16A –What’s Your Secret Sauce?

1) Describe five ways in which you think you have human capital that is truly unique.
- My height is one thing that separates me from everyone else. Being 6'5, I am much taller than the average person, so in the majority of rooms I walk into, peoples eyes often drift towards me because I am so tall.
- My passion for sports is something that separates me from everyone else. There are not a lot of people who are very passionate about sports that I am, and that passion is something that I have chosen to make my career about.
- My determination is another aspect about me that is different than other people. When I set my mind to do something, I am not very easily swayed one way or another. 
- I am a person who enjoys debating others on certain topics. While this type of my personality is not compatible with a lot of people, I enjoy back and forth conversation with anyone.
- I am a very outgoing person, who is easy to talk to. I often find myself talking to random strangers, and I believe that is different from others. 

2) Interview the five people who know you the best.

In my first interview, I interviewed my Mom. This interview went about how I had expected it to, with her talking about my obvious traits. One thing that did surprise me was her viewpoint of how I was the person who built everything. I knew that, but it was different to hear it from her. 

In my second interview, I interviewed my youngest brother Jacob. This interview also went according to plan, as he was 14 and was busy laughing the whole time. Overall, it was refreshing to hear him talk about my ability to____

My third interview was with my Dad. In this interview, I was a little surprised as to his description of my kindness. I was surprised to hear that, but it was good to know.

My fourth interview was with my middle brother Zack. Zack is 17, and also was laughing through most of the interview. I did enjoy his acknowledgement of him saying that i built our basketball hoop. 

My last interview was with my friend Nick. I was surprised as to Nick's description of our friendship, but it made me glad that we are friends.

3) Reflect on the differences
Overall, I feel that these interviews were pretty parallel to my description of myself. I do think that i am perhaps a bit more outgoing than I think about myself, but i believe most of the interviews were relatively the same throughout with little differences. I believe the interviewees are correct about me as a person, and I would not change anything from my original list. 

15A – Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 2

Report Findings and Draw Conclusions 
     After conducting my 3 interviews, I was opened to a new idea regarding my product. My interview with Jason was initially not that interesting, until he mentioned a new idea about the marketing of my product. Jason suggested that instead of trying to sell my product in a book store or at preview, to use a new form of advertising that is product advertising by famous people on Instagram. He said that a lot of people advertise bathing suits, headphones, phone cases etc. online and that people really do buy products from people advertising on Instagram. It was interesting for me to see that Instagram was a place that people bought items from. Even in my interview with Will, he said that he sometimes buys items just because someone funny on Instagram posted about it. As a startup company targeting college students, I could think of no better way to reach college students than with college students on Instagram. I was even more stunned when I asked them Will how he felt after purchasing a product advertised by an Instagram star, and he claimed to feel good about it because that star had endorsed it. My third interviewee Mason did say that he is not a fan of purchasing things from websites he doesn’t trust, but his girlfriend is a huge fan of buying things online that are ridiculously cheap. I think it would be an excellent idea for my product to be advertised by an Instagram star, since it would be cheaper than magazines, and reach a broader target audience.

14A – Halfway Reflection

1) Tenaciousness is a competency. What are the behaviors that you have used (or developed) to keep up with the requirements of this course? 
     Some of the behaviors that I have used to keep up with the requirements of this course is having strong time management skills. This course may appear to be something you can put off until Friday, but that is often not the case. It is important to work on your idea throughout the week so that when Friday comes you already have your interviews done and only need to type up your reports!

2) Tenaciousness is also about attitude. Talk about a moment or two when you felt like "giving up." What pulled you through? Do you feel like you've developed a tenacious attitude during the past two months? What experience or experiences most contributed to this?
     One moment in this class when I felt like giving up was when I had almost forgotten to comment on other people’s post. It was 11:20 at night, I was exhausted from the gym, and already falling asleep. In that moment I wanted to give up, and forfeit the 3 points. Instead, I woke myself up, read some of my classmates excellent posts, and ended up enjoying them and found it easy to comment on their posts. This class and that experience have definitely developed a tenacious attitude in my life. 

3) Three tips. What are three tips you would offer next semester's student about (1) fostering the skills that support tenacity and (2) developing the 'tenacious mindset' ?
     Three tips I would offer to next semesters students are to 1. be proactive in your work. If you take the time to view your assignments Monday night after you do your comments, you’ll be able to gameplan for the week and by delegating some work each day, this class will be a breeze. 2. Never settle for doing your assignment halfway. It’s very easy to just do the minimum requirements for this class, but if you put in the time for your idea, you’ll be amazed at how much you learn about yourself and the world around you. 
3. Make friends within your group. By making friends you have given yourself the opportunity to not only get a better grade, but to meet new people and enjoy life!

