30A Final Reflection

As much as I loved the my secret sauce assignment and hearing everything people had to say about me, I would say the most formative experience for me was the bug list. It helped me to see that it takes just a change in perspective and the way we think to start taking notice of all the amazing product ideas that are out there. The elevator pitch is something I'll remember for years because it taught me how to perfect a brief presentation. I have had lots of practice with 15 minute presentations and have a vlog so I was comfortable in front of the camera, but I have not had practice in being so concise with my words so that is definitely a skill I can say I have now. My most joyous and most proud are the same assignment, growing my social capital. I really enjoyed reaching out and speaking with so many different people and am proud of myself for getting past the fear of rejection when reaching out to those individuals.

I definitely think I have moved closer in becoming an entrepreneur. I do not think I can officially call myself that until my business is up and running, but the entrepreneurial mindset has definitely been formed. By doing these assignments I have learned how to do market research on a new market and have had my perspective changed by the bug list. 

To students who are going to go down this path in the future, I would recommend planning ahead. Do not wait until the last minute because it takes a lot of organization to get interviews in order and set before the deadline. Also, do not skip assignments because they all help in the next assignment and in developing the overall venture concept for your project. All of the assignments put together are how you will leave with a much better understanding of entrepreneurship. Students who want to actually create their businesses should especially listen to the comments of their peers and seek feedback from the professor so that you can leave being as successful as possible.

27A Reading Reflection Part 3

The book I read was How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big. This book was about how to take failing in stride and how to fail until you succeed. It was about learning how to handle these failures in a manner that simply brings you closer to your end purpose in life, your success. 

In this class we are taught that many entrepreneurs start with little capital and no investors, and often times new businesses fail. Well, in this book, the author discusses many failed ventures he endured until he ultimately found his winning talent. The author tells readers to look for the opportunities in which they have a natural advantage, something no one else can do. This ties in with what we have learned about our human capital and the resources that we bring to our venture. Each individual has strengths that no one else has and it is using these talents that will lead to success, not just inventing the next great idea but utilizing human capital and resources that are not easily replicated since individuals are all unique in their skills.

If I had to design an exercise for this class based on this book, I would have students design not their goals for their ventures, but strategies. One of the points the author makes in the book is to have a system in place instead of a goal. This is seen in the author's strategy of failing upward where he continued to get promoted as a result of not fitting in the lower level positions. So it would be interesting to see what strategies and systems students have both personally and professionally. This could be seen in some kind of SMART goal exercise where students are encouraged to plan steps and strategies, not just list goals.

My biggest surprise in reading this book was when the author began discussing personal energy levels. At first I was surprised to read about healthy living styles, but it made a lot of sense. The book is all about how to fail into success, both personally and professionally. Sometimes a simple dietary or exercise fix can make an individual feel like an entirely different person. It is also proven that exercise releases endorphins, so when we exercise we naturally feel happier and healthier, which can make handling failure much easier and helps individuals not spiral into a depression over a failure. It is about succeeding from the inside out, in every area.

28A My Exit Strategy

I would want to build my business up and make it profitable for the first ten years in order to gain the attention of bigger companies and investors. After the ten years I would sell my company at a peak time and use the money from the sale to begin a new venture or retire, depending on the amount I sell it for. 

I have selected this exit strategy because I believe for ten years I will be able to manage the business and build up the size of the company. I will also have the creativity to continue expanding my revenue drivers and expand my business out in that way. However, I believe that after ten years there may be other businesses better specialized in sleep and better equipped to diversify my product in order to keep the business around for a while. These are resources I simply would not have so a bigger corporation owning my business would be best for the business in the long run.

My exit strategy has made my overall concept more short-term focused with the overall opportunity and concept made to be able to withstand the long-term. I want my business to last and believe there is opportunity for it to do so for a ways into the future; however, I know my limits and therefore have kept my personal vision short-term because I do not have the resources or vision to keep the business running as long-term as the opportunity itself would enable.

I would be expanding quickly in the beginning and innovating quickly to expand my revenue drivers and therefore make my business appealing to investors and buyers. This would, however, use up my resources and make room for a more equipped corporation to step in and keep the business at a stable and productive level long-term.

26A Celebrating Failure

I was applying to many different jobs recently. Some would call back and set up an interview, and others would just never say anything at all. I did not get a single job out of the twenty part time jobs I applied for. It was crushing to fail at finding a job that many times in a row, and I felt like I was wasting my time by going to interviews given how often the interview would lead to no where.

Through this experience, however, I learned how to truly persevere and push myself to find creative solutions and use the failures as fuel to push me forward instead of letting them drag me down. In the end, I ended up establishing my own job running social media accounts for various companies. I am able to make my own hours and this is work that applies much more directly to my long term goals for when I graduate. This experience helped me to learn to handle rejection in a positive and productive way.

I use failure as a way to fuel me forward and use it as motivation to prove to people that I can and will do better. I use it as motivation to push myself to be the best I can be and my failures help me to see where I went wrong in the beginning and how to better myself for the next time. I now no longer see failure as something to be ashamed of or as something to be upset about, I see it as a way of providing constructive criticism and fixing it for the future.

I have faced a few people rejecting me for interviews or providing reasons why they cannot answer my questions throughout this class, but because I view this failure as an indication to look in a different direction or to re-evalute my strategy, it has actually helped me to better my overall plan. Therefore this class has helped me to face, embrace, and move forward from failure and I likely will not shy away from the risk of failure in the future as a result.

25A What's Next?

Existing Market

I think the next thing is to make a ceiling fan version of the solar powered noise machine so that I can begin to offer installation as another revenue driver and consumers can save space in their rooms.

After talking with three individuals about what I should be thinking about, I got some really good suggestions. It was recommended that I expand my business even further into other sleep related products to make sure my business is offering all the best ways to ensure a customer is going to sleep. One individual even recommended a cooling pillow so individuals don't have to wake up and flip their pillow over to the cool side since both sides would stay cool throughout the night.

