Free Money

Free Money Exercise

• Where will you go?

-I will go on with my day regularly as I would any normal sunday.

• What kind of people will you approach?

-I will approach people who I see that are involved on campus and are promoting a organization or philanthropy event.

• What will you say to get the conversation started?

-I will tell them that they earned a dollar and that it was because they give up their time to raise money for others so that I wanted to give them a dollar to help out with whatever they need.

• What is your plan for the conversation?

-Be very casual and tell them thank you essentially for being involved and helping all those people.

• Out of five attempts, how many dollar bills do you think you will be able to give away.

-I think I will be able to give away all 5 but I only recorded 2 seeing as it was rather awkward.

Video:

Reflection:

What are your reflections on this exercise?

-That it was interesting and liked how it made me stop and think about others in the world and who deserved the dollar most.

Was giving away a dollar easier or harder than you imagined?

-Way easier as I was able to give away all 5 but the video recordings were the most interesting part and awkward almost.

Were your predictions correct or incorrect? If they were incorrect, why?

-They were correct as I was able to give away all of them to the service people from DM and at a philanthropy event at Flavet field.

What assumptions did you make about the people you planned to talk to, which were wrong?

-I assumed that saying thank you was enough and that they would take the dollar and they, in fact, did.

-Mitch

Elevator Pitch No. 2

Here is my elevator pitch practice for week 7 for ENT3003.

The video can be seen below:

1) The pitch.

2) A reflection on the feedback you received from your last pitch. Describe what stood out to you as important, what feedback surprised you the most, what feedback you think was outright wrong or silly. 
-The feedback I found most important was the most honest ones. These helped me by providing an outlet to improve upon my fluidity of speech and overall level of comfort with the camera itself and also with my pitch.

3) What did you change, based on the feedback?
-Like I said, I didn't change much substantively but I did change my delivery and fine tuned it to be a more effective pitch to the listener themselves. I think I was more comfortable with my pitch so I was able to project more confidence in my pitch itself.

-Mitch

Week 7 Reading Reflection

Reading Reflection:

Yankelovich & Meer: Rediscovering Market Segmentation

(Harvard Business Review, February 2006)

1) What was the biggest surprise for you in the reading? In other words, what did you read that stood out the most as different from your expectations? 
-The biggest surprise for me during this reading would be the section about the post World War 2 buying patterns and how they changed in regards to consumption and price preferences. In my opinion, I thought that consumers with expensive tastes would more align so with less price conscious consumer decisions, but, in reality, the opposite occurred,

2) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.
-One part that was confusing to me was that of that you could reach a target market with better success but still have no increase in sales or consumption just like Miller Lite did with its mud-wrestling campaign to reach younger males.

3) If you were able to ask two questions to the author, what would you ask? Why?
-I would ask the author: 1) Do you believe that demographic attitudes toward consumer preferences are the most influential in the consumer's mind? and 2) Do you think attitudinal preferences are aligned with more the consumers family's interests or are they more influenced by outside sources such as TV or computer advertising?

4) Was there anything you think the author was wrong about? Where do you disagree with what she or he said? How?
-I do not believe the author was wrong about anything in this article but I might argue that the characteristics he states for consumer preferences might be a bit narrow in scope and he needs to further refine them to better fit the changing population.

-Mitch

Customer Interviews No. 3

Customer Interviews No. 3- Canned Water

1) Describe your interviewing strategy. 

         -What questions do you intend on asking?
   The question I plan on asking is: What is your reaction to this product idea? I will request just a very concise, 1 sentence impression of the card itself from each of the 5 interviews. I will them hand them a card with the product idea Canned water on it and gauge their individual reactions to the product itself.

         -Who are you going to ask?
I am going to ask these questions to shopper at a local CVS in Gainesville, FL and the
interviews will be conducted on February 13th. 2016.

2) Conduct the interviews. Video below:

3) Reflect on what you learned. 

        -What did you learn from the interviews?
I learned that there is a niche marketing opportunity for my product; easily-disposable, canned water as a environmentally sustainable alternative for the plastic water bottle.

        -What surprised you the most?
I was surprised at some people's blatant unwillingness to help a college student with a 1 minute interview that consists of 1 question. Many people were rude and off putting
when I asked them in CVS rather than at Publix. What does this say about the
shoppers of these establishments?

        -What do you expect to change as an outcome of these interviews?
I expect to go back to Publix where people are friendlier and more willing to participate as

it will translate to a more efficient and pleasant experience along with more data to use.

Week 6 Reading Reflection

Reading Reflection- "Michael Porter: The Five Forces that Shape Competitive Strategy" :

1) What was the biggest surprise for you in the reading? In other words, what did you read that stood out the most as different from your expectations? 
-I was surprised to see that the lecturer was able to confine their ideas into five main points. With such a large amount of things to consider, boiling it down to five points seemed very difficult in my mind.

2) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.
-I was not confused at any point during this reading but found the section about competitive advantage rather interesting in general.

