The Twenty Percent

1) Find a business owner and talk to them about their customers.

Ross - Dress for Less! 

After talking to the Ross manager I found that their target costumer is middle class, middle aged women. Most of them items are stylish things to decorate the house or cute clothing that couldn't be found anywhere else for the same price. They advertise to families, but usually targeting the females because they will be the ones buying clothing for kids or different things for the house. Their costumer demographic is very similar to their targeted costumer; women between the age of 30 to 50, middle class women who are looking for easy ways to save money for their family while also trying to be stylish about it. 

The only problem Ross faces is since most of their items are very low priced many costumers don't take care of them. The store is not considered to be high end and costumers tend to treat it this way. Items are sometimes returned damaged, and the store usually has no choice but to take them back causing even more issues. 

2) Next, go and talk to 3 'target customers' -- using the demographics/psychographics the entrepreneur described.

Middle class, middle aged women

What was the last time you shopped at Ross? Tell me about it... 

What do you usually go to Ross to look for? 

Why do you prefer Ross over other stores like TJ Max or Bells? 

Whats something that bothers you about Ross? 

This one is such bad quality because I had to convert it. 

3) Reflect. 

I don't think the entrepreneurs takes in account so much the consumers needs or wants. But in the case of Ross and it being such a large corporate firm, there is only so much that can be done about these dissatisfactions on the consumers side. 

Consumers see Ross as a cheap store and don't care too much about how they leave items or open boxes before purchasing them which is what drives down value of these items, losing money for Ross but also killing the chances for this firm to survive if they are going to continuously keep loosing money.  

Week 8 Reading Reflection

I was not aware of debt financing, but thinking more about it now makes a lot more sense to me because thats the only way to keep a business going, to make things happen sometimes you have to take out debts. Projects at times may be costly to start up but they will earn a large profit so what the firm must do is check if the costs outweigh the benefits or vice versa. 

What confused me was how can a company or an entrepreneur in this case make any profit to keep the firm afloat if he/she is constantly taking out loans to finance projects, aren't they eventually going to have to take loans to pay loans? At that point its just not worth it.

How do you know when it's time to give up? How do you know you need to give up on the project because it's just not worth it. Some people get very attached to their idea and don't want to accept the fact that its not going to work out and that the idea will fail. 

There isn't anything I disagree with the writer in this chapter because it is very concrete and the ideas are very basic so that there isn't much they could go wrong on. 

Half-way Reflection

1) Tenaciousness is a skill. 

I set a few hours weekly to work on assigments, also I found it easier if i copy everything i need to have on the blog onto a new post that way i see it as soon as I open blogger and i know that i need to do that. 

2) Tenaciousness is also about attitude. 

When the third week of interview hit I was reading to give up because there were so many but I realised that its really not that hard to talk to random people. What pulled me through was the thought that each interview was like a minute long and that it would take all together ten minutes in turlington to get them all done.

I feel like I've gotten a hand on the different assignments coming from this class, i haven't allowed myself to procrastinate till the last minute because each assigment only takes a few minutes and if you start right away its easy to get done, as long as you start early. 

3) Three tips. 

Fostering the skills that support tenacity & Developing the tenacious mindset

• Most of the semester you'll focus on one entrepreneurial business idea so it's very important to be passionate about this one idea, think of something that really means something to you that you're passionate and want it to happen
• Start Monday! Start the assignments due that week that Monday, even if starting the assignment means creating a shell post on blogger, just having the post outline up on blogger makes your life easier and gives you the freedom to work on it whenever you have time during the week. 
• Actually get out and tell people about your ideas and your blog, you'll be more inclined to go post on it when you know you have an audience of people who will be coming to your blog to see what new thing you have posted this week. 

Week 7 Reading Reflection

The article "Rediscovering Market Segmentation" talks about firms trying to target certain audiences within the market. Each market is divided up into groups basically segments of people who fit certain demographics. For example; females, age 18-25, in college, who exercise regularly, watch their weight might be a segmented target audience for Special K products. All firms have a target audience but sometimes the audience they are hoping to capture isn't as willing. There have even been cases where products were unintentionally targeted at the wrong audience, in other words it was note used for what it was intended for. 

