The Twenty Percent

Local Entrepreneur:

Who?
Justin Boike

Company?
RugbyProfile

Rugby Profile is an online platform to connect coaches and recruits.

• Their target customers are coaches who are purchasing subscription packages in order to search their database for potential rugby prospects.
• Unmet needs - having to dig through many profiles in order to find the right player. This can be time consuming. 
• They find their customers through word of mouth. The rugby community is very close and if one coach uses the service, typically many more do as well.
• The customer demographics are going to be 30-50 year old males who coach at high levels. 
• Their customers consume Facebook advertisements and media through rugby websites. 

Talking to three customers - 

The feedback I received from these 30-50 y/o males who coach at high levels of rugby is that Rugby Profile is working very well. They have been targeted through advertisements consistently on Facebook and websites such as WorldRugby.com. These customers have also said that they talk quite frequently about the company to other coaches who are searching for higher level players to play for their clubs. 

The Entrepreneur seems to have a clear understanding of exactly who his target customer is. Because the rugby market is very controlled and smaller than most sports leagues, they are able to promote their company in an effective manner. As rugby grows, I could see Rugby Profile utilizing their site to increase traffic and revenue even more by making players pay for accounts too. 

Week 8 Reading Reflection

What surprised me - venture capitalists only care about good management. They refuse to invest in companies if they just have a good idea and no competent management skills.

 What confused me - I was a little confused about why investors are called angels, but I do understand the difference between the different types of business angels.

Two questions: 

Why do venture capitalists not invest in good ideas even though they have bad management?

Who decided to call investors, "angels"?

I did not disagree with the author during my reading. 

Half-way Reflection

Tenaciousness is a skill.
ENT3003 with Chris Pryor has been extremely enjoyable so far. The way he structures the course is very consistent from week to week and you know what to expect way ahead of time. In order to stay up to date with the assignments on hand, I've gone in and checked the canvas and UF email multiple times a day. It's been easy to finish multiple assignments in clusters because most of them are the same thing, just posting across multiple blogs.

Tenaciousness is also about attitude.
There have been a couple times during the semester where I've felt like giving up on this course. Although there are no tests or quizzes, there is a ton of assignments to complete. When we got to the Interviewing customers and free money assignments, I definitely thought about skipping them. Then you realize how important one or two points is in this course. Missing those assignments would have been huge.

Three tips.
1.) Check canvas and UF email multiple times everyday.
2.) Submit blog post up to 2 days in advance.
3.) Give honest feedback on blog posts. - This makes everyone better

Free Money

Where will you go?
I will go to the University of Florida Campus and ask people who are heading to class.

Who will I approach?
I will approach anyone who looks like they are on their way to do something.

What will I say to get the conversation started?
I will say "Hey, do you want a dollar?" "What would you do for a dollar?"

Plan for the conversation:
Just say whatever comes to my mind.

Out of five attempts I think I can give away three dollar bills.

Reflections: I'm so surprised how many people turned down a dollar for such simple tasks. I'm not sure if the value of a dollar is so small to them or if they were afraid of getting embarrassed in front of other students. It could also have to do something with the wide array of prank videos online that ask people to do stuff for a dollar. Out of the five people I asked, I was only able to get 2 people to accept the challenge. As I assumed, the more confident looking people were the ones that accepted to stuff for a dollar. The people who were walking fast or looking down at the ground were extremely hard to approach.

Week 7 Reading Reflection

The biggest surprise to me - The shift from demographic to behavioral segmentation.
This surprised me because in my mind I always pictured that you used a top down method of identifying your market. First you look at their age, gender, location and then you find out stuff about those people in order to say "this age of men in this location are going to use this product because...". What I learned from this is although it may look like they are easily broken up that way, those men have way more different behavioral traits that they can be segmented into.

The part that was most confusing - The shallow/middle/deep end.
This was most confusing to me because are they looking at the level of decision making that is occurring or implementing new features?

Two questions to the author -

• Do you think age or gender can be directly tied to behavioral buying decisions, when everything else is held constant?
• What questions could you ask potential buyers to learn more about their behavioral decisions?

Was there anything the author was wrong about?
I didn't disagree with anything the author had wrote. It was all very new to me and opened my mind to how marketing should really work.

Elevator Pitch No.2

I didn't change anything. All of the feedback was beneficial and aligned with the problem I was trying to validate. This experience was very insightful into people's real world problems.

Week 6 Reading Reflection

What surprised me the most - The profitability chart 

Markets can sometime be extremely unpredictable.It is surprising to see that this chart was presented with such confidence. I don't clearly understand his reasoning behind why he is so confident that you can predict profitability so well. 

Where I disagree - Competition is the main force that drives us

I think this is a very pessimistic view of commerce and the world. Many entrepreneurs create inventions/companies/businesses to make the world a  better place. I would argue that some people  would rather collaborate to make something better than compete.

The things I disagreed with him on were already mentioned.

My questions to the author - 

Why do believe competition is the best driver?

Is competition seen in every single person and if so, where is more evidence to support this?

Customer Interviews No. 3

Went out and recorded 5 people for this interview - had trouble uploading the videos. Will upload them as soon as I get this issue resolved.

