18 - Create a Customer Avatar

"College Student that uses a bike to go to class." This customer enjoys biking for exercising and transportation. They don't have kids. They watch The Office and Game of Thrones. The customer doesn't have a car. They are about 19 years old. They feel 19 years old. I have many things in common with this avatar. I don't believe it is a coincidence. The product was created based on a need I have and I would be one of those customers. Therefore, I based the avatar on myself.

17 - Elevator Pitch 2

1) Elevator Pitch 2

2) All of the feedback that I received was positive so it was difficult to discern what needed to be changed. It was important to be told that my pitch did look professional and that I nailed all the necessary points. I took a don't fix what isn't broken approach with this pitch.

3) In my new pitch I mostly just changed my pacing with the words and added an additional closing statement.

15 - Figuring out Buyer Behavior # 2

The first person I interviewed told me that when it comes to bike safety, they would rather pay more for a product than cheap out and end up with the product failing when it comes time to actually use it. Higher quality is of most importance to him. He said it would be convenient to buy it online on Amazon which is where he already does most of his shopping. He said that what matters most to him is if it did the job it was meant to do. If it was a bad idea to buy a product then it is because it failed to do its main function.

The second person I interviewed said that she does not have much disposable income available so the price was more important to her. She said that as long as a product is cheap and does its job, she would buy it. She doesn't care for bells and whistles. She said that she would prefer the product to be sold at local shops where you can already buy bike equipment like helmets and bike locks. It would make for an easy choice when already buying the other accessories. She told me that with a single use product like mine if it works she's happy, if it doesn't she's not happy.

The third person I interviewed said that they buy based on bang for buck. She said that having good quality while possibly still having some additional features is very important to her as long as it is at a decent price. She said that if it were available to buy online or on campus, it would be very accessible to her and other students. She said that if the product works she will be satisfied and if it does not then she will be unsatisfied.

I have learned that the main thing I should focus on is quality while still trying to keep the price down. Price/performance will help my product stand out. Because my product is a fairly cheap device, cash is used. The product working is the only thing necessary for post-purchase satisfaction.

14A- Halfway Reflection

1) Tenaciousness is a competency. What are the behaviors that you have used (or developed) to keep up with the requirements of this course? 

I have learned to keep my own deadlines and schedule so that I can manage my time much more efficiently. I have also learned to be more willing to talk to strangers with the interviews that we were required to perform.

2) Tenaciousness is also about attitude. Talk about a moment or two when you felt like "giving up." What pulled you through? Do you feel like you've developed a tenacious attitude during the past two months? What experience or experiences most contributed to this?

I have not felt like giving up in the past two months but a moment when I did feel that in the past was when I was taking my accounting course. I was studying for an exam and nothing seemed to click. I was studying so much information and it seemed like it was never going to end. The thing that helped me pull through was remembering why I was doing this. I was taking the course for my betterment. Doing poorly would only hurt me and essentially be a waste of time.

3) Three tips. What are three tips you would offer next semester's student about (1) fostering the skills that support tenacity and (2) developing the 'tenacious mindset' ?

The three tips I would offer students next semester are to keep a schedule so that work does not pile up at a deadline. It will do wonders for decreasing your stress. The second thing students need to do is figure out their main drive for college and strive towards that. The third thing to be tenacious would be to set a semester goal. Setting short-term goals is helpful because they are easier to realize and can really help you on your way to your larger goal.

13A- Reading Reflection 1

1) 

I read the book on Elon Musk. I was surprised by the attitude that he had with his employees. He was often very harsh with his employees. He has fired some people that he really should not have. Most notably was when he fired his assistant Mary Beth Brown. She was essentially the same to him as Pepper is to Tony Stark. The thing that I most admired about Elon Musk was how he never wavered no matter how bad things got. At one point he had to live at a friends house and sell his own because his businesses had drained him of all his money. What I least admire about Elon Musk is how he had treated employees. I feel that had he kept some of them and maybe a little nicer he would have others to lean on and help him on his endeavor. Elon encountered adversity at almost every single corner of his life. In South Africa, he had a rough upbringing. In America, he made successful businesses but always struggled to get them to work. The one thing that kept him going was his personal mission to truly advance humanity and innovate. 