I was told however that they liked my ideas for expansion with the fan being offered as a ceiling fan and it was recommended that I even make a floor fan that could fit in the corner of a room so that it is just filling dead space.

My ideas for how to continue were well received so I definitely think that is an area I would want to go with my business in the future. Expanding into different models of fans such as ceilings and floor fans will give my consumers the options they need to fit my product into their lives so that they don't have to fit their lives into my product. These new models would also open up new revenue drivers for my business as well so that my business can continue to expand.

However, my consumers seemed to want me to expand my business into multiple aspects of sleep in order to ensure my customers the overall best sleep experience in all areas. I thought this was a really good idea and would love to make the cooling pillow into a feasible design. I also think it would be interesting to see an alarm clock design that doesn't disturb the sleep cycle and doesn't make consumers feel drowsy when they wake up as a result of being woken up from deep sleep so abruptly. I may be able to build a floor fan design that has built in lights that slowly power on as it approaches one's set wake up time so that consumers wake up naturally feeling refreshed, and not drowsy.

New Market

My existing plan is B2C, but I was thinking about how my business may also be B2B and I was thinking instead of selling directly to parents and households, I may be able to sell my product to hospitals for their baby wing.

Many nurses have to take care of a large number of sleeping babies so my product would help to relax these babies and simulate the sounds of the womb, which has been proven to help babies sleep better. This would help to overall simplify the job of the nurses if the babies are more relaxed.

After talking with one doctor and one nurse, I got a lot of good feedback on my product. They thought the idea of having something to relax the babies would be a good thing to have because many of the babies get riled up by babies nearby crying. The one concern they had was that having too many of these products may create too much noise that would make it harder for nurses to hear the babies crying. They recommended having a low volume crib side version of the product that could be heard only by the baby so as not to disrupt the work of the nurses.

I was originally thinking a hospital would need multiple products given how large the baby wing of many hospitals is and how many babies they have sleeping at once. However, I did not consider that the multiple products put together may make too much noise so a hospital would not be able to buy these products at the level I expected. This market would have a chain effect since hospitals are likely to copy the formats of other hospitals, so if my product gets in one, it gets in the rest, but it would be a lot of redesign and a much more higher difficulty level to get my product in even just one than anticipated.

This new market is not as attractive as my current market. It would take a lot of work and redesign to figure out how to make a crib side product that produces such a low volume. The hospitals would also only be purchasing a few products more than a household would do to the concern that many in the same room may get too loud so the profit increase would not be worth the cost of redesign.

24A Venture Concept Part 1

Business name: Solar Sleep

Opportunity

The potential consumers for my product are pretty expansive. People of all ages would be able to use my product and it would be for people who are looking for a sleep aid. Many of these consumers will include individuals who need to play white noise to sleep at night, including babies who often need womb simulation sounds to sleep at night.

This opportunity is quite large due to the fact that there is no limited demographic market, the users of this product are of all ages and types of people. In America alone, 5% of the population needs some form of noise at night in order to sleep, which makes the potential market for my product rather large especially when you consider what this would look like globally. Currently these customers in need of this sleep aid are using a number of different products to satisfy this need including iPhones to play timed rain noises and a combination of iPod/speaker to play white noise throughout the night. However, many consumers would not be attached to these methods as they can be expensive to purchase, and even more expensive to keep running throughout the night, especially for those who need non-stop white noise.

There is also no end to the "window of opportunity" because babies are always being born and people are always looking for new ways to help themselves sleep at night so my product would not be a trend with an end in sight, it could feasibly last as long as people always need help sleeping.

Innovation

My product would be a solar powered fan that has hollow beads in the transparent blade of the fan. As the fan moves, not only is cold wind produced that helps with sleep, but the hollow beads will produce white noise sounds that help with sleep as well. This product would have adjustable levels of beads for the blades so that consumers are able to control the volume level of the sound the fan produces. This fan would cost $60 which would quickly pay for itself in comparison to paying for an iPod or even the electricity it takes to power noises long enough to go to sleep nightly.

The first revenue driver of my business would be a model of the fan that is made to fit on a nightstand that will be offered in many patterns and colors as will the beads inside of it.

Aside from the fans themselves being sold, my business would also be selling extra bead sets so that individuals can switch out their fan blade beads for different colors and patterns to revamp their fans whenever they desire. This will help to make the fans a statement piece that can blend into a room and keep consumers engaged even after they have made an initial purchase of the fan itself.

There will also be a customization service where, for an extra fee, consumers can design their fans online with special patterns and bead patterns as well. They will be able to upload their own images or mix and match the patterns and colors we offer ourselves.

Venture Concept

A lack of sleep often leads individuals to rack up high electricity bills when they play white noise to help them go back to sleep, so my product helps them to get this sleep by providing these sounds without the high electricity cost that often goes with it because the sounds are produced by the solar powered motion of the fan.

It will not be hard to get consumers to switch to my product because the product pays for itself very quickly by saving the electricity costs and many consumers do not have a loyalty to anything yet because some families out there have not needed a white noise machine for their babies yet and have yet to decide the product they wish to buy.

The competitors for this product would be the phones or iPods people currently may be using to play these noises, but the biggest weakness besides a high price for the product itself is the electricity bill it leads to at the end of the month after playing these sounds every night. My packaging would get consumers actively involved in the product because they can design the product themselves and switch out the bead designs to get a fresh look for it. My product price point is also below the other options and requires no additional electricity cost which is a defining point of my venture.

This business structure would differ depending on the number of orders, but would most likely be largely automated in production and require a manager and a few employees to check how products are looking on the assembly line.

Three Minor Elements

My connections with influencers and other individuals in various industries that overlap with my own would be my greatest advantage over my competitors. I have many connections that could help me in the branding of my business and in the promotion of my product.

