholder.

2.     Domain expert – Zuckerberg is one of the most successful and famous computer programmers and designed probably the most well-known app to date.

3.     Pretty much everyone knows who Mark Zuckerberg is. If you don’t you most likely live under a rock. I searched on google for his email and it came up. I verified on many sources that this was the correct email. (zuck@facebook.com)

4.     He has not yet responded – shocking! If he hopefully does respond, I can gain some extremely insightful knowledge about designing a successful app, especially at such a young age similar to Zuckerberg. I also asked for advice at doing something like this at such a young age.

5.     Having Zuckerberg as part of my social network can change my life so much. He is an EXTREMELY powerful man that can take my app to unforeseen levels. He literally can turn anything into a money-making tool.

1.     Travis Kalanick: An American billionaire businessman. He is the co-founder of Scour, a peer-to-peer file sharing application; Red Swoosh, a peer-to-peer content delivery network; and Uber, a transportation network company. Most recently he has created Uber Eats which is what I am focusing on now.

2.     Market expert – he is extremely experienced with the market of people who want to get food in a fast and convenient way (Uber eats).

3.     I am very familiar with Uber Eats as it is extremely popular for college students. I just google searched CEO/founder of Uber Eats and his email address (Travis@10100fund.com).

4.     Kalanick has not yet responded to my email. I asked for advice for the market of people who want fast and convenient food. We would be looking at pretty identical markets for my product and Uber Eats so he can be a very valuable resource and mentor.

5.     Yes. I am thinking that in the long run, we would be able to combine my app with Uber Eats. I think having a combination of these could become very successful. Having him aboard my team would make this merge much easier!

1.     Brian Niccol – CEO of Chipotle Mexican Grill (aka my favorite. Advice: get a burrito bowl with a tortilla on the side – same price, twice as much food)

2.     Supplier – when creating my app, I was inspired by Chipotle as the lines are sp irregular. Sometimes the line is supper long, sometimes there is no line and you can never predict how it will be.

3.     I just searched up CEO of Chipotle and his email address (bniccol@chipotle.com)

4.     My return expectation from this is to see of restaurants such as Chipotle would be willing to take part and join this app. I believe it can help their businesses grow so I hope they join. If Chipotle would want to take part, I think most restaurants would.

5.     Ultimately, Chipotle is just one of hundreds of restaurants I would like to partner with. This would just be a very good first step to the entire process.

Reflection: Networking is not something I am used to or have experience with. My first experience with networking ever was this semesters career showcase at UF and I had no idea what I was doing. This assignment definitely helped with my networking skills and I feel more comfortable with profession emails as well. I am glad to have had this experience for when I am searching for jobs in the future!

19A - Idea Napkin No. 2

1.     My name is Aaron and I am a freshman business major from Potomac, Maryland. I am extremely passionate in helping others and I strive to live my life being as selfless as possible. I also consider myself a hard-working, driven and ambitious individual. I believe I am very creative and innovative and one day hope to make a difference in the world. I am a huge food fanatic and my biggest hate in life is waiting in line, thus where my business idea was born. If I were to actually start a business, I would see it having a large role in my life. I do everything with 100% of what I have in me and me never half-ass anything. Therefore, I would give it my all.

2.     I am offering a product/app that will solve everyone’s favorite and least favorite things in life: food and lines! As humans we are extremely busy every day. Eating is a must to live, however most of us just want it to be a quick and easy activity especially during our busy weeks. Every day we walk and drive to restaurants only to find there is an hour-long wait. What now? We then either miss our plans for later that day since were waiting in line for hours or we are forced to skip a meal so we can get on with our lives. Either way doesn’t seem like a win to me With the New app “No wait”, all restaurants will have access to post the current wait time at their respected restaurant. These will be updated every 30 minutes, so people know the current wait times of that restaurant. It will be a $2 per month subscription fee for users which in the long run will save you money since time is money and with the amount of time you will be saving by using this app, you will be a millionaire in no time!

3.     My customers could be literally anyone. Nearly all people go out to eat at some point and I can guarantee no one genuinely enjoys standing in lines. Although this app is meant for anyone, it is specific for those who are food fanatics but also hate lines. People with less patience would enjoy this app most.

4.     It is as simple as time is money. People would much rather pay a few dollars a month rather than spending hours in lines every month. People could spend more time at work, with family, and with friends which ultimately could help save money in the long run.

5.     I strive for success and I believe I care about others more than most business owners. I truly want the best for my customers, and I am not just worried about how much money I am making. In regard to core competencies, I will need to learn how to code ASAP and honesty practice a lot, so I become good at it. I should also practice making different apps to perfect my skills.

I believe my 5 elements fit together fairly well, except for my core competencies. That is definitely my weakest concept which needs to be improved upon (this is part of my feedback which I will talk about in my next summary below). My first four concepts go together very well and once I can improve upon my core competencies, I can actually follow through with the first four elements which will hopefully result in success.

