The 80-20 Rule (Week 8)

1. The business owner that I targeted was Chelsea Lee. She creates hand-made jewelry and sells it through an online business platform of Etsy, as well as going to the local farmer's market and selling it there, every Saturdays. Chelsea said that her target market ranged women from the ages of 16-50 at the farmer's market while the ages ranged from 20-30 on Etsy. She said that various ages of women bought her jewelry at the farmer's market while they shopped for other items, as they bought it form themselves or gifts for other people. The kind of media that her customers consumed was obviously digital as many of her customers saw her jewelry creations on social media, such as her Facebook page and Instagram page, and then visited her Etsy website.
2. Customer interviews
• I decided to use the index card technique with interviews as it was easier for me to approach them and ask if I could interview them and present them with the information so that they could say a quick bit and move on. It felt like I was less intrusive on their time.  In addition, they were hesitant to be filmed but when I conveyed that they could do an audio interview, they were much more willing to do the interview. 
3. I think the entrepreneur Chelsea adequately understood her customer's needs. She provided pretty but inexpensive jewelry that shoppers could pick up. If there was one unmet need or difference, it was the idea of providing gift-wrapping services but she was probably just unaware that it was an unmet need.

Half-Way Reflection

Half-Way Reflection

1. The skills that I have utilized to being successful in this course is time-management, organization, and meticulousness. 
• It's evident that there are many things to complete as assignments for this class, starting with multi-weekly submissions, share and declare posts, and feedback requirements. After figuring out when things were due, I set aside a time in the week where I could finish those assignments and the subsequent comments to follow up on. I still stick to the schedule that I created.
• With organization, I look ahead of the week's scheduled assignments and write them down in my planner so that I do not forget. In addition, if there are video recordings that must be completed, I do so ahead of time using my planner to schedule.
• I strive to be meticulous in this course so that I can meet all of the requirements that are presented for one assignment as well as proof-reading.
2. I felt like giving up in this course when I realized that video recordings are tough. This is one factor that I disagree with most in this class, even to this day. In complete honesty, I begrudgingly still do them but I do not think it's a beneficial factor of this class in completing assignments. Many people do not want to be interrupted on their day-to-day activities to be videotaped and for the footage to be put online. I personally would decline as well. I do not think I've developed a tenacious attitude for this because I still firmly disagree with this method of completing assignments.
3. Three tips I would offer for next semester's students are:

• Be organized
• Be time-efficient
• Complete your assignments and you'll get the points
• 
  

Week 8 Reading Reflection

Kuratko Chapter 8: Sources of Capital for Entrepreneurial Ventures

1. This week's reading was material that I had never seen before. So most aspects of this chapter were very interesting as it covered surprising but interesting text. I was able to finally learn that sources of debt include trade credit, accounts receivables, factoring, and finance companies.
2. One part that was confusing in the reading was the nature of public offerings. Although they sound simple enough, public offerings are NOT used to refer to corporations taking public donations ro raise capital. I was confused about the advantages and disadvantes for a firm to go public. How would they inevitably decide?
3. I would ask the authors:
• What would want to make you, as a CEO, to want to take your company public?
• What is the best method, in your opinion, to raise capital?
• I would want to ask the author these questions as it would be extremely beneficial to get his personal take on matters presented in the text that he wrote.
4. I did not find anything in the article that the author was wrong about.

Week 7 Reading Reflection

Rediscovering Market Segmentation
by Daniel Yankelovich and David Meer

1. Everything was surprising in this week's reading as the information presented was something new and made me think from different perspectives. I saw the broad view of nondemographic segmentation and how it influenced the capabilities of which market to enter and what goods to produce.
2. One part that was confusing in the reading was predicting purchase behavior.
3. I would ask the authors:
• How would you describe yourself?
• What market would you segment into?
• I would ask the authors these questions as I would want to gain understanding on their personal opinions and their unique insight..
4. I did not find anything in the article that the author was weong about.

Free Money

• I filmed this inside the hallways of my apartment complex. I didn't have to go far and I could just wait around or the residents who exited and entered the apartment through the elevators and stairwell. As they were on their way somewhere I caught them off guard.
• I approached college students who lived in the apartment complex.
• In order to get the conversation started, all I did was just to say Hi, and offer them the dollar.
• My plan for the conversation is to be direct and blunt. Since I'm offering money, I don't want to skirt around the conversation and have it be awkward. In addition, since I don't want to take up too much of their time, I am just going to offer it to them straight-forwardly.
• I think I will be able to give all of the dollars away.
  
• Video Recordings

• Reflection
• Personally, I did not like this exercise. I don't understand why I needed to do this exercise. I don't appreciate taking my own money and having to give it away to random strangers for the concept of trying to understand the value of free money. If the class provided the money for us to give away, maybe it would be better for the students who have to do this exercise but $5 is a lot to just give away on an assignment to get nothing in return. I hope that this course has no more further assignments to give away our own money.  Giving away a dollar was easier since all the college students accepted it once they realized it was real money and they were able to assume it was for some experimental assignment since I was filming them. My predictions were correct. 