The next step for this venture would be to design a solar powered ceiling fan version of the nightstand fan and make this just as much a statement piece and as interchangeable as the nightstand fan so that consumers can have fun with it and make it aesthetically pleasing for their rooms as well. It would also allow for the additional service of installation to give my business another revenue driver.

I would want this business to keep expanding. I would begin the business locally to test the market response and would hope that within the first five years I could begin expanding the business globally and increase production to meet the increased global demand. As an entrepreneur, in the next ten years, I hope to be able to be a proactive manager and not a reactive one and predict the needs of my business before the needs turn into problems.

23A My Venture’s Unfair Advantage

The resources I currently possess:

1. Marketing expertise

Valuable: A product is only as good as the marketing done for it so without a solid marketing/promotion plan behind the product, the business will not be a success.

Rare: While this may not seem rare, no one has had the exact experiences I have had. I have been studying marketing for 6 years and have competed internationally with my marketing plans. I have also had many marketing internships to give me real world experience that I could apply to my own business.

Inimitable: While anyone can study marketing, not everyone can follow the exact path as I did and not everyone can garner the education and real world experience that I did.

Non-substitutable: There is no substitute for good marketing, you either can or cannot market and it will show in how successful the business is. The only option would be to hire someone who has a lot of marketing experience if you cannot do it yourself.

2. Connections with influencers

Valuable: I have many connections to online influencers, specifically many YouTubers. These individuals have platforms with anywhere from 400,000 to 5 million subscribers so it is extremely valuable because they have the ability to influence the purchases of a large number of people.

Rare: Having these connections is fairly rare because influencers are often hard to contact so starting out with connections like this could really help a business.

Inimitable: Someone could contact these individuals and request that they promote their product or business, but often these individuals are so busy that the emails go unread so it helps to have a personal connection.

Non-substitutable: There really is no substitute for having connections to influencers. The only thing that comes close is an advertisement placed on TV that would reach a large number of consumers, but influencers have a more direct effect on their audience and are more influential than a generic television ad that often gets muted or skipped.

3. Funding

Valuable: Having funding to make my product is crucial in the development of my business so it is very valuable. I have many connections that would be able to provide funding for this business and support me in the making of my product.

Rare: Having the ability to receive funding is not rare, but I would be able to get funding without expectation of return and without having to trade a percentage of my business ownership which is rare.

Inimitable: This is not completely inimitable, but it does again come down to who I know that others wouldn't so it gives me an advantage others may not have.

Non-substitutable: The only substitute would be loans or investors who would request interest or a percentage of the business, which I would not have so it is not an equivalent substitute.

4. Business branding connection

Valuable: As a result of doing past favors, I would be able to get free business cards and other promotional materials developed for me for free, which is very valuable because proper branding is crucial for a business.

Rare: Getting it for free is the rare part, having proper branding as a whole is not. But getting these materials for free would help me to reduce start-up costs that would not be done for competitors.

Inimitable: The branding could be replicated, but not the pricing unless someone else knew their own graphic design firm and could get the same favor as me.

Non-substitutable: The only substitute would be to pay a high price to have a brand developed and materials printed.

5. Technologically savvy connections

Valuable: Knowing people who are very good with technology is crucial for a business, which makes it very valuable.

Rare: I have connections with the CEO, COO, and CTO of a top of the line development company, which puts me at an advantage above competitors. Having connections like these and access to a very good team of technologically savvy individuals is very rare and very helpful.

Inimitable: Having these kind of connections to a tech firm is not necessarily inimitable, but it is also not something easily replicated by others so it would definitely give me an advantage over competitors.

Non-substitutable: The only substitute would be to hire developers and other technologically savvy individuals, but having a friendship with these individuals is much better because it gets someone faster turnaround on projects and better pricing deals that simply hiring someone would not get you.

6. Knowledge of industry and consumer needs

Valuable: Knowing the customer is extremely valuable in a business because without this knowledge the business will fail.

Rare: In my industry, it would not be rare to know individuals in the market and therefore know the consumer needs, but being able to really empathize with and understand consumers is a relatively rare ability that I possess.

Inimitable: It would be imitable to an extent, but every individual has different observational abilities and people skills so it is not a fully replicable resource.

Non-substitutable: The only substitute would be to hire consultants and people who really know the market instead of being able to study the behavior of the consumer directly for free like I have been able to do.

7. Entrepreneurial mentors

Valuable: Having a mentor, as many successful individuals will tell you, is absolutely crucial for any venture which makes having access to one very valuable.

Rare: Finding a mentor is not rare, but having access to successful entrepreneurs like I do is the rare part.

Inimitable: Being able to be the mentee of the individuals I know is not imitable because these individuals do not typically mentor people.

Non-substitutable: The only substitute would be to find a different mentor, which every mentor-mentee relationship is different so it would not be the same experience for everyone.

8. Managerial expertise

Valuable: knowing how to manage a business is absolutely necessary for the survival of the business. I have had the good fortune to have internships in project management so I understand what it takes to run a business effectively and efficiently.

Rare: As I said before, individuals may have management internships themselves, but no one will follow the exact path I did so my individual experience is rare.

Inimitable: It can only be imitated in a sense that one could go get a management internship and study management, but they will not experience exactly what I did.

Non-substitutable: The only substitute would be to hire a manager for your business, which is just another added expense for competitors who do not have management experience.

9. Business knowledge

Valuable: having an education in business is absolutely needed in order to fully understand how to run the business, especially when it comes to managing the businesses finances and various business components. Having gone to UF has provided me a well rounded education in business that enables me to know all areas of business.

Rare: Having this education is not rare, but each person who goes through the major takes different classes and pays attention at different levels. So really each individual experience is different.

Inimitable: Anyone can go to college and get a degree in business, but going to UF and really paying attention and joining business related organizations is what makes the experience unique and harder to replicate.