Here is the one-paragraph summary I wrote on the card:
"TripIt is an app and website that allows you to turn your interests into travel itineraries. Planning trips is extremely challenging, especially when you're trying to meet several peoples expectations. Instead, you can use TripIt where you will select where you're going, when you'll be there, fill out your interests and a list of user-gernated trips will appear that best match your preferences. You swipe left or right through trips until you've found the one that you like."

Questions:
Would you use this app if you were traveling to a new city and didn't know what to do for the day?
Would you use this app to pre-plan for trips or use it once you've arrived?

Who:
I went and asked 5 students who were passing through Turlington Plaza on Sunday.

What I learned:
Throughout the interviews I realized that everyone I interviewed struggles with planning trips, especially with multiple people involved. They mentioned how tough it is deciding on what to do. They said that they have a lot of information at their disposal, such as yelp and tripadvisor. However, it's difficult knowing whether or not those things will meet their own interests. Another problem they have is filling their trips with as much as they can, while staying in line with their budget. Everyone said they would use this app to pre-plan and for once they've arrived. They would use it to pre-plan if they were given information push notifications about their trip periodically. People would use this once they have arrived at a city and peoples plans/moods change in the group.

Idea Napkin No. 1

Who is Drew?
Drew is a third year business major at the University of Florida. A man with many dreams, Drew has formulated several business ideas and networked with countless individuals to one day launch his own business with their help. He currently specializes in business analytics, which allows him to understand the data behind businesses and how to use it to their advantage. His aspirations are to one day co-found a multi-million dollar company and relocate to Chicago. If this business is successful, it will allow Drew to do something he's passionate about for once.

The product -
A desktop and mobile application to find travel itineraries that best match your interests. You select where you're going, when you'll be there, your interests and we'll match you with the best possible itinerary to help you get the most out of any trip.

Audience -
Our audience is targeted to millennials age 18-34 who lack trip planning skills. We recognize that people enjoy when they have very minimal trip planning to do. Both men and women is this age group access travel information on a regular basis to narrow down what they want to do.

Use -
Customers will use our app/website because it offers them convenience for free. Why would you spend hours, even days searching for things to do, when you could do it in minutes?

What makes us unique -
Travel planning apps these days only allow you to search information and drop them into your schedule. We're different because we base your travel plans off your interests and preferences.

After evaluating the market, so far we view this product as being very beneficial to our users. One day we envision a world that can correctly predict where you will want to travel next and the trip destinations will automatically be filled in for you. We are very close to product launch and I will share my company with the class once it's up and running. It's a very exciting time for me and I'm curious as to what opportunities this creates for my future.

Week 5 Reading Reflection

During the reading, the biggest surprise to me was - "Securing a Patent: Basic Rules". I've always struggled with the background information for filing and securing a patent. This information was very beneficial and surprising to me because I have yet to find a clear, detailed way through the patent process.

The most confusing part of the reading was - I didn't find anything in this chapter that was confusing to me.

2 questions to the author - When filing for a trademark, can companies register names that are commonly used such as "juice" or "apple" or "hey" if that really is what their company is named? If one trademark name is taken can you add words to the end of it to make them different?

Anything the author was wrong about? how? disagree or agree? - I didn't find anything I disagreed with the author about.

Interviewing Customers No. 2

After conceiving the idea for customized trips and speaking with several surveyees, it is apparent that people struggle with discovering unique trips. It is evident that people love to travel, yet have a very hard time with logistics, financial planning, and convenience. These three problems have reassured me that there is a need for my idea.

Through research, I have discovered that the target audience for my service is men and women age 18-34(millennials). The five people I previously surveyed fit into this relative market category. During this second attempt I have stuck to surveying men and women age 18-34 on the University of Florida campus. The target audience has conceptually stayed the same since the first interview.

This go around, I asked three questions that were much more specific to the problems travelers encountered.

• How early do you plan a trip in advance?
• When traveling to a new city that you've never been to before, would you travel 'far distances' to try a unique destination?
• Please tell me the number one factor when determining what you will do when visiting a new city. 

Responses:

How early do you plan a trip in advance?

Katie, 23 - "Month to a month and a half"

Kasey, 18 - "At least 3 months in advance" 

Luke, 18 - "Depends on the trip, but usually 2 months in advance"

Trevor, 20 - "A couple weeks in advance, if it's only for a couple of days"

Kyle, 24 - As early as I can. Probably 3-4 months prior to the trip. 

When traveling to a new city that you've never been to before, would you travel 'far distances' to try a unique destination?

Katie, 23 - "Depends how much I wanted to visit it, but I would say so"

Kasey, 18 - "No, I tend to stay close to wherever I'm staying"

Luke, 18 - "I would travel up to 30 minutes to see something"

Trevor, 20 - "I like to stay close to my hotel"

Kyle, 24 - "If it's something I'm really interested in, yes"

Please tell me the number one factor when determining what you will do when visiting a new city.

Katie, 23 - "money"

Kasey, 18 - "money"

Luke, 18 - "time"

Trevor, 20 - "money"

Kyle, 24 - "group preferences, and what we all wanted to do"

After this process, I learned that people need a more efficient way of planning trips. Travelers are tired of searching and aggregating information for their trip. I will continue to pursue this idea and let everyone know when it's available to the public. 

What I learned about interviewing customers - try to never go up to people and ask them if you can ask them some questions. They get easily scared by these words for some reason. 

Elevator Pitch No. 1

Hello everyone - here is my elevator speech for the future of travel. Enjoy!