Elevator Pitch No. 2 (Week 7)

1. The Pitch
   (video above)
   
2. Reflection
• I had very good feedback for my elevator pitch from the first time. People who commented genuinely liked my idea of promoting healthy eating for students. They noticed my passion for this idea, and I'm glad I was able to convey it through the video.
3. What I Changed
• I did not change much to my elevator pitch this time around, except for adding additional places to eat that the app can partner with.

Week 6 Reading Reflection

The Five Competitive Forces that Shape Strategy
By: Michael Porter

1. There wasn't anything too surprising in this week's reading, however, it was a very interesting and informative article presenting new information in intelligent ways that I hadn't thought of before. There was a sentence that stood out to me the most, which was that, "strategy can be viewed as building defenses against the competitive forces or as finding a position in an industry where the forces are weaker". I think it's very interesting to view strategy from a perspective where instead of gearing up to become stronger, it's sometimes used to build a presence in a weakly-dominated niche market.
   
2. One part of the reading that was confusing to me was how according to Porter, eliminating today’s competitors through mergers and acquisitions can reduce an industry’s profit potential. There were some examples that he used that made it more clear later in the article.
   
3. The two questions I would ask the author would be:
• What kind of mergers and acquisitions do you see that is occurring right now, where you can predict its outcome?
• I would ask the author this question because I would want his intelligent opionion on current corporate economic models.
• What are your predictions on the industry profitablity in the future, with the tech industry?
• As there are many start-ups as wells as established corporate figures, I would want the author's opinion on how the market would change with different competitors.
  
4. I did not find anything in the article that I felt the author was wrong about.

Interviewing Customers (No. 3)

1. Describe your interviewing strategy
• My interviewing strategy was to approach students who had unmet needs of finding parking in the Zone 1 area of Gainesville. Zone 1 is the area where it is home to many off-campus apartments across University of Florida campus. It is near sorority row and Norman hall. The problem with Zone 1 street parking is that the city gives out more street parking decals than there are spaces available. Many students who live in that area sometimes have to drive around for up to an hour trying to find a parking space. It is extremely frustrating.
• The questions I intend on asking are:
• How do you feel about Zone 1 street parking?
• Have you ever experienced problems with it before?
• When was most recent problem with parking in Zone 1?
• Do you know certain times that you can be driving vs. when you shouldn't move your car?
• What do you propose the city of Gainesville should do in order to fix this problem?
  
2. Conduct the interviews
   
3. Reflect on what you learned
• I learned from this experience that most residents who lived in these apartments that were situated in Zone 1 had similar dissatisfactions and annnoyances with the parking problem. Residents from apartments include Social 28, Solaria, Ashton Lane, Woodbury Row, and etc. Although some of these apartment complexes do provide parking, it is usually limited and the decals are about $125-$150 per month. Although some students may be able to pay those, most cannot, which is why many students buy street parking decals. However, it's a frustrating experience for students and residents to try to find parking spots that seem to be overly crowded.

Idea Napkin No. 1 (Week 6)

1. My name is Jary Kim and I am a student at the University of Florida. I have professional skills and experience in interpersonal communication, social media, digital marketing, creativity, and time management. My non-professional interests are in cooking, exercising, and traveling. I aspire to work in a global marketing team of an international corporation or digital marketing in a smaller firm that caters to those corporations. I hope to relocate to New York City, Seoul, or London for work after I graduate.
2. Health Bite is an app that will ot only provide healthy and clean-eating recipes for college students, but they can upload photos or videos of their creations to earn points. After reaching a certain number of points, students can redeem it at certain restaurants or cafes in Gainesville that mirror with the app’s values of healthy and well-balanced eating. The app will partner with these local eateries, such as Cymplify, The Daily Green, Karma Cream, Zoe’s Kitchen etc.
3. I am offering to students in college (University of Florida) to eat a more healthy and well-balanced diet for their day to day meals by creating an app that offers quick and easy food and snack recipes. They are healthy and power-packed for a more balanced diet for college students.
4. They care because due to the different levels of stress that incoming freshmen are placed into, such as being away from home and new, scary experiences of college classes and exams, students find it easy to stuff our faces by stress-eating. It doesn’t help that the dining hall is basically an all-you-can-eat buffet. Students can find themselves eating badly because it’s convenient to cook up something that’s fast or just simply eat out. A lot of college students become unhealthy eaters, consuming meals that are high in calories and sodium, and also a diet that consist of mostly carbs. My app, called Health Bite, will be a resolve to change eating habits and diet by encouraging students to cook meals, snacks, smoothies, desserts, that are balanced and made of up good ingredients. They are quite easy to make, does not create a lot of dishes, and satisfying to eat. My goal is that other students will replicate my recipes and eat healthily as well. Then they will become accustomed to cooking good, nutritious and yummy meals at home.
5. My core competencies would be my personality traits that can connect to the target market for this app. As an outgoing and extroverted person, it's easy for me to meet new people, talk to them, get a sense of what they want and need, and have effective communication to obtain information. Another is that I thrive in challenging, fast-paced environments as it motivates to pursue a project and see to its end. It also ensures that I have strong time management and organizational skills.