Non-substitutable: The only substitute for an education is to hire those who got the education or to learn from mistakes made while experiencing the business world, both of which would cost individuals in their business ventures.

10. Type A/ENTJ personality

Valuable: These personality traits allow me to be a great manager and organizer and give me the personality it takes to make a business successful which is extremely valuable. I put hard work and drive into everything I do, which is a valuable asset to a business.

Rare: Only 1% of the population are ENTJ personalities, which makes people like me fairly rare. Also a strong type a personality is less rare, but still not entirely common.

Inimitable: Within each category, people are at different extremes on the scale. I am personally 100% J (judging) which means I am very organized and like to plan, which is a major asset of my personality. So while one may be the same personality traits as me, they may not act the same way I do.

Non-substitutable: There is no substitute for personality, you either are or are not that type of person. If you are more type b, you may need a type a person to organize your business and stay on top of things which would require hiring additional people to work for them.

My top resource

I would say my top resource is my connections to influencers. It is not only the strongest in the VRIN analysis, but it is also one of the most helpful of my resources that others would not be able to provide in a business. It isn't what you know, it is who you know and the people I know could seriously help in promoting my product, which would directly correlate with sales and the success of my overall business. Without strong promotions and connections, the business would not work which is why I consider this to be my most valuable resource.

22A Final Elevator Pitch

I received some feedback on my last pitch recommending I include some more information regarding where I plan to distribute my product seeing as many investors may want to know my plan for this, and may find this to be helpful information. I thought this advice was insightful and decided to include a little sentence about where I plan to begin distributing my product as a guide for investors to know the types of places my product would be retailing. Other than that, the other feedback was mainly to say to make sure my passion does not fade and to keep on making the pitch captivating.

So for this pitch, I mainly adjusted my ending and after making a point that my product is for a wide range of individuals and would be helpful to most, I added in the part of where they can expect to find this product in the future to show even further that I am picking retailers who apply to broad demographics of people.

21A Reading Reflection Part 2

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

I read the book The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users. Overall, the book is sharing different tips and tricks for maximizing views on your profile such as staying consistent across all platforms and posting content frequently enough to keep your audience interested. The biggest overarching goal that the book discusses is how to get people to reshare your posts as this gets the most attention to your post and profile. Resharing is essentially the online version of word of mouth advertising and everyone knows word of mouth is the most effective advertising so getting reshares should be everyones goal online. One of the most effective recommended ways to do this was to center posts around popular holidays that generate a certain level of buzz already.

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

A large part of entrepreneurship is not only learning how to present ourselves and our human capital to the best extent, but also to market our product and company to the right market in the best and most effective way. Without proper marketing, the entrepreneurial venture will not be a success. People need to know the solution to their need is out there, which is where an effective social media presence comes into play.

This book discusses how to cleanly and appropriately present oneself online, which helps to establish trust and credibility to our own human capital that we are brining to our ventures. However, the book also describes the most effective ways to get posts to spread, which is how to properly promote the products and business ideas we are learning to develop in ENT3003.

An idea is only as good as the marketing done for the idea. And in the 21st century, social media marketing is the most widespread and cost effective method of marketing so it is crucial to know and understand how to most effectively use it to our advantage.

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

A great exercise based on this book would be to establish a social media profile on a professional network such as LinkedIn or Facebook and to use the principles described in the book to see how effective the profile becomes at either creating business and buzz for the product or connections for the entrepreneur. You would be able to track analytics on the profile over a week and report on what you found, the most effective profile that garnered the most hits could receive a bonus point. 

It would be up to the student to read and understand which types of profiles get the most traction and which types of posts they should be making to get attention to their profile, which are all topics discussed at length in the book.

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?

I had no idea you could switch your view to anonymous and use an incognito mode on Google Chrome in order to view your completed social media profiles in a way that others may such as future employers. This is especially helpful on websites such as YouTube and Facebook that can dramatically change for first time viewers.

Something that differed from my expectations was that they recommended pushing out content more than twice in one week. From what I have experienced, not only do users typically not enjoy nor react to content that frequently produced as heavily but they also unfollow the profile. This may be a result of the markets I had been targeting that may have just considered frequent posts to be spam-like or, as the book pointed out as a warning of something to avoid, creating that many posts often leads to a lesser quality in content due to the want to have quantity over quality. However, the frequency with which one should post would most likely differ for each profile and each generation. 

20A Growing My Social Capital

The first person I spoke with is a hypnotherapist. His job entails relaxing people and really understanding the psyche of how people function. He acts as a therapist to uncover the root of people's issues, but instead of talking things through, he then hypnotizes them into thinking in a healthier and more constructive mindset.

I consider him to be my domain expert. While he is not in the business of putting people to sleep using a sound machine, he does have to know about how people think and function and what relaxes people which is the ultimate goal of my product as well which is more helpful to me than anything else.

My mom is part of a business networking group that has a mix of people from different companies and industries in it, and over the summer I have been going to meetings with her and making connections for myself. 

In return for feedback on my business idea, I promised to substitute for him in the next business networking meeting he misses so that he is not penalized for missing a meeting. 

Having him in my network will be extremely beneficial because he knows the best tips and tricks for relaxing people into a peaceful state which is the goal of my product. His understanding of the human psyche can really help me in developing my product and he had many good suggestions for me on maximizing the relaxing effect of my product.

--

The next person I spoke to was a sleep technician who studies sleep and different sleep disorders in order to find a way to fix it and help people sleep. 

I consider her to be my market expert. As a result of understanding sleep behavior, especially in people who lack sleep, she really understands my market and would be very helpful to me in further understanding my market and developing a product that can help people who need a sleep aid.

Again, this is someone I know from going to business networking meetings and talking with people from all industries. 

In return for feedback on my business idea, I promised to substitute for her in the next business networking meeting she misses so that she is not penalized for missing a meeting. She helped me to understand the different sleep disorders that are out there and gave me valuable insight into the minds of the consumers in my market.

