Assignment 17A- Elevator Pitch No. 2

Link to my second elevator pitch!

https://youtu.be/nY5XIn01Gtc

Reflection of feedback:

• After reading the feedback that I received I gained a new perspective on how to go about this second elevator pitch. Some things that I had never thought about were how my pitch never really changed, and how I did not make a lot of eye contact. These are all things that in the moment of recording my first elevator speech I thought I was focusing on but looking from other people's perspectives I was not. 

What I changed based on my feedback:

• I focused a lot on this elevator speech my pitch when I am talking, I tried to focus on making it fluctuate with my emotions and my words that I was saying throughout my elevator speech. I also tried to engage in more eye contact while recording. I decided it might also help me improve this elevator speech if I stopped fidgeting and swaying in my video as I tend to do when public speaking. I believe that using my feedback to help me with this elevator speech helped me improve tremendously. 

Assignment 18A- Create a Customer Avatar

      Though my opportunity is a service that can be provided to apartment complexes and businesses, it is beneficial to the consumers using my service whom I will describe in my customer avatar.

      My prototype customer is a sophomore in college at a big, well-known college in a small college town city. She is around 20 years of age and has medium length brown hair and is tall. She is in a sorority at her university and she wears the sorority t-shirts and pins on her North Face backpack. She is very passionate about her academics and takes pride in the countless hours that she puts into studying and getting good grades. She is also extremely involved in clubs and organizations all over campus. She has grown up in Tampa, FL her entire life so she was used to the big city feel with a lot of people so when she made the move and transition into college life it was not that big of a difference for her since she had been used to over crowded cities for the better half of her life.
   
      She drives a 2016 White Volkswagen Jetta with a silver Florida Gator logo on the back of it and her sorority letters on the back windshield. Even though she has a fairly small sized car she still has a hard time finding parking around her apartment complex that is located near the University. This problem causes her often to miss out on opportunities and fun social aspects because she knows that if she moves her car from the parking spot she luckily found, that she will most likely not have a parking spot to return home to. She has always been very safety conscious so when she moved into an off-campus apartment she started to feel uneasy with the fact that she would have to park far away from her apartment at night and sometimes felt unsafe.

What do I have in common with her? 
      I think that the most significant thing that I have in common with my prototype customer is that she had a car with her in college and found that she had to start parking far away from her apartment complex because the parking was so terrible and this made her feel unsafe --- for me personally, I had this same issue where at night it was either impossible to find a parking spot or when I found one it was far away and I had to walk alone in the dark, it did make me feel very unsafe and gave me a feeling that my apartment complex did not care that I was not in the safest environment. I do not think that this is a coincidence because when I was coming up with the idea for this opportunity I knew that this was a very large unmet need and problem for many students like myself. Parking spots should be the last thing that college students have on their minds!

Assignment 16A What's Your Secret Sauce?

•  Five ways I think that I have human capital that is truly unique:
1. Sympathetic: I have always considered myself to be a sympathetic person. In almost all situations whether they involve me directly or not I always tend to put my heart into it, this can either be a really good quality (which most of the time it is) or it can be a bad quality, depending on the situation. 
2. Passion: I have always considered myself to be extremely passionate about everything in life, whether it be job, school, sports, and pretty much everything life throws at me, I always strive to give my all no matter what.
3. Drive: This is something I have always taken pride in about myself, I am an extremely driven person and I work towards my goals no matter how extreme or small.
4. Trustworthy: I have always been a person that others can confide in and come to when they need advice or just a neutral source to talk about anything with, knowing that I will keep their secrets and information safe.
5. Leader: I have always worked towards improving my leadership skills throughout every opportunity in my life and I think that is the reason I credit myself with being such a driven leader.

• Interviews: 
• My first interview that I conducted was with one of my friends Madison. 
• She told me that I had a sixth sense when it came to knowing what peoples needs were and how to interpret when others are having problems. This could align very well with having an entrepreneurship mindset and being able to know what needs people have.

• My next interview was with my friend Adela
• Adela told me that I was able to be considerate and caring when someone was talking to me. This helps me when it comes to be an entrepreneur because I am able to listen to the needs that people have in the world and care.

• My next interview was with my friend Rebecca 
• Rebecca's response was similar to Adela's in the sense that I am able to be there for others when they have problems or needs. This reiterates the fact to me that I am easy to talk to and that I am always open to listen when anyone has a problem or a need. 