In evaluation of these elements, I definitely believe that all of these factors effectively fit together. I do not think that there are any critical weaknesses in my business model, as my communication skills will effectively enable me to gage what my target market may need and want from my app. In addition, I truly am passionate and enthusiastic behind the core ideas for my app.

Interviewing Customers No. 2 (Week 5)

1. Fine tune your opportunity
• Instead of fine-tuning an opportunity like mine, which was to build additional changing room stalls in crowded department stores, I kept it the same. You either need more space or you don't. In the case of popular stores with an abundance of demanding customers, it just makes more sense to have more than one changing room.
2. Fine tune the "who"
• I did fine tune the "who" from last week. I decided to try to interview customers that were more around my age, instead of the older crowd from last week.
3. Tweaking your interview questions
• Were there a lot of people/customers inside Pac Sun?
• Were you satisfied or unsatisfied with a certain aspect of your shopping experience?
• Did you guys have to wait for a long time to have a changing room?
• How long did you guys have to wait?
• Did you have other things to do at the mall that you might not have time for now?
• How many changing rooms were there?
• Would you be in favor of adding more changing rooms?
• I made changes to the store aforementioned by changing locations and asking how it cut into their time.
4. Talking to customers
5. What I learned from the opportunity
• I learned from this opportunity that it's not easy to satisfy all customers. The customers and employees all have different perpectives, wants, and needs that need to be fulfilled. However, in a business, even though it's sometimes hard to always fulfill this aspect, the customer should always come first. From where I started, the opportunity is not that much different as it will always be difficult to satisfy those long line of customers who have been waiting for a long-time for a chance to try on their clothing in one of the only two changing rooms in the entire store meant to serve all customers.
6. What I learned about interviewing customers
• Most people were reluctant to be interviewed, much less filmed. A lot did not want to be interviewed because of the fact that this would be uploaded on YouTube and put onto the Internet. If someone approached me and asked to take a video of me and put it online, I would not say yes. Even though I did try to interview younger people, such as customers, that were around my age, it was very difficult to obtain those five customers, as they still don't want to give up their busy time as well as have footage of them going online.

Week 5 Reading Reflection

Chapter 9: Assessment of Entrepreneurial Opportunities (Kuratko)

1. The most surprising thing for me in this week's reading was one of the pitfalls in selecting new ventures. This would be: Poor Financial Understanding. I would have thought that entrepreneurs, although risk-takers, have an intelligent understanding and awareness of the required finances, their budget, and how the market can affect those two. I would not take them to be ignorant of costs or "victims of inadequate research and planning."
   
2. One part of the reading that was confusing to me was that start-up problems remain with the venture. How can an entrepreneur realize the necessity to change the relative importance of the problem areas in the life-cycle stages when there are so many internal (adequate capital, fash flow, facilities/equipment, inventory control, human resources, etc.) and external (customer contact, market knowledge, marketing planning, location, pricing, etc.) problems that could be located in any of those life-cycle stages?
   
3. The first question that I would ask the author would be, "What do you think is the most important question to ask in the feasiblity criteria approach?"
   The second question that I would ask the author would be, "What do you think was the most recent successful venture in the start-up world?"
• I would ask the author this question because I would want his insight on the most critical factor in the fesibility criteria approach, in terms of selecting which can bring forth the most valuable information for an entrepreneur.
• I would ask the author the second question because it's interesting to get an opinion take from an expert in current events of a good entrepreneurial concept in this time period.
  
4. I did not find anything in this week's reading that the author was wrong about.

Elevator Pitch No. 1 (Week 5)

Opportunity: 

• To incentivize students in college (University of Florida) to eat a more healthy and well-balanced diet for their day to day meals

Solution: 

• To create an app offering quick and easy food and snack recipes to that are healthy and power-packed for a more balanced diet for college students. 

Name:

• Health Bite

Health Bite will not only provide healthy and clean-eating recipes for college students, but they can upload photos or videos of their creations to earn points. After reaching a certain number of points, students can redeem it at certain restaurants or cafes in Gainesville that mirror with the app’s values of healthy and well-balanced eating. The app will partner with these local eateries, such as Cymplify, The Daily Green, Karma Cream, Zoe’s Kitchen etc.