I only received one comment on my first idea napkin . Therefore, I did not change too much from my original post. I did however take the one piece of feedback I got to improve my idea napkin. The feedback I got was “If you are serious about this application, I would definitely suggest learning the basics of coding as soon as possible.” I completely agree which is why I added a portion of this I into my core competencies concept, which also happens to be what I believe is my weakest concept.

18A – Create a Customer Avatar

My prototypical customer, Adam, is a sophomore at The University of Florida. Adam currently lives off campus but he is a mechanical engineering major, so he has to be on campus every day for his many classes. He also greatly enjoys studying at Normal Library (he hates lib west and Marston). Adam drives a bright blue Honda Civic because he is big into the environment and likes to drive a fuel-efficient car! He currently is not dating because he Is focused primarily on his studies. In his free time, he enjoys making gains at Southwest recreation and likes going to Grog with friends.

I have a lot in common with my avatar (basing off me next year at college). I will be living off campus and I will be driving my bright blue Honda civic! I am a business student, but I still have many classes to go to everyday. I also love Norman library and hate west and Marston. I pretty much made my prototypical customer about myself as I am the prototypical customer. I will be living off campus so I will be having issues finding parking spots on campus.

17A – Elevator Pitch No. 2

https://youtu.be/Lb9504LEba0

I did not receive any negative feedback on my last elevator pitch. I only had one comment on it and it was all positive feedback! She said my elevator pitch was clear, concise, and convincing; it was very easy to tell why I picked this opportunity. Additionally, I engaged your audience and were very clear about how I planned on bringing your idea to fruition.

I tried to do all the positive things that I did in my last class and I tried to incorporate some of the other things that Professor Pryor mentioned in the video lecture after the last elevator pitch.

16A –What’s Your Secret Sauce?

What makes me unique:

·      I am extremely independent however I hate being alone. This means I am fine with being on my own, I can figure out stuff for myself, however I prefer to be with people

·      I am extremely social. I can talk to anyone and I try to meet as many people as possible. I love talking and I hate being alone. I do not need alone time I think it is very boring

·      I am very empathetic. I empathize with pretty much anyone. The person can be an awful human however if they give a good point or reasoning for like killing someone, I would still probably empathize for them.

·      I am not very competitive, yet I still like to get things done. I do not need to be the best, but I do like to do the things I do well.

·      I am very adventurous. It doesn’t matter what time of day it is I am always down to go on an adventure.

Interviews:

1.     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wz874Yl4vvw&feature=youtu.be

I think what my friend Jordan said about me is true however it is not exactly how I describe myself. He said I am unique because I am creative which is nice but not what I think makes me unique.

2-4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOizPtxna3Y&feature=youtu.be

Interview 2: I think Zoe described me just as I would describe me. She essentially said everything I talked about earlier when I described my secret sauce myself. She focused mostly on my socialness.

Interview 3: Will took a different approach and talked about some of my strange habits since they do make me unique. Not exactly what I was looking for but still appreciated!

Interview 4: I think Ashley described me just as I would describe me. She essentially said everything I talked about earlier when I described my secret sauce myself. Yeehaw.

5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L3Ow44nv6Y&feature=youtu.be

I think Hope described me just as I would describe me. She essentially said everything I talked about earlier when I described my secret sauce myself.

Reflection:

I think I see myself as pretty similar as to how others see me. I have done an exercise like this in the past and the results were pretty similar to this one. My interviews aligned pretty closely to what I said about myself which is cool to know my friends see me the same way I see myself. I would not change any of my 5 descriptions about what I think makes me unique.

15A – Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 2

I interviewed three college students who either have parking passes currently or who have purchased a parking pass in the past but do not currently have one.

Alternative evaluation:

When discussing why my interviewees bought parking passes, it was clear that the overall goal of everything related to this was solely based off of convenience. Whether it be convenience with driving to classes, driving to grocery stores and friends off campus houses, or driving back home for breaks, convenience was the main priority. This is ultimately how the buyers did their picking. When talking to them about their thought process, they did a pro con essentially of other options, including walking around campus, taking the bus, getting a bike, or just ubering everywhere (and then getting a ride with someone else to get back home for break).

How/where do they buy?

I began by asking general questions about where they buy certain products: online or in person. I then went broader and asked where they purchase most of their stuff now and they mostly said online. I then asked where they purchased their parking permit and it was consistent with their previous answers as they had all bought them online. They all used a credit card to purchase this as well as most of their stuff as you cannot use cash when buying things online.

Post-purchase evaluation

As I had previously stated they based their entire purchase on convenience. If having the product (a parking pass) made life more convenient to them, then it was a successful purchase. It didn’t make life more convenient, then it was an unsuccessful purchase. One of my interviewees did not re-purchase a parking pass because she felt it did not make life more convenient. Another interviewee did purchase it again because he said it helped him get around places and the third is still deciding if she is going to re purchase a pass next semester.

Conclusion

Based off these interviews and after doing this assignment, it is clear that these individuals and most likely the rest of the population with parking passes is convenience driven. Based off that, there is a need for better parking to make life more convenient for college students. We are all very stressed already and do not want to have to worry about figuring out where to park, Helping the parking situation would be greatly loved by most college students.