1) Domain expert in your industry.
University of Florida TRiPs program offers trips to UF faculty, students and staff. Most trips are hiking, rock climbing or other venture in the outdoors. Not many people know about this program at UF and most of the trips are on very small scales 20-30 people maximum, also to me the trips seem very over priced. A hiking trip through the Yellowstone national park for two days is 600+ dollars not including any equipment or the ticket to get out to Ohio. I was not able to talk to anyone from this program mostly because i was referee back and forth.
2) Expert on your market.
I talked to Ana Rivas who works at Outdoor Pursuit at Florida State University. Outdoor Pursuit is essentially the FSU version of TRiPs here at UF. It's university led program that creates small group trips to different locations in and around Florida. Their target audience is FSU students, staff members and faculty.
I know Ana through a friend who goes to FSU and got in touch this way. She was very nice about all of the questions I had and loved my idea.
I will definitely keep in touch with her and let her know how my idea further develops.
I talked to Ana Rivas who works at Outdoor Pursuit at Florida State University. Outdoor Pursuit is essentially the FSU version of TRiPs here at UF. It's university led program that creates small group trips to different locations in and around Florida. Their target audience is FSU students, staff members and faculty.
I know Ana through a friend who goes to FSU and got in touch this way. She was very nice about all of the questions I had and loved my idea.
I will definitely keep in touch with her and let her know how my idea further develops.
3) Supplier to your industry.
I was hopping to talk to someone from StudentUniverse because they are focused on the same target audience as I am, and they would be the perfect contact for this but unfortunately no one was able to get back to me in time for this assignment. I've personally had a lot of experience with StudentUniverse and what they are focused on is providing the cheapest tickets and hotels possible for students. It would be great to maybe be able to partner with them and since my business idea requires large numbers of tickets they could be even cheaper.
Another option would be to see how they get their tickets, and maybe go directly through the airline companies instead of them.
I was hopping to talk to someone from StudentUniverse because they are focused on the same target audience as I am, and they would be the perfect contact for this but unfortunately no one was able to get back to me in time for this assignment. I've personally had a lot of experience with StudentUniverse and what they are focused on is providing the cheapest tickets and hotels possible for students. It would be great to maybe be able to partner with them and since my business idea requires large numbers of tickets they could be even cheaper.
Another option would be to see how they get their tickets, and maybe go directly through the airline companies instead of them.
Finally: Reflect.
This experience helped me somewhat see who i would be up against. Even though some were helpful and others weren't so helpful, everyone would eventually be a competitor to my idea. It's very daunting to think that my idea could be competing against these already long standing established programs and companies. 
Hey Adna,
ReplyDeleteI think you have a great business idea and I came to the same conclusion that all the people I ended up contacting would be future competitors. I agree that it is a pretty daunting thing to realize and think about. As well I thought that the people you contacted for this assignment were good choices to get the most out of this assignment. I found it interesting though that you also saw some of the people you contacted as companies to maybe even partner up with. Overall good post and I enjoyed reading about the people you contacted and how they can benefit you business.
http://bstestblogpost.blogspot.com/2016/03/growing-my-social-capital-week-10.html
Adna,
ReplyDeleteHonestly this explanation dealing with growing your social capital was extremely organized and informative. I am so proud to hear how great you are when trying to benefit your venture. You certainly know how to approach different customers and having a normal conversation. Congrats.
Here is my blog!
http://nickreg.blogspot.com/2016/03/growing-my-social-capital.html
Adna your service idea is great. It is obvious that you put alot of hardwork and thought into. I agree with Nicholas completley. You organized your information clearly in a way that made it easy to understand the information even for such a confusing assignment. Unfortunatley I did not do this assignment but feel free to check out my blog anyway: http://entweekly.blogspot.com/
ReplyDelete