13A – Reading Reflection No. 1

For this assignment, I chose to read Grinding it Out by Ray Kroc.

1) You read about an entrepreneur:

 The thing about this book that surprised me the most was discovering that Ray Kroc bought McDonalds from the McDonalds brothers instead of starting the franchise himself. The thing about Ray Kroc that I admired the most was his passion to stick to his original plan. It would have been easy for Ray to turn McDonalds into a regular burger joint, but he chose to make McDonalds different and it rally paid off for him. I did not admire his strict code of conduct in his franchise owner’s personal life, I believe he should have stuck with company policy and allowed them to be themselves. If so, what did they do about it? Ray Kroc did encounter adversity and failure through his paper cup and milkshake business. Instead of quitting, he joined the McDonalds brothers on an idea that he believed would work. He also noticed the McDonald brothers would not allow him to conduct business the way he wanted, so he bought the franchise and did things his way. 

2) What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited? 

I noticed that Ray Kroc that the ability to stick to his guns and see his idea through. It would have been easy for Ray to follow the trend of traditional burger joints of the time, but he wanted to follow his idea until the end, and that is what made him so successful.

3) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.

I was confused as to why the McDonald brothers would sell away their company when they noticed how much the company was growing and they had majority control. Maybe they believed that Ray would ruin the business, but I am not sure.

4) If you were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur, what would you ask? Why?

The first question I would ask Ray would be how he knew that there would be a market demand for a burger joint that is family friendly/ There no places at the time, so how could he have foreseen this opportunity in the market. The second question I would ask Ray would be why he demanded his brand to be so unified throughout? It would have been easy to mold the California branches to fit the psychographic of California customers as well as customers in the Midwest, so why not appeal to the customers of the area?

5) For fun: what do you think the entrepreneur's opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion?

I believe Ray had a very strong desire to work hard. As a military man, Ray understood the importance of hard work, and knew his business would not succeed without it. I believe I too have a similar opinion of hard work. 

12A – Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 1

Choosing a segment:

For this assignment I chose a segment of college age students who fit the ideal customer profile. Tyler is an incoming freshmen who used his laptop a lot in high school, Kameryn is going to be a sophomore and often finds it difficult to difficult to go to class with a dead laptop and look for an outlet, and Daniel hates long tangled wires and loves representing the UF logo.

Interviews:

Interview #1: In my interview with Tyler, I spent a majority of the time talking about his use of laptops in his high school. He talked of having almost all of his books on his laptop for his classes, and how he found it annoying to have to always be charging his laptop in class. When I ask him about his need awareness, he said that he first became aware of his need when he either sees his laptop is dead in the morning before he runs to class, or when he gets to class. He said that he feels his need is most important when he is in class and has to open his book, but his laptop is dead. He then has to go to the back of the classroom and wait 20-25min for his laptop to charge at an outlet before he can go back to his seat and not worry about his laptop dying.

Interview #2: In my second interview with Kameryn, I discovered a very similar situation to Tyler’s, but in college. Kameryn said she also forgets to charge her laptop before class and becomes aware of the need for my product when she gets to class and is forced to sit in the back of the lecture hall to charge her laptop. This results in her not being able to take as good of notes as her friends, and therefore hurting her grade. She notices the need the most in her lectures and wished she had a way to fix it.

Interview #3: The third interview I conducted with my friend Daniel. While this interview was not ideal for my product, it did open a new door. Daniel said he, like all other college students, forgets to charge his laptop, but not very often. Daniel was not very interested in the charger for his laptop as much as I would prefer, but he was very interested in the idea of the UF color scheme and design. To his knowledge, there is not a portable charger that allows you to customize the colors of it, and potentially place logos on the charger itself. Daniel was very interested in getting a charge that was orange and blue, while having a gator head on the charger itself.

What I learned:

In this assignment I learned that there is still a need for my product. My first two interviews were encouraging for my ideal customer profile, but the third interview opened some new ideas to my potential product. Up until this point I was only considering the customizable feature of the charger as an afterthought, but after speaking to Daniel, I believe I underestimated the power of University pride. This led me to believe that I could potentially market this product in a new way, fraternity and sorority members. Fraternity and sorority members are famously passionate about their organization, and I believe that there is a larger market of customers who would be willing to buy the product simply to represent their organization.

How would I describe this segment?

I believe that there is still solid interest in my product for students who need this product. This assignment has opened the idea of pushing my brand to potential customers a few weeks after classes begin when students start to recognize their need for my product, as well as to organizations within the college campus.