"THE MILLER LITE ADS featuring mud-wrestling supermodels certainly impressed the young, male segment they were intended to reach, but sales did not increase."

This is one example of a target audience who was not too keene on buying the product. One thing that has to be considered is the groups ability to buy a product or even if they like it to begin with. The Miller Lite might not be a product that younger men resonate with because it is a lite version, it might be something women would be likely to drink. 

• What happens if the segmented group is too specific? 
• If the product is only for a small group of people? 
• How do you market in this case? 

Elevator Pitch No. 2

The pitch. 

The business idea I have is for a company called Roam, The goal of Roam is to create affordable and adventurous trips, tailored to the student body here at the University of Florida. We are focused on providing getaways that meet the low budget of any student, while also ensuring high quality programs and excursions. Although we plan to offer these trips to all universities in the US, to begin with it would be limited only to UF. Essentially, we will organize bulk trips for students from universities across the country to different destinations around the United States as well as the rest of the world. Booking on a large scale will give students the low prices they are looking for, while also allowing them to experience new cultures, see new cities and form new friendships. 

The feedback I got back made me thing more about other people that would be effected by these trips. What if someone booked a room in a hotel with 300 college students? Their vacation would not be as peaceful and relaxing as they planed it to be... but this would be more dependant on the trip or location we'd be going also the number of people going. Of course when planning events the hotel or other lodging organization would in charge of figuring out what rooms to give us, and how to keep all of their guests happy, but when it comes to other people being effected there isn't much there can be done. Maybe there could be a punishment for breaking the rules like being forbidden to go on further trips or being asked to leave, but there is only so much that can be done about someone misbehaving?

The feedback I received make me think more about other people effected about this organization and what it offers. I did not change anything based on the feedback because it was more something to think about when actually creating the trips one by one.

Free Money

• Where will you go? - Classe  
• What kind of people will you approach? - Students waiting for class or walking to class
• What will you say to get the conversation started? - Just say hi, ask about their day 
• What is your plan for the conversation? - Just talk normally like to a friend
• Out of five attempts, how many dollar bills do you think you will be able to give away. - We live on campus full of students who are always looking for ways to save money and earn money to help pay for food or whatnot. I think it will be really easy to give money away. 

I expected people especially students to be okay with taking money. And thats basically what happened, no one declined the money expect for the weird faces that I got for handing money to someone.

Interviewing Customers No. 3

1) Describe your interviewing strategy. 

I realised that some people were uncomfortable about behind interviewed and especially about having a camera in their face while they were answering questions, so i thought it I would give people the option to hold the phone while being interviewed and that way they can see themselves reliving some of the stress. 

• Tell me about the last time you traveled with friends like on a road trip or to another country...
• How big was your group and did you wish you could have more people come along? 
• Do you think so spent more money then you needed to for this trip? 
• What was your favourite part of your trip? 
• Is there anything you wished you could have done but didn't? 

My questions were basically the same as before except for the option to hold the phone while being interviewed. 


2) Interviews. 

Issues with uploading onto YouTube - will post the other three videos ASAP

3) Reflect on what you learned. 

I found that most people preferred recording themselves just because they could see the face they were making. Also the information i gained here was very similar to past interviews. Everyone was happy with having a small group of friends they knew but wouldn't mind a larger group. The more the merrier! 
In terms of payments most people planed out a trip before hand and were aware of the minimum they's spend on their trip but of course there were some unintended things they did they had to pay for extra. 

Week 6 Reading Reflection

The five forces that shape competition:

1. Threat of entry 

2. The power of suppliers 

3. The power of buyers 

4. The threat of substitutes 

5. Rivalry among existing competitors 

I wasn't sure why threat of entry shaped competition until i read more into in to it and found out that basically the idea behind it is the more companies enter the market the greater the competition will be which is a totally normal thing I just didn't think of it in this way. 

I agreed with everything the author said in this chapter but I did have questions. Could a market expand if there was no competition? We would not have as many technological improvements for sure and maybe suppliers could set prices as high as they wanted to. 