She will help me to further expand my market to people who suffer from sleep disorders and not just infants who enjoy some noise to go to sleep. She will also help me by giving me insight into the treatments that have and have not worked for my market so that I am not designing a useless product.

--

The final person I spoke with is the manager of a Brookstone. Brookstone is a store known to carry innovative items with many purposes and even has a sleep section in the back of most stores that includes pillows and other sleep related items.

He would be the supplier spot because this store has the right demographic and other products being carried to fit my product and see how sales do. As a result of the innovative product selection and the sleep section known to have products that maximize comfort, Brookstone would be the perfect place to have my product. 

I often go to Brookstone with my family and talk with the various employees. I decided to reach out to the manager of the store in my local mall since the employees there would recognize my rather unique name.

I decided to see what the manager thought of my product and gathered their thoughts on how he felt it would do with their market. In exchange, I promised to keep returning as a loyal customer of the store given I buy from them for every major holiday.

Having him join my network really helps me because it is someone I can use to climb the ladder of Brookstone and reach the corporate individuals to have my product be widespread right away. Having a potential supplier before the product is even fully developed would be extremely helpful.

--

Final Reflection

This experience definitely helped me to be more comfortable reaching out to individuals in my industry, even if it means receiving a few no's before you get the desired yes. It helped me to have a more open mind because most people were really open to sitting down and talking to me which was very encouraging. I definitely will assert myself in more networking situations and won't hesitate to speak up and introduce myself so that I can have as many connections as possible.

This summer I was really trying to force myself to network as much as possible, which is why I began going to the business networking group with my mom which obviously paid off for this assignment and for my ability to have experts to consult. However, this experience was still different than other networking experiences I've had in the past because this time it gave me something to talk about and some questions I had preplanned instead of just introducing myself and hoping they keep the conversation going. 

17A Elevator Pitch 2

The original feedback on my elevator pitch was very interesting. I was told people really liked the way I provided a detailed scenario that people could relate to, and it was also said that I have good presentation skills. However, it was said that the intro was too long and I needed to focus more on my product and how it actually works. I also received some feedback on the points I made about the befits my product would offer that people responded well to so I made sure to keep those in my elevator pitch.

Overall, it seemed like the biggest feedback was to continue being passionate in the presentation, but focus more on the product itself, and not on the introduction.

As a result, I rewrote the introduction to focus more on the product and included more details on how my product would actually function. This meant I had to cut the introduction by a lot, leaving out many of the unnecessary details, but keeping the overall idea the same.

19A Idea Napkin Part 2

I am a marketing major who has years of experience promoting and advertising companies and products and could bring that experience to my own company. I have also done a lot of management work so I would be able to manage all parts of production and delivery for my product. I have also been told I am very empathetic which will help me to put myself in the minds of my consumers to adapt my product in the best ways that my consumers desire in the future. My aspiration for this product would be to have 50% of consumers switch from using an electrically powered noise machine to using my product after two years. My own family uses white noise machines while they sleep and I love the sound of rain so my product would give my own family and myself a chance to have these noises without having the high electricity bill.

I would be offering a solar powered fan that has hollow beads in the fan blades that would produce the sounds of wind and rain as the fan spins. Both a standing floor fan and a ceiling fan that could come with installation will be offered to consumers. The fans will also come in many different colors and sizes in order to match the aesthetic of any room. The fan would also come with a pack of beads and a way to manually fill the fan with the amount of beads the consumer desires so that each consumer can personally adjust the fan to their desired volume level.

Individuals who need a sleep aid and find that white noise/rain noise helps them sleep better would be my market. My product would help these individuals avoid the high electricity cost of using electrically powered noise machines at night. My product would also have no specified age limit, from newborns to ninety year olds, anyone can use the product, it is just targeted at those who need white noise to sleep. Being an environmentalist would also help and make my product easier to market to that individual, but you do not need to be an environmentalist to have a desire to save on your electricity bill.

Currently, the ways to produce noise at night are both costly to buy the actual machine, but also expensive to pay the electricity that is used in playing these noises for an extended period of time. My product would pay for itself by saving individuals so much money on electricity and on the machine itself since consumers would not have to buy an iPod and speaker system.

My product would be very different from everything else on the market. The other noise machines are expensive and electronically powered. Mine would be the first to be solar powered, good for the environment, and give realistic wind effects while also hearing the noise that helps with sleep to give that 4D effect. The cooling effect is also known to help individuals fall asleep so it will pair well with the noise. Consumers could also customize the product by picking the color of the beads as well as the pattern on the body of the fan so that it blends well with their room decor. 

I think that all of these elements blend together really nicely to provide for a strong product offering that provides the business with many revenue streams. The product should really sell itself given how much consumers would save over the life of the product compared to the competitors on the market. One of the biggest concerns would be how easily replicated the product could be as well as the level of promotion and marketing that would be needed in order to have consumers aware that my product even exists compared to some of the much better known and popular noise machine options available. However, given my marketing background and experience I believe that part will be handled well and the product would be a success. 

Feedback Memo: Two points I took away from the feedback given to me were that what I thought I brought to the table was more than I originally considered. After evaluating my human capital, I found many people considered me to be empathetic which I could really use as a major advantage in evaluating the thoughts and feelings of my consumers and putting my product ahead of others on the market. 

Also, I received a comment suggesting to let the bead level be adjusted by the consumer and not offer different bead levels through my selling methods. It would make production easier and help the consumer to feel like he/she is in more control, and can change these levels as he/she sees fit. I really liked this idea so I changed what product options I would be offering to consumers.

18A My Customer Avatar

My segment is people who are looking for a sleep aid and who wish to save money. As a result my two biggest consumers would be college students and parents who want something to help their babies sleep better. For this assignment I will be focusing on the bigger market of the two, parents.

