Half - way Reflection

Over the duration of this course, I've learned to be more assertive. I was very soft spoken and was quite uncomfraotbale in conducting interviews 

The Twenty Percent

 1. As an frequent customer when driving down newbury over the past two years, I decided to try and get an interview from the owners of CYM Coffee Co. I went to their coffee shop to interview them and ironically had someone interview them earlier that day, how funny! Their main target market at their shop is composed younger, but professional-aged men and women. Whenever I go, it is full of different grad students or individuals fresh in their careers. Their secondary market is younger adults. Customers commonly stop in on their commute to school or work, or the younger will come to catch a good study spot. This leads to a problem that occurs where the coffee shop will fill up fast since it has limited seating. Parking is also an issue and they run out os spaces quickly at peak times. 

Free Money

For this assignment, I decided to use the library to get feedback from various people. It may sound like a bad idea at first, but the library is home to diverse groups of students especially since midterms are this week. There is also the Starbucks located in Library West, so students are constantly moving about catching another cup of coffee to keep themselves sane.

With this location in mind I plan to have very quick and swift observations recorded, because they are in fact here to study and get work done. A simple answer to one question would be applicable in this situation because students would rather not waste time on an extensive survey or multiple questions. Although i have yet to conduct these recordings, a very broad question would be fun to use because various types of people will have different answers to the vague question.

Once offering the dollar for free as an incentive to conduct the short interview, I'd like to ask if they could switch that dollar with anything in this world.. what would it be?

Reflection: Giving away these dollars were much harder than expected, people and generally and society today has taught it that there is always a catch for something free and it makes it hard to trust people. I assumed it would be an easy question to conquer, but a bunch of students were stumped when I asked them.

Week 7 Reading Reflection

Rediscovering Market Segmentation

I was confused about the psychographics. The concept wasn't well explained at first and just claimed it wasn't effective.

I never realized how many different methods organizations take to perfectly adapt to getting the attention of their target market.

Elevator Pitch No. 2

This time I tweaked it a little to be more directed and adapted after my interviews, check it out.

(Just uploaded this finally because i cant seem to figure out why i cant rotate, technologically challenged.. so i gave up and here it is. Bear with me here)

My feedback from last time stressed the practicality and affordability for a subscription box directed towards college students with a lower budget. In my past interviews the customers also added that they wouldn't pay for it if it costed a lot. So, I added a potential decision for promotions geared for college students as it may create loyalty effect and they would be inclined to continue purchasing the boxes if they knew they were getting a price break.

Week 6 Reading Reflection

The 5 forces that shape Competitive Strategy

This is an interesting concept proposed by Michael Porter, who was a professor at the Harvard Business School.

Interviewing Customers No.3

In these next interviews I'd like to ask more centered questions about having subscription box, one directly geared towards my target market currently- college students. As a student myself, I know that money is tight and it's hard to commit to purchasing something new and unfamiliar it could be a risk that many aren't willing to take. Although I would like to know about the predictability of sales in my target market, I would like to get wide range of inputs from different kinds of people. I would still like to know the answers to these question in general about this business proposal.

Napkin Idea No. 1

Napkin Idea No. 1

Interviewing Customers No. 2

 I directed my interview questions towards the venture idea I am currently in the works of proposing. Instead of solving problems in general, that may turn out to be completely unrelated to my project, the questions were geared more specifically to the venture.

I unfortunately couldn't conduct the interviews the first time around, so this is my first time. If I had the chance to refine the setup of the interviews like many of my classmates had, i would leave more open-ended questions. I feel my target market was relevant, however.

I think interviewing people has taught me a lot of the expectations of customers and what I would need to tweak in order for it to be a successful product.

Some Tips:

1. Find people to interview that predict would be interested in your product. For instance, if you are selling beauty products it may be best to find women to interview rather than males.

2. Do not make specific questions have a yes/no answer. And if so, ask why. The more explanation there is to their answer, the better.

3. Make sure you inform them that this interview is going to be published. It wouldn't be good if the find out it is on the internet and didn't want it there.

Below are the 5 interviews I conducted, the last two wouldn't upload to here oddly so here is the link to them.

https://youtu.be/fzli5jjuJbQ
https://youtu.be/B8Xavf8gCFg

Week 5 Reading Reflection

Chapter 9: Assessment of Entrepreneurial Opportunities

I was surprised by how many people are actually producing start-up in one day. Even in just the United States, there are about 1500 of them per day. That would mean over half a million entrepreneurs are starting new companies yearly. I always knew a lot of people try to create new businesses, but I expected the numbers to be much lower.

Elevator Pitch No.1

I came up with a box subscription idea where college students around campus can begin to live a healthier lifestyle despite the college stereotype. Living as a college student, life can get really hectic and we tend to forget to take care of ourselves in the process. This subscription will enable students across the school to make healthier and thus smarter choices. Instead of heating up a cup of Easy Mac, per say, maybe they could eat the apple that was provided in the box instead. Or maybe even make a snack that came from the the wellness newsletter created by yours truly that comes with every box. It's a merely effortless and affordable way to live a lifestyle that everyone can benefit from both physically and mentally. I can't wait to see what is in store for the University Survival Box. Let me know what you think!