3) If you were able to ask two questions to the author, what would you ask? Why?
-I would definitely ask him: 1. What characteristics make an industry leader a leader? and also, 2. What is the best way to focus on being successful by using the five points?

4) Was there anything you think the author was wrong about? Where do you disagree with what she or he said? How?
-I don't believe the author was wrong with anything that was in the reading but I do disagree with the way they discuss with how he said that buyers have no bargaining power because I believe that they have a fair amount of it.

Idea Napkin No.1

In this post I will be creating an "idea napkin" of sorts in which I will be describing the following things:

1. Who I am
-I am a very driven individual who is willing to work hard for what he wants. I am an individual who figures out what he wants and doesn't let a challenge stand in his way from attaining his goals. I often use challenge as a motivator to be the best I can be and I think this will bode well into becoming an entrepreneur.

2. What I am offering to customers

-The service I will offer to customers at Allen financial would be that of a quality financial planning service that would go above and beyond to tailor to the financial goals/needs and risk tolerance of the individual customer.

3. Who my customers are

-My customers are personable people who trust and are comfortable with a licensed professional handling their money to the extent that every market fluctuation will not cause a mental breakdown of sorts. Trust is the biggest component in this industry and I will use my hard work and social skills to prove to the customer that I am the right person to be handling their money.

4. Why my customers will spend money to use my product/service

-Because, simply, I will put in the work to help others grow their money and the small fee they pay for my services will be overshadowed by the financial gain I bring their financial portfolio.

5. What my core competencies are.

-My core competencies are my ambition, social skills, networking, and intellectual ability relating to my industry. I hope that these things will bode well into my efforts as an entrepreneur.

Overall, I think these things all tie together very well in being a successful entrepreneur. Knowing all these things about yourself and about your customers puts you in a good position to know what is necessary to succeed. If one does not know this info, then how could one truly be successful?

-Mitch

Customer Interviews No. 2

Customer interviews- Canned Water vs. Water bottles

1) Find an opportunity. 
-More sustainable alternative for water bottles

2) Figure out who might have the unmet need.
-The environment demands a more sustainable alternative and I believe a canned, collapsible water product could fill this void.

3) Come up with a list of questions.
-How do you dispose of your water bottles?
-Do you recycle your bottles?
-Would you drink canned water if it was a more environmentally sustainable option?
-Would you be more likely to recycle collapsible cans than a bottle?
-Would it more or less appealing if the can of water was collapsible after use to help with space in your recycling bin?

4) Go talk to customers! Video at Publix below:

5) Tell us what you learned about the opportunity. 
-I learned that perhaps this idea could be marketable if, in fact, it is more sustainable and it had data to back that up. I think that if the metal can was easier and saved space in your recycle bin then it could get a solid hold in the market for water bottles themselves.  

6) Tell us what you learned about interviewing customers. 
-I learned that this idea was a decent one but it was still hard to explain to some customers what the benefits were. Next time, I will most likely choose people who are purchasing water bottles at the time of the interview and not just random people around the store in order to fine tune my results to more active users of water bottles.

-Mitch

Week 5 Reading Reflection

Week 5/Chapter 9 Reading reflection questions:

1) What was the biggest surprise for you in the reading? In other words, what did you read that stood out the most as different from your expectations? 
-In my opinion, the biggest surprise to me in this chapter of reading was that of how many variations of ownership there are for owning a business. This is a great indicator that one has to know what type of ownership will be best fit for their financial goals as well as type of business one is trying to start. As an entrepreneur, It would serve me to know this information very well for when I want to start thinking about the formation of my own business in the future.

2) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.
-One part that was confusing to me was that of the distinction between a regular, S and B Corporations. The difference between them was pretty small and slightly confusing so it would serve me best to go over these in case a corporation is the type of business ownership I decide upon in the future. It would also benefit one to know the laws behind each but that would involve slightly more research than what the textbook requires itself.

3) If you were able to ask two questions to the author, what would you ask? Why?
-I would ask the author, What do you feel the advantages of knowing all the forms of ownership for a new entrepreneur would be? because this is what resonated with me the whole duration of my reading of this chapter. I would also ask the author, in your opinion, what is the next step in the expansion of cyberlaw that is discussed in the chapter? because I think this issue is very relevant to one of my world's biggest problem of technological privacy.

4) Was there anything you think the author was wrong about? Where do you disagree with what she or he said? How?

-I do not think the author was wrong at any point in this chapter as it very well, laid out the differences in all the types of ownership available to us, as entrepreneurs. He/she also covered the relevant laws which further helped understand the different types. If the chapter was less fact based, than I may have been able to find an argument but not this time. Maybe next week I suppose.

-Mitch

Elevator Pitch No.1

Classmates,
Here is the video of my elevator pitch:

In this pitch, I am speaking to the Orlando market area about a new investment firm(Allen Financial Services) that is to open in the area. I have read many reports about how the average age of a financial advisor is rising rapidly and that a new age of advisors is needed in the industry. I plan to meet this opportunity as my first act as an entrepreneur.

-Mitch