Typically parents of newborns center their lives around their children by joining mommy and me classes and other classes that can put their babies into healthy social situations. Parents of babies also buy the safest cars that can fit all the members (and future members) of the family so they often drive a minivan or an SUV. As one of the oldest siblings of my family, I got to watch my sisters grow and I know better than anyone that all these parents will be able to watch is kid's channels such as Disney Jr for a long time, so that makes for the best place to advertise. Typically parents will buy books made for children so they can read them as bedtime stories and will vote for politicians that protect their children the best, so any politicians concerned with protecting the environment and bettering schools. There is also a growing trend of having your first child at a young age now so this market would be younger, but there are also parents having their fourth child that could be older and still need my product. However, the younger parents are usually more cautious with their first child and will do more research and buy more to help their babies aka my product.

At the end of the day, younger parents will feel more overwhelmed and will want to pay anything to have their old lives back and be able to sleep and watch the TV shows they want again while the baby rests. This means this market will be the most likely to try my product since it will give them the chance to not have to get up to check on the crying baby every hour.

I myself am concerned with saving money as are many young parents who take on many expenses when they first have a child. I am also a Millennial as young parents are so I would be able to connect with them in the best ways. Also, as a result of being there as my sister's were raised, I know many of the concerns parents experience when raising children and the hassle that newborns can cause, especially during the middle of the night when they are unable to sleep. I would have a lot of insight on the ways to reach this market and the best TV channels and baby books to have advertise my product.

I do not think it is a coincidence that I have commonalities with my market. I think that because I saw how babies respond to white noise machines and because I saw how my parent's handled things, I got to firsthand observe the lifestyle of my market, and it was seeing this process that gave me the idea for my product in the first place.

16A My Secret Sauce

My five unique human capital advantages:

1. Empathetic- I am really good at putting myself in someone else's shoes and understanding where they are coming from. This helps me to be a good predictor when it comes to what people may do, buy, or want and why which definitely helps me understand the needs and wants of consumers.

2. Individualization- I am good at identifying the strengths of those surrounding me and using those to the advantage of a group in order to have the most efficient and effective experience.

3. Learner- I am the type of person who goes out of my way to learn new information and seek out answers. I also just love learning new random facts. It is this love of learning new things that makes me good at researching.

4. Positive- I am the kind of person who is undoubtedly optimistic and I try to find the good side of every situation and focus on that. I also like to joke around a lot and keep things light hearted.

5. Hard working- I am the kind of person who sets my mind on something and does not stop until that thing has been achieved. I work day and night to put my all into everything I do. With me there is no try, there is only put everything I have into something.

All five of my interviews were put into the video below:

Overall I would say the way my interviewees assessed me is pretty similar to my own assessment. Some of my interviewees brought up my people skills and charisma, which I did not directly mention myself. I think that's because being social is so second nature to me, I did not even think to put that on my list of unique characteristics about myself. Also it was brought up that I have solid morals which I never considered a part of my human capital, but that is helpful in a high pressure business environment and would make me stand out. I think they were all pretty accurate in assessing me since they said things very similar to what I had said myself. I do think I might make some adjustments to my list if I were to do it again. Perhaps instead of interviewing two friends, I would switch out one of the friends for one of my siblings just to get another unique perspective.

15A Figuring Out Buyer Behavior Part 2

Considering my segment is consumers who are mainly concerned with saving money, I was surprised to find out that the main concern was not necessarily price, many of the people I interviewed were willing to pay a little more if it meant better quality or a better look considering the machine would have to be sitting on their nightstand where it is highly visible. Price did play a big role, but other factors such as long lasting quality and a aesthetically pleasing design were also important to my consumers.

I also found out that all of my interviewees make their final purchases online. The individuals I interviewed seemed to like the online aspect of shopping for different reasons. one interviewee felt it was a great way to compare specs on the speakers as well as to see all the different design options. However, the other individuals felt it was the best way to evaluate many different high quality options at the lowest prices since services such as Honey can be used to search for coupons online.

My interviewees all agreed that the quality was extremely important in the evaluation of if the product was a good purchase or not. One individual also highly valued the materials used. She said that she once bought a sleep machine and while the design of the sound machine was cute, the material started peeling off after a week and even though the sound itself was being portrayed fine still, she stopped using the product because it looked so bad and cheap on her nightstand. This indicates to me that durability in materials as well as sound projection is important to individuals once they actually get the product.

I originally thought that the main concern of mine would be to keep my product cost effective and inexpensive, but after conducting these interviews I realized my segment also cares about quality and durability as well as design to the point where they may be willing to pay a slightly higher price. This is because my interviewees felt that a more durable product pays for itself in the long run and something that looks nice will actually be used. I also realized selling my product online is absolutely critical and having online coupons available will also help my segment feel as if they are getting a better deal.

14A Halfway Reflection

Over the last two months, I have developed a few strategies to help me keep up with the requirements for this course. The first thing I did was I created a playlist of songs that I really love that help me to stay focused and positive and happy. I play this music while writing the assignments for this course as a way to keep me positive, and to give me something to look forward to while I do my work as a way of motivating myself to get it done. I also like to check through the assignments the Friday before the assignments are due in order to give me a week to preview the assignments and make a plan for how and when I would like to get these assignments completed. I then write this plan in my planner so that I can hold myself to the schedule throughout the week. Planning it out in small bits makes the assignments much more manageable and far less overwhelming.

There were definitely some times when I felt like giving up in this class or skipping a week. The hardest week was when I had three other assignments due for another class, and I had been visiting family in the hospital every day of the week so my schedule was very packed and I found myself extremely stressed. What pulled me through was knowing how proud and accomplished I would feel if I could make it through that week. I also like to keep in mind that the class is point based so, to avoid stressful weeks in the future, I needed to accomplish every assignment in the class until I reach the grade I desire. Knowing these two things is what helps to keep me motivated, but knowing I can tune in to music I love while doing for the work is another thing that causes me to look forward to doing these assignments. Now, when I think about skipping an assignment, I think about how I made it through that extremely stressful week and remind myself that if I could get the work done then, I can surely get it done now.