Eliminating rivals is a risky strategy. A profit windfall from removing today’s competitors often attracts new competitors and backlash from customers and suppliers. 

Idea Napkin No. 1

1) You. 

I'm a University of Florida Business Management major with a minor in Innovation. One of my talents is photography. My hope for this business idea is for it to actually be used for it to happen, for someone even if it's not me to start a travel agency for students alone. 

2) What are you offering to customers? 

Providing cheap trips on large scales for students from different universities would allow students to only only make life changing friendships but see cities and countries that they maybe would have never gotten the chance to see. College is the time to travel because we'll most likely not get the chance to after because we'll start working, families and forever be too busy to see the world, so we need to use this opportunity to the maximum. 

3) Who are you offering it to? 

This is for college students only, okay not only college students but the age group of college students, people ages 18 to maybe 25. Student's that don't care too much about long bus rides as long as they are with friends and having a good time. 

4) Why do they care? 

As I explained before we won't get the chance ever again later to travel, college is the perfect time of our lives to travel and see the world. After college were not gonna have the time to travel as much as we would want to because we'll be working on our careers and families so this would be the perfect time to travel. 

5) What are your core competencies? 

What sets this apart from the rest of travel agencies is that this is for students only. It's large scale trips for students only from universities from across the country that are the cheapest way for students to travel. 

I think this is a great idea it might be somewhat hard to pull of because if the planning and organization it would take to plan this all out and keep track of a large enough group of people to get these cheap prices. But also accommodating everyone's needs and the free time they have during the semester. 

Elevator Pitch No. 1

The opportunity is that there is a lack of trips available for students to take that meet their low budget and need for adventure. 

The business idea I have if for a company called Roam, The goal of Roam is create affordable and adventurous trips, tailored to the student body here at the University of Florida. We are focused on providing getaways that meet the low budget of any student, while also ensuring high quality programs and excursions. To accomplish this, we would organize mass bulk trips for students from universities across the country to different destinations around the world. Booking on a large scale will give students the low prices they want while also giving them the opportunity to meet other students and make friends. 

Week 5 Reading Reflection

What I found interesting about this chapter was things about the trade secrets. I was not aware that trade secrets were protected, because I assumed that if someone told you how it was done it was their secret to tell and not something that needed to be protected by law. But as I read more about it I realized that it is essentially like having a patented recipe or software of some type, its all protected because it gives one firm advantage over another firm.

Also I knew about sole proprietorship, partnership and corporations and the different liabilities each one of them faces. What confused me way anyone would chose a corporation when a partnership seems to have to potential to grow much larger and stronger then a corporation. Unless of course they lack funding in which case selling stocks is the only way to raise some but by doing so they are basically selling away a part of their company and make it more open to a possible takeover.

Questions to the Author: 

• Is there a way to get a round a trademark? 
• Does unlimited liability mean that stock holders only lose what they invested? Or that CE only lose their part because it is their fault? 

Interviewing Customers No. 2

1) Fine tune your opportunity. 

Essentially bulk student trips in large groups, making it cheaper due to large busses and group discounts. 

2) Fine tune the "who." 

Aimed at only students who want to travel but are constricted by their budget. 

3) Tweaking your interview questions.

Questions: 

• Tell me about the last time you traveled with friends like on a road trip or to another country...
• How big was your group and did you wish you could have more people come along? 
• Do you think so spent more money then you needed to for this trip? 
• What was your favourite part of your trip? 
• Is there anything you wished you could have done but didn't? 

4) Go talk to customers! This is the same deal as last time: 5 people, you can't know them, you must video record them.

5) Tell us what you learned about the opportunity. 

Students mainly like the small group feel that they get from the trips they took and I would like to incorporate that into my idea by still having small sections that are divided off for groups like that but also give them the opportunity to mingle with other people from maybe the same university or different one and who knows maybe they will meet some new friends. 

6) Tell us what you learned about interviewing customers. 

• Let them do the talking, if the question starts off with tell me about a time you... its a way for them to tell you a story
• Have a few main questions off of which you can build off because every interview is different and you can ask different questions
• Have a target audience, it has to be someone who likes doing whatever you're offering not just someone you find on the street.