14A- Halfway Reflection

For this exercise, I'd like you reflect on the past two months. In your post for this exercise, pretend that you're talking to a student from next semester's course. What would you tell them?

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

This course has made me develop a strict time management skill that help me organize my work. This course has helped me in almost every aspect of my current business life. I’m more prepared now for things like elevator speeches then ever before. Before this class I couldn’t even do an elevator pitch. 

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 felt very down when I felt overwhelmed with all of the assignments in all of my courses. I’m taking a lot of classes that are rigorous this semester but I grinded it through and got everything done in time. Again that time management piece was crucial. 

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' ?

1.   Work on skills taught in lectures

2.   Develop a tenacious mindset by setting goals

3.   Developing reasonable goals that are attainable with hard work and effort. 

13A- Reading Reflection No. 1

·       Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, Ashlee Vance

1) You read about an entrepreneur:

·      What surprised you the most?

I was very surprise that Elon Musk came from such humble beginnings. 

·      What about the entrepreneur did you most admire?

I admire his dedication and perseverance. Even with his struggles of being bullied and not making money he kept going until he made it. 

·      What about the entrepreneur did you least admire?

I feel like his contestant desire of not being satisfied is what I least admire of Elon Musk. 

·      Did the entrepreneur encounter adversity and failure? If so, what did they do about it?

Elon used his intelligence to get out of South Africa and into America to start his dream. 

2) What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited? 

Leadership, Communication, and Creative thinking

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

I’m confused why Paypal took off when there was more than one company like his. 

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

What keeps you going when you already are a billionaire? Will you fly to Mars?

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

I believe he thinks hard work isn’t hard if you love what you’re doing and it has a purpose. 

12A – Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 1

Interview 1

Interview subject 1 was in a entrepreneur with the needs that are presented with my service. They owned an app that uses views for cash. 

His needs awareness was when he paid for a low level programmer to program his app and he was paying him way too much. He later found out about my service and saw first hand how cheap out of country labor for programmers where. 

Interview subject 2 was a business owner in Gainesville. He overpaid for his website and found cheaper labor on Fiver.com he later told me if he saw my service he would have taken it in a heartbeat. 

Interview Subject 3 was a student that works on websites and likes my idea. He knows that people will need my service. He says he is planning on starting his own app and will want to use my service instead of paying twice as much 

These interviews helped me understand my future clients and customers and their needs. After these 3 interviews I also understood my segment very well and information search.

11A- Idea Napkin No.1

1)    You. I believe I have a talent when it comes to marketing. From my previous experience watching and working in business I know how they run. I see this business being successful and meeting the unmet need in the market. 

2)    What are you offering to customers? My service will get people connected to cheap and effective programmers from around the world. This is an unmet need because programmers in the USA are way too expensive.  

3)   Who are you offering it to? I’m offering my services to anyone who needs a programmer on a budget. This means most of my customers will be small business owners who wants cheap programs build for websites. 

4)   Why do they care? Customers will pay for my product because its almost twice as cheap as a regular programming service.  

5)   What are your core competencies? My service is set apart because my service will have superior customer service, and I will hold my employees to strict quality control.  

I believe all five of these elements show how effective my service will be. All five of these elements work together perfectly to show how my service will meet an unmet need in the market. I don’t believe I have many weak points because of my quality standards. I will have to see how the market reacts to my service for further analysis. 

10A-ELEVATOR PITCH NO.1

9A- Testing the hypothesis, Part 2

Interview 

1. (Business owner over phone) this man I interviewed owned a small e-commerce business. He told me I had a great idea, but he uses the platform Shopify which comes with a compilatory easy to use coding system to build their website. 

2. (Computer science student at UF) She thinks that the idea can’t work because people are making coding very easy with free easy to use websites like code.org almost everyone in the future will know code. 

3. (English Major at UF) He thinks that the idea is immoral and that we should not exploit cheaper labor from outside the US. 

4. (Finance major at UF) She thinks that my idea could be huge, but she believes it won’t be sustainable because minimum wages in those countries will go up.   

5. (Business owner in Gainesville) He thinks that my idea was good but won’t use it because he wants the best of the best coders for his website for his quality of his customers. 

My conclusion:

Who: People who want premium websites that don’t want a cheaper option for their programming needs. 

What: The desire they had of a programmer was there, but they wanted a premium service which I didn’t offer. 

Why: The only difference I saw between the outsiders of my boundary and the insiders was their priority. 

I found a lot of great things in my interviews and take everyone’s feedback to heart. Included bellow if my columns and charts. 

Inside the boundary

Who is In- People who want good programmers at an amazing price

What the Need Is- The need is for cheap quality programmers Why the need exists- Prices for programmers to build websites in the United States is way too high compared to programmers outside the USA.

Outside the boundary

Who is Not- Companies that are huge like Apple or Microsoft that need the best of the best programmers

What the Need Is Not- This is not the “Dollar store” of programmers

Alternative Explanations- People are comfortable with non-Americans programming their websites.