Three tips I would offer to other students are to find something that motivates them while completing assignments (for me it is the playlist I listen to while doing work), plan ahead and schedule time for you to get the work done during the week, and reward yourself with something you enjoy only after the work is completed (I like to watch one short YouTube video after completing each one of the assignments).

13A Reading Reflection: Elon Musk

Reading about Elon Musk:

What surprised me the most was that he is from South Africa, which I did not know. I have family that live in South Africa so it was cool to be able to connect with him and understand when he was discussing the areas he grew up in and what those areas are like.

I really admired Elon Musk's ability to view the world in such an entrepreneurial way. He has such drive and enters into markets everyone had either given up on such as the automotive industry or enters into unfamiliar territory such as space exploration.

While Elon Musk is very driven and intent on being successful in his ventures, I did not admire the way he handles his business and treats his workers. He seemed to justify it away, but he mistreats many who work in his company and has them overwork and is very critical.

Growing up in South Africa, Elon Musk definitely experienced adversity. He continuously brought up his rough childhood and his extremely tough father. He was also an outsider in school. With his photographic memory and tendency to share his knowledge, people did not jump at the opportunity to be his friend. As a result he was bullied and isolated. He took this time and read as much as he could and developed a very successful video game. He took the isolation and bullying in stride and let it drive him toward his dream of inventing and creating and ultimately moving to America.

Elon Musk definitely exhibits a lot of entrepreneurial competencies. His photographic memory enabled him to be quite knowledgable and good at researching his interests. He was also very driven and imaginative when it came to developing solutions to unmet needs. He is also good with facing risk as a result of the adversity he faced growing up. It is this ability to handle risk that enabled him to invest so much into the companies he runs today.

Something I read that confused me was that one of the few places you can buy a Tesla is in high end shopping malls. As someone with a retail minor, I was quite shocked to find out that fact because shopping malls are dying and continuously losing foot traffic. I was confused by the fact that someone as knowledgeable as Elon Musk would only sell his products in such a dead space. It made me question why he would make such a decision rather than having the cars sold in a different space.

If I could ask Elon Musk any two questions I would ask what first drew his attention to computers and the technology industry. The book frequently referenced how pulled he was to computers and how he was extremely insistent on getting one and how he so quickly learned some of the hardest skills to learn. So I am curious to know why he was so insistent on getting one and what first peaked his interest in computers. I would also ask why he chose to make some of the most expensive places in the US (and California) to base his companies. He mentioned always wanting to move to the US, but significantly increased his overhead costs as a result of where he chose to base his companies. But also he placed the companies so far from each other that he has to travel by jet to reach his offices in both places. I would love to know his reasoning for making such a decision and how he justifies the cost of both rent and travel as being worth the location.

It is pretty clear that Elon Musk is all about working hard. He puts work over relationships and was disappointed by the decrease of staff working on the weekend (even though the factory was very full of staff). It is this mindset that perhaps is what leads to his mistreatment of workers because he tries to push everyone to put in the maximum effort in order to create a successful product. I think hard work is important, but do not fully agree with Elon Musk. I think there has to be work-life balance, and while working hard is important, family and relationships are also important. I think a business can be successful even when people have some time off every now and then.

12A Figuring Out Buyer Behavior

My segment:
Individuals who need sleep aid via white noise who are not necessarily interested in the environment, but more so the segment focused on saving money. Now that I have found a way to include a volume control of sorts into my product by simply adding or subtracting beads from the fan blades, I chose to interview parents of a newborn, a college student who needs white noise to sleep, and a father who owns a house full of young kids who all use a speaker/iPod combination to play white noise at night.

My findings:
Due to the fact that often a baby can add on many expenses to a family, parents of newborns may need an inexpensive way to help the baby sleep a fuller night. I found out that many parenting books and websites online recommend a white noise machine if the baby is struggling to sleep at night because apparently the white noise mimics the sound of the womb and puts the baby to sleep. These parents had searched for ways to help infants fall asleep at night and also looked through parenting books and consulted other parents about this product. Due to not having a spare phone to put in the baby's room, this means families would have to invest in an iPod and speaker for this room, which can get expensive when added to the other costs of having a baby. Marketing this product as being an inexpensive way to help babies sleep at night may help to reach consumers like this by having baby books and other infant related websites write about my product.

I thought that the college student using her phone to sleep at night would be very interested in a way of saving money on her method of producing white noise due to college students having a limited budget. However, she said that she has roommates so she does not see the full impact of using her phone on her electricity bill since it is split four ways. She felt a solar powered fan might be too expensive for her to invest in over the slight increase in her electricity bill she personally sees from using her phone. After being unable to sleep for a while and realizing it wasn't just one night of not being able to sleep, and after noticing an important exam was approaching, she had looked on various websites and read that listening to white noise often helps people, and as a result just uses free videos online to play while she sleeps. She said after trying it for one night and finding it made a big difference, she began doing it every night and it definitely helped. So for people her age, the focus would be on websites and trial programs to convince individuals it is worth the investment.

The father of young girls who use iPods and speakers to play white noise every night said that he has spent so much on the systems for each room and the electricity bill that he would love to try a less expensive alternative, as long as it was still effective in helping his kids sleep. He said his family uses these machines because they bought them when the kids were babies to help them sleep through the night, but now the kids are used to the noise and have continued to use the machines up through age 16. So initially the family found information about these machines through baby books and websites recommending white noise for sleep aid and then just continued using these systems for the other two children because it worked for the oldest. This surprised me because I was expecting the need awareness to be recognized later in the children's lives and therefore discovered through a different information search. I was not expecting the same path as the parent's of the new born. But this did help me to see that users of this product would continue to use it for a very long time and would continue to buy new products for new generations if it was effective when trying it for the first time themselves so again some kind of trial test option would also be helpful here.

