Idea Napkin No. 2

1. I'm a business administration major here at the University of Florida. I'm also a member of the Innovation Academy, which has given me many useful skills and knowledge I can take into the business world. Personally, I hope to run my own medical practice sometime in the future. This idea could potentially give me a start into owning my own business and give me the experience I need to be a successful entrepreneur.

2. I'm offering customers an easy way to get headphone at the gym, and at the library for an affordable price.

3. Currently I'm offering this product to gym goers, as well as students in libraries. The headphones will be in a vending machine so that if for some reason you don't have your headphones with you or you simply don't want to waste your good headphones at the gym, you have an alternative. For the library, the same vending machine will be available for affordable priced headphones for those who wish to use them to watch lectures or listen to music while studying. I plan on the price at the gyms and libraries being about $1-3 depending on the location and relevance. The headphones will not be long lasting or high quality, but will be able to work for your workout or study session, in order to keep them at a low price.  Have also considered the idea of headphones in commercial gyms of higher quality for a higher price of around $5-15. If you go to the gym and listen to music, and are a student who utilizes the library, your part of the demographic.

4. Countless times, people have been at the gym with the miserable reality of having nothing to listen too, or worse have to listen to the horrific music the gym plays. It's proven that music is an excellent motivator at the gym, without headphone you lack the proper motivation to get a good workout.  This also happens when students go to the library.  Headphones are essential at the library to watch lectures and review videos, and many students like listening to music when doing homework. 

5. There isn't any existing market similar to this in America, hopefully I can take advantage of that and doing something no one else has. Best buy has done something similar in airports and it seems to be working well for them.

I think all the factors above plus my customer interviews prove that this is a viable business model. One thing I am concerned about is repeat business. For example, how many times will someone forget their headphones and buy new ones before they always remember headphones. Also, headphones are normally a product you by once and don't buy again until you need new ones. Based on my feedback, I have found that the economically priced headphones could become popular.

5 main points I got from my feedback are

1.     My product is a utilizable idea that many students seem to have expressed interest in.

2.     I need to demonstrate the price of my product in order to give people a better feel of what they would be spending.

3.     I needed to discuss my product more in detail about the quality of headphones.

4.     I can possibly branch this idea to commercial gyms such as LA fitness, and provide higher quality headphones at a higher price.

5.     I can also provide vending machines at the gym that contain other items such as snacks in water. For this idea I believe this is already happening in commercial gyms, but UF currently does not do this.

Week 8 Reading Reflection

The thing I found most interesting in this weeks reading was the concept of Private Offerings.  I was unaware of this type of investment until reading this chapter, and found the whole concept of private investment really cool.

The thing that confused me the most was debit and Equity financing.  This could be because I am not very fluent in the language of finance, but I believe this concept would be confusing either way.

My first question I would ask the author would be what would he believe to be the best method of obtaining money to start a business in his opinion.

My Second question for the author would be what he thinks is the biggest financial obstacle when starting a business.

I do not disagree with anything the author said

The 20 Percent

The person I interviewed is Tristan Zullo, who is an entrepreneur who started his own custom headlight company called “American Retrofits”.  Tristan declined to be filmed. Tristan said that he prefers not to say that he targets specific covers because he likes to have a product that stands out so that people want to find and contact him, but if he had to pick a target, it would be men 18-65 years old. 

The customers unmet needs are custom headlights at a reasonable price and delivered in a reasonable time.  Tristan meets this unmet need by researching build time and prices of competitors, and make sure he gets it done quicker, for less money, and with higher quality work performed.

Tristan finds his customers by using many platforms of social media, such as twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.  He finds customers that are following many trucking and off road-based pages, which is the demographic of customers he services. 

After receiving these interview answers, I went out and asked 3 target customers the same questions.  The three people I interviewed all refused to be filmed, because most strangers do not wish to have their privacy invaded and be put on a college student’s public blog for the world to see for his class.  When I asked the customers these questions, I received mixed answers.  I asked one man who seemed a little elderly, as Tristan said that his company appeals to men up to 65 years old.  The older man stated that he is in fact not interested in Tristan’s product, and finds it more for the younger generation of truck drivers.  I also asked a college aged kid, who thought that only kids his age were into custom headlights.  The third person I asked was a young adult male, approximately late 20’s or early 30’s, who stated that he sees the entire demographic being appealed to by this product. 

I believe that Tristan understands his customers problems pretty well, but may have his demographic off by some.

Half Way Reflection

Behaviors I have developed to keep up with the requirements of this course are to work ahead and plan ahead.  Working and planning in this class is key, as most of the interactive assignments may take more than one day to complete.  Doing this takes a lot of stress off this class, and makes it easier to keep with the amount of assignments this 4-credit class has. 

A moment I felt like giving up during this course was doing my 3^rd round of interviews for my product.  By then I was getting kind of sick of approaching strangers, and on this particular slow day, I had trouble finding people willing to take the time out of their day to be interviewed for my product.  However, I stuck it out and pulled through, and ended up getting some great feedback on my product that gave me a bunch of great ideas on ways to improve it.  If I had given up, I would have never gotten this feedback and would have missed out on a great opportunity.  I do feel like I have developed a slightly more tenacious attitude in the past 2 months, and nothing in particular has contributed to this, but going through this class as a whole has led to this attitude.

The three tips I would give to foster the skills that support tenacity and to develop a tenacious mindset are to:

 1. Keep working even when it gets hard

 2. Just because you don’t notice improvements right away doesn’t mean that nothing is happening and

3.  Trying something and failing really isn’t a failure, because you learned that that way just doesn’t work. 

Free Money

Where I went is the kangaroo gas station right by my apartment.   I approached homeless people because if I’m going to have to give away my money it might as well be to homeless people who actually need it.  They way I intended to start the conversation is by going up to them and asking if it is alright for me to give them a dollar. I believe I will be able to give all of the dollar bills away. 

I found giving away a single dollar not that hard.  However, I found it a little harder to give each dollar away the more I did it and by the 5^th dollar, I was pretty disappointed that I just gave away 5 bucks that I could have probably spent on a dough religion pizza of the day.  I was right in assuming all 5 dollars would be taken, as I would probably take a free dollar given to me.

Week 7 Reading Reflection

Something that surprised me in the readings was “The Gravity of Decision Spectrum”. This concept was very interesting and I find it fascinating that there are techniques this detailed when trying to sell to customers. 

The section that was confusing was the “Drift into Nebulousness”.  I found this whole section difficult to understand, and was not aware of the point the author was trying to get across.

If I could ask two questions, the first would be for the author to explain the “Drift into Nebulousness”.  My second question would be where he obtained all of this information and if some of these concepts are from his mind.

I did not disagree with anything the author said.

Elevator Pitch. No. 2

From the feedback I received last time, I learned that my pitch needed to sell my product more.  I also learned that it needed to be longer.  No feedback surprised me, and I respected all of my peers opinions, and did not find anything silly.

I changed the length, and delivery of my pitch.  I also changed the contact to match my altered product idea, and believe I did a better job of selling it to customers.