• My next interview was with my friend Caroline 
• Caroline's response was very helpful to give me insight about how I am willing to listen to people and give them advice whenever they need it. Being able to listen to people's problems and interpret their needs and feelings would give me an advantage in the entrepreneur world. 

In conclusion, after interviewing each of the people who know me the best I feel that my assumptions of myself were pretty accurate about what values I possess. There are not that many differences in how I see myself versus how others see me, this assignment allowed me to get more of an outside perspective of how a consumer would see myself.

Assignment 15A Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 2

• Report findings and draw conclusions:
• After conducting my interviews with new interviewees I gained several new insights that gave me a new perspective of ways that I can expand my service and make it more desirable to every type of consumer. My first interviewee who asked to remain anonymous, suggested that for the apartment complexes that were not going to be located close to the parking garage, I try to reach out to apartment complexes who have a need for parking and consult with them to provide a parking lot, rather than a garage, close to their apartments. 
• The next interviewee that I spoke with told me that some people might not be comfortable with the idea of a parking garage since parking garages can be seen as unsafe especially at night when parking alone. He suggested that I invest in a security guard or two to be stationed at the entrance of the parking garage that would monitor the cars that come in and out of the garage and monitor on security cameras for each level of the garage to make people parking their cars there feel more safe and secure. 
• After the second interview that I conducted, I was feeling very encouraged and happy about the suggestion that I had received from that interviewee. With that being said, for my third and final interview I chose to ask the interviewee if she had any suggestions to add onto the security guard proposal that could make it more efficient and the most productive. My third interviewee told me that with the parking decals that would be given to each resident that would be parking in the garage should come with a barcode, this barcode could be scanned by a scanning system by the security guard. This would ultimately get rid of the risk of anyone entering the parking garage who does not have a reserved spot. 
• My service could be purchased online or through the residents personal apartment complex leasing office or at my service's personal office. 
• In conclusion, these set of interviews gave me a much more specific focus on how I can work to improve my service of providing parking garages for college towns, and how I can make this service more accessible and desirable for every customer in this market. Each of my interviewees all agreed that the best alternative for my parking garage service 

Assignment 13A Reading Reflection No. 1

Reading Reflection: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

1.) You read about the entrepreneur:

• What surprised me the most about Steve Jobs was that I was not aware that he did not make the majority of his fortune (and eventually a becoming a billionaire) from Apple but instead, made his money from Pixar. After purchasing Pixar, he transformed it from what the company currently was, which surprisingly I learned that Pixar was not always a movies and entertainment industry. 
• What I admired most about Steve Jobs is how he was able to become not only a successful entrepreneur but a successful businessman without obtaining a college level of education (unless you want to count the two years of college Jobs attended at Reed College.) This really stuck out to me because in this day and age there is a lot of emphasis and pressure put upon young adults that they will not be able to be successful and have a career if they do not attend college, Steve Jobs is a perfect example of being able to make something for yourself when college does not seem like the path you are wanting to take. 
• What I least admired about Steve Jobs was when the book talked about how he had gotten his former high-school girlfriend pregnant and then was not present in his daughter or girlfriends life after the pregnancy and his daughters life. In addition to this, he also was not present in Lisa, his daughters life for many years. This to me came off as irresponsible and turned me off from Steve Jobs and his work. 
• Steve Jobs most definitely encountered adversity and failure in his life through numerous ways. In his early life he faced adversity from being put up for adoption and having to become adjusted to a new family. All the way to facing difficult with the Apple I and his other early prototypes that were failures. 

2.) What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited:

• Steve Jobs exhibited perseverance. No matter what problems he faced throughout his life such as the examples that I mentioned in the earlier question, he never gave up. When the Apple I or other such items failed or had setbacks he did not call it quits or give up, he just took his mistakes and he learned from them. This can also be displayed through the troubles that he went through with his daughter, as he tried to establish a relationship with her and paid back child support dues, he was consistent with every trial and tribulation throughout his life. 

3.) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you:

• I feel that this book could have gone into more detail about the people that really impacted Steve Jobs' life and his successes. Walter Isaacson does a good job about describing and mentioning all of the faults and arguments that he had with people as he was older but he does not ever go into a great detail about who really pushed him and kept him motivated.  

4.) If you were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur, what would you ask? why:

• If I could ask Jobs' two questions my first one would be "If you could see your Apple company now, would you be proud of what it has become?" This would be to see how he feels that the people who run his company now if they are following any orders he left for the company and other information along those lines. The second question that I would ask Steve Jobs' is "What your biggest regret in your personal life?" I would ask this question so that I could dig a little deeper into his more intimate life and learn more about the relationships that he had throughout his life because the book did not reveal a lot about his personal side. 