11A – Idea Napkin No. 1

1) Who you are. What your talents are. What your skills and experiences are. Also: what are your aspirations? Specifically regarding your business concept, how do you see this business (if you were to start it) playing a role in your life?
     My name is Christian Stewart and I am a sophomore here at the University of Florida studying sports management. I am a huge advocate for sports, with a focused passion in basketball. I believe this has made me a people person, who is comfortable talking to anybody. I also believe that I am someone who understands the importance of hard work and results. One of my aspirations is to be apart of an organization that fans can be proud of for impacting the community and the people within the organization. If I were to start my business, I believe that it would take up a large part of my life since I would not want to only devote some of my time to things when I can go all in. 

2) What are you offering to customers? Describe the product or service (in other words, how you'll solve customers' unmet needs).      
       I am offering individuals a product that fits a specific need within a targeted audience. The ideal consumers of my product could potentially need a portable charger that charges twice as fast as a regular charger in half the time. These students, and business workers who rely heavily on their laptops have an issue with their laptops dying to often or not charging quickly enough, and my potential product fits that need.

3) Who are you offering it to? Describe, in as much detail as possible, the demographic and psychographic characteristics of your customers. Think especially of this question: what do your customers all have in common?   
         My target audience is students who use their laptops, and business professionals who use their laptops as well. Ideally my target audience is anyone who has a major need for a laptop and uses it for most of the day, but students and business professionals are the main targeted audience. The age group is roughly 18-65, but could go higher if needed. A potential niche of consumers could be college alumni who are in the business world and would love to rep their college’s colors on the go or at work. Ideally students would follow this narrative as well.


4) Why do they care? Your solution is only valuable insofar as customers believe its valuable to them. Here, explain why customers will actually pay you money to use your product or service.    
         Customers care enough to purchase my product because it will save them time, hassle, and money. Instead of wasting their time digging through wires, finding an outlet, and waiting for their charger to take 30min to charge their laptop, they can simply pull out the small portable charger, wait 5mins, and have 50% of their laptop charged. This saves students time because students often forget to charge their laptops and are late to class, and it saves business professionals money because they can quickly charge their laptop on the way to a meeting and be ready to present their potential business information.


5) What are your core competencies? What sets you apart from everyone else? Also: what do you have that nobody else has?           
     As far as I know, there are no products like my portable laptop charger. While there are portable laptop chargers, they are either over $125, don’t charge as quickly as my potential charger, or are not customizable. I have a charger that is unique in a small but growing market. As laptops have become more popular, the market has grown, and I have a product that would be fresh, new, and fits a need. My ability to offer something new to the market sets my product apart from the others.

In addition to these five elements, please spend a paragraph evaluating whether you believe these elements fit together or whether there are aspects of your business concept that are weaker / out-of-joint with the others.  
           I believe that all five of these elements align to make a product that has the potential to succeed in a market. While it will be difficult marketing a product into a market saturated with similar products, I believe that it is still possible to accomplish. With the opportunity to offer something new and fresh, there is a reasonable chance that my product does succeed. I am worried of finding the correct company to manufacture the product, as I am not sure how the science behind the product will work. With that being said, if it was possible to make my product, I feel confident in the products ability to succeed.

10a-Elevator Pitch 1

9A – Testing the Hypothesis, Part 2

Who: When examining my product, I have found some people who do fall outside the boundary of my products target audience, and those people are the ones who always charge their laptops. These people do not feel a need to purchase a specialized charger, since they feel they do not have a need because they do not forget to charge their laptop. Two of my interviewees said they thought it was absurd to purchase a portable charger and were quite upset people would rather pay money than just charge their laptop. Three interviewees said they felt that it was worth their weight to simply wait for their regular charger to work.

What: This need differs from other needs in the sense that it is not as large of an issue as production success needs. I believe the issue of finding somewhere to manufacture the chargers themselves are a bigger issue than certain consumer not being interested in my product since I know there is a need for this product.

Why: The underlying cause as to why these people do not have the need as others could potentially be discipline. Some people are more disciplined than others and simply charge their laptops whenever they can.

Inside the boundary: 

Who:
- College students who forget to charge their laptops

- High school students who use laptops in their schools

- Professionals who rely on their laptops a lot

                 
What:

-Laptops that die quickly

-People who forget to charge their laptops

-People who need to quickly recharge their laptop throughout a busy day

Why:

-Laptops die to quickly

-People forget to charge their laptops

-People use laptops all day and need a quick boost

Outside the boundary:

Who:

-College students who always charge

-High school students who don’t use laptops

-Students who take notes on pen and paper

What:

-Laptops that have excellent battery life

-People who charge their laptop

Why:

-Some people don’t need to charge their laptops because they always charge them

-Some people are willing to wait for their long corded charger to charge their laptop