2) 

Elon Musk was always very smart and absorbed information very easily. He carried that into his new businesses where he would essentially have his engineers give him an information dump relative the project they were working on. He would be able to recall the information with remarkable accuracy. 

3)

The part of the reading that I found the most confusing was the part about his time in college. They left it very ambiguous and it was difficult to tell where he actually studied and for how long. 

4) 

I would ask Elon what he believes are the steps humanity needs to follow to become a fully space-bound species. The second question I would ask is what drove him to keep his dream alive when almost everything seemed lost. These two questions relate deep into his psyche, and I would love to know it.  

5) 

Elon's opinion of hard work is basically working so hard that your health starts to suffer from it. He believes working 16 hours a day is normal and what everyone should do anyway. I believe that the 16 hours alone would be plenty enough to consider hard work.

12A Figuring out Buyer Behavior 1

The market segment I am focusing on for this assignment is students with a bike as their primary method of transportation.

My first interview was with a female freshman at the University of Florida. She was telling me that she was late for class because as she was leaving Publix, where she bought her groceries, the sidewalk was very crowded and no one made any room for her to go through even though she was asking politely. She said that when she doesn't research a way to fix the problem. All she does is complain about it to her friends.

My second interview was with a male junior at the Univerity of Florida. He told me how whenever it was time for the class change it was near impossible to ride his bike because of the sheer amount of people on the sidewalk. He told me that whenever he bikes anywhere, he looks up if there is a wide bike lane so that he does not have to use the sidewalk and can avoid pedestrians.

My third interview was with a male senior at the University of Florida. He told me that in the past 6 semesters of going to school at UF he always had a hard time biking anywhere during class change because of the crowds. He says that sometimes he looks for bike lanes to avoid pedestrians, but that still doesn't help much because there are many students that jaywalk carelessly. These jaywalkers force him to stop abruptly. One time they even caused him to fall and scrape his leg because he lost balance as he was trying to avoid a collision.

The interviews all shared similarities in terms of where it occurred and most were around the same time. Information search was not very prevalent with them. This segment has the need on campus around class change time which is 15 minutes of every hour from 8am to about 5pm. They do not look for solutions to the problem apart from looking for bike lanes.

11A Idea Napkin

1. I am a second generation immigrant and have been raised by a family defined by hard work and devotion to its success. I aspire to lead my family further and set the standard for my cousins and siblings. I have experience with entrepreneurship as both sides of my family have their own businesses that I have spent time working in. This business would be at the forefront of my life and I would be solely focused on making it succeed. 
2. What am I offering customers? I am offering my customers convenience and safety. They will no longer need to struggle and stop their favorite activity because of ignorant pedestrians.
3. Who am I offering it to? I am offering it to customers that don't have patience, are fairly athletic, and are safety conscious. 
4. Why do they care? My customers will care because they all have the same mutual hatred of pedestrians that don't move out of the way and can put you in harm's way as you try to avoid hitting them.
5. What are my core competencies? What sets me apart from everyone else is that there currently isn't another product on the market that does what mine does. There are bike horns and bells but they don't work when people have headphones on which is the majority of pedestrians nowadays. 

I believe that my elements fit together. My hardworking nature is going to help develop the product and enable it to succeed. My potential customers definitely have this issue. All of their needs that I am fulfilling definitely do match up with why they care for it. The product allows them to exercise outdoors safely. Because the product is about safety and improving the quality of life of the potential customers, I believe that the 3 middle elements tie in nicely without any outliers. The core competency of my product is the reason that my customers would buy it in the first place so that ties in with the other elements as well.