5.) For fun: What do you think the entrepreneur's opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion?

• I personally think that Steve Jobs' opinion of hard work was never giving up when he felt like he had failed, he was a very determined and self motivated worker and I feel that this is what helped him to achieve all of the technological advances that he made in his lifetime. I feel that I share that same opinion to a certain extent because I do not give up after I fail something or when something gets tough. 

Assignment 14A Halfway Reflection

1.) Tenaciousness is a competency:

• During the course of this class for the past couple of months I have learned that time management is a crucial skill that has to be expressed in this course. There are assignments that sometimes require numerous interviews of up to 20 minutes from people in the neighborhood and real world that would have my need. There are also assignment such as reading requirements and elevator pitches that all require a good amount of time throughout the week not just the day before or of when an assignment is due. 

2.) Tenaciousness is also about attitude:

• A time when I felt like giving up in this class is definitely more recently with the assignment where I had to find and interview people that did not have a need for my opportunity. I found that it was difficult to find people in the first place that did not have my need but then it was also a discouraging feeling when people did not need my opportunity as I have put a lot of thought and effort into developing an idea for this opportunity.

3.) Three tips:

• Three tips that I would offer future students that would enroll in this course would be the following:
1. Spend time on these assignments!!! The assignments in this course are not ones that can be done an hour before the deadline for them as they require a lot of effort and time especially when you have to conduct interviews and other requirements such as videos for elevator pitches!
2. Even if you think that you are not an entrepreneur you need to learn how to develop a "temporary" entrepreneurship/tenacious mindset! This class requires a lot of out-of-the box thinking and it is crucial to think like this to do well on these assignments!
3. Put thought into developing your opportunity for an unmet need!!! This is important because these opportunities that you develop could be the start of you wanting to pursue a career as an entrepreneurships or if anything else could help you provide business ideas for other people in this class!

Assignment 12A Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 1

1.) Pick a segment:
For my segment I chose people that were living in off-campus apartments whether they were close to the University of Florida campus or further away and residents of the city of Gainesville. To find my interviewees, I started with apartments located on the streets that are closest to campus and sorority row. After a little while I found three people who were willing to sit down and have a 15-20 minute interview, in which I informed them that their identities would stay confidential throughout the whole process. They were all females aged 19-21, which I expected being around apartments near sorority row.

2.) Interviews:
1. My first interviewee was a female aged 20 from New york who lived in an apartment complex next to sorority row, she informed me that parking was a huge struggle for her daily, until she started to work extra shifts to be able to rent a parking spot from her apartment complex.
2. My second interviewee was a female aged 19 from Tampa, she lived a few blocks away from the actual UF campus and told me that many people might think the further out you live the easier parking is but that she struggles to find street parking as well.
3. My third interviewee was a female aged 21 who lived on a street closer to the Education Building area of campus, she told me that depending on what day of the week it is and time of day really made the parking either a huge struggle or just a normal level of struggle.

3.) Need Awareness:
My opportunity deals with the unmet need of lack of parking available to students and residents in the city of Gainesville. After conducting my interviews and having time to reflect over them, I realized that all of my interviewees for not only this assignment but for the other assignments as well all expressed the same concern and problem when it came to the lack of parking available in the city of Gainesville. While being most prevalent during the school year (August-May) and worse at night time rather than the day. All three of my interviewees all agreed to having to face a problem with parking almost daily because being that the UF campus is so spread out it is not always reasonable to walk to all their classes as it might be too far.

4.) Information Search: 
Since my problem is very relevant and popular in Gainesville, people are always coming into conflict with this unmet need. With that being said, when asking my interviewees what form of information searching that they turned to when they realized that parking was a problem for them and they needed a solution the consensus was all the same, they all told me they would ask by word of mouth if anyone of their friends or a mutual friends knew of any place to park their cars, or reaching out to their leasing company for parking spot rentals. If these places of information could not help them with what they needed then they did not have any other places to search.

5.) Draw Conclusions/ Interview Summaries:
After conducting these interviews as I stated earlier, I felt as if all of the interviews I have conducted throughout my researching process for my opportunity that they have all had similar interests and opinions when it comes to the lack of parking in Gainesville and around off-campus apartments near the UF campus. The need awareness definitely feels stronger and stronger to me each time that I interview more people or conduct more research for my opportunity. After these interviews I feel that I have conducted a sufficient amount of evidence now to really begin thinking on ways to improve my opportunity.