Conclusion:
This segment all looked online and at different websites before deciding which machines to get or which videos to play at night, and also used websites to determine if white noise was truly an effective sleep aid option. Another big part of the information search was baby books and parenting websites. Parents often end up searching for the information on behalf of their children by checking parenting websites and books which is how most of these families discover the effectiveness of white noise as a sleep aid. The need assessment was noticing a lack of sleep in oneself, or noticing the lack of sleep of their children. The information search was a culmination of determining the most effective sleep aid, but also the one that would not be too expensive to implement/try out.

11A Idea Napkin

I am a marketing major at the University of Florida, and before that I was a part of the marketing magnet program at my high school. As a result, I have a lot of skill with developing promotion plans and ad campaigns to bring exposure and brand awareness to different products and could bring those skills to the table to help in the launch of my product. I personally love the sound of rain at all times of the day and my whole family uses electric speakers to play white noise as they sleep, and the sound plays all night long. This product could help both my family and myself with filling the room with relaxing noises in an environmentally way where the electricity bill would be much lower.

The product I would be offering to consumers would be a solar powered fan that has hollow beads in the fan blades that would produce the sounds of wind and rain as the fan spins. This product would be offered as both a ceiling fan that could come with installation or a standing floor fan. It will also come in many different colors and sizes so that it could match the aesthetic of any room. There would also be different bead levels for the blades because fans with fewer beads and fans packed with beads will produce different volume levels of the rain noise.

I would be offering this product to individuals who need a sleep aid and find that white noise/rain noise helps them to be able to sleep better. Typically these people use electric devices to produce these sounds, but then have high electricity bills as a result, which my product could help them avoid. My product would be for people of all ages, from babies to grandparents. Any one who is unable to sleep without white noise would need some kind of noise producing product. It would also be a bonus if they were an environmentalist, but you do not need to be an environmentalist to have a desire to save on your electricity bill.

Currently, customers are either using a speaker/ipod system to play this noise or are using their phones to play these sleep sounds. To buy a speaker system costs a lot of money and playing the noise from a phone drains its battery. But the biggest problem with both of these methods is the electricity used to play these sounds every night for a duration of anywhere from thirty minutes to the entire night. This quickly adds up on ones electricity bill so my product would pay for itself by saving consumers these high electricity costs and also potentially saving them the cost of buying an ipod/speaker system.

This product would be adding something new to the market because it is the only environmentally friendly option that does not consume large amounts of electricity to function. Also due to the fan aspect it would give realistic wind noises, and also provide a cooling effect that is known to help individuals fall asleep as well. We could also provide a custom fan creator service where individuals can select the color of the fan as well as the color of the beads inside along with the size of the fan and level of beads they want for their fan to make consumers feel more involved in the purchase.

I believe that these elements all fit together to make for a strong product foundation. There are many ways to create a broad product offering and give consumers options while providing the business with many revenue streams. For instance, having ceiling fans as an option and selling installation as a part of the product. The consumers would definitely benefit from having this product versus the other market options so the product would sell itself. The only challenge with starting this product would be to establish the right promotion plan to get word out about the product, but given that I have competed internationally with promotion plans I have developed as a result of my years of marketing knowledge, I know that the marketing element would be handled well and be a success.

10A Elevator Pitch 1

9A Testing my Hypothesis Part 2

Who: After conducting several interviews I found out that some of the groups I thought may buy my product were actually outside of my market. Many of these individuals want the relaxation, but are opposed to adding sound to their space. For instance, parents of new born babies thought the sound would relax their child and help the baby get a good night of sleep, but were afraid the sound may cover the sound of the baby crying at night, which would be problematic.

I also interviewed two people one who lives in a city and one who is in an apartment shared with roommates and noisy neighbors. However, the city dweller said he liked the sound of the busy streets and that is what helped him to fall asleep at night. While the interviewee who lives in an apartment with roommates and noisy neighbors felt the sound maker would just add to the noise and not help her fall asleep because she needs the room to be quiet in order to sleep so changing the sound from one thing to another would not help her.

I also interviewed a hypnotherapist to see if this kind of device could help his patients to be in a more relaxed environment that may make hypnotizing easier, but he said that he worried it would more so interfere with the process than help it. He did say though that it may help certain more resistant patients to relax, but it would depend on the clientele of the therapist.

What: It was brought to my attention in many of these interviews that one of the benefits to an electric sound machine is a volume control so that many of these markets could be reached since they would be able to adjust the volume to a reasonable level, which was part of their need. These groups did not want the full volume sound the original interviewees wanted. But also, some of these interviewees found the sounds some wish to drown out just as relaxing as the noise of wind and rain so their needs were already met by these noises. The original five interviews I did had different needs because they did not enjoy these sounds, but liked the sounds of rain and that was a key factor that was missing from these five interviews.

Why: The people in the boundary wanted loud noise to fill the room all night, but in an energy saving manner. The people outside the boundary are more concerned with noise level and the type of sounds this product would be able to produce and whether or not these sounds would actually help create the relaxing environment it is supposed to. The inside crowd specifically wanted loud rain noises, but the need of the outside group was in fact different because they wanted different noises (or no noise at all) at different levels of volume.

	Inside Boundary	Outside Boundary
Who	Use electric sound machines at full volume the whole night  Want to drown out sounds of roommates and city Likes amplified sound of rain Eco friendly and need sleep sounds	Enjoy the sounds of the city Need silence to sleep Likes soft element to sound of rain Need low volume noise Eco friendly, but do not need sleep sounds
What	Eco friendly Want to cut back on electricity bill Loud rain sounds Need sounds to sleep	Need low volume Need silence Noises other than rain or wind Do not care about environment or electricity bill
Why	Sound makers can lead to high electricity bills Many people need noise to sleep at night People like the sound of rain and wind because it relaxes them	Some people need noise to sleep, but need different noises like city noise