17A- Elevator Pitch No. 2

https://youtu.be/n9iKUQy5B5A

18A- Create a Customer Avatar

Because my product is food-based, I will have a varied customer pool but my most common direct customer will be food store managers, so mostly men and women of middle age.
 Direct Customer:
This is the avatar I created for my direct customer. I made him look like a Publix manager which would be exactly the type of people we would be hoping to sell to. Established supermarket corporations could give a great boost to the new and budding product I'd create. This is Steve, he is 38 years old, drives a silver 2014 Honda Civic, and has two kids. His favorite show is Cops, since he is a virtuous and by-the-book person, which is what led to him getting a job as a manager in the first place. He doesn't tend to follow politics particularly closely aside from the presidential elections every 4 years, but he tries to vote with who he most believes represents him. He does tend to follow sports, where he is a big fan of the home-teams, and even started a "Jersey Jam" where once a season, he allows employees to wear a jersey of their choice under their Publix vest.

I think the main thing I have in common with this customer archetype would be my virtuosity and by-the-book nature. This would help me in appealing to my customer base by approaching them in an organized and uniform fashion that will make transactions between their corporation and mine smooth and painless. I don't think this is a coincidence. Although entrepreneurs are viewed in a spontaneous light, it takes a great deal of organization not just to form a company from an idea, but to also lead a company that has already been established.

15A- Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 2

Segment: Buyers for personal need

1. Harrison Steele (UF student)

Sabrina Martinez (Santa Fe Student)

Austin Clark (Nursing Student) 

2. Alternative evaluation:

Price point was certainly a factor that couldn't be ignored across all 3 interviews, even though it was no the most important to all 3 interviewees. Sabrina admitted that price, of course, plays a part, but she mainly buys produce based on word of mouth and familiarity since she knows how to cook a set amount of dishes from what she ate growing up. So particular brands already have a foothold on her purchase, and it would likely take her trying the new product and knowing it was solid before switching. Harrison cared most about price since he is going to school mostly on loans and tries to limit where he spends as much as he can to allow himself to pay off some of the loans from his job while still paying living expenses. Austin cared about price to an extent but cares about quantity and quality equally since he prefers to buy in bulk, and of course, wants his food to taste good above all else.

3. How and where do you buy?

All three do most of their shopping at local supermarkets like Publix, super Walmart and Sam's club. Austin said he occasionally buys pre-proportioned meals online that come with the raw materials needed to prepare it. The other two said they were open to other types of purchasing but normal retail is most natural to them. 

4. Harrison considers his purchase solid if he got a good value on the produce, i.e. he used all of the food but still had plenty of money left over to afford the rest of his groceries. Sabrina and Austin cared most about taste, where if the food they made tasted great and they didn't break the bank in the process, they were satisfied.

5. It definitely is evident from these interviews that price matters and it matters a lot since all three mentioned it, and most customers often compare prices when deciding between two similar products.

However, the method was eye-opening for me because I wasn't aware of the pre-proportioned meal process, and definitely think it would be a good idea to capitalize on it. 

6. Conclusions: This segment is a strong hybrid of price and quality. Based on these interviews I should evaluate the price point of hydroponics. Since at face value it will likely be more expensive I will have to accommodate for this likely either through value campaigning of the difference it makes for the environment, or alternative forms of purchasing like partnering with pre-proportioned meal makers, or selling directly to customers in bulk, which is cheaper than retail sale. 

14A- Halfway Reflection

1) I believe this course has helped me develop more discipline as it relates to my studies. This class is worth 4 credits and receiving an A would be great for my GPA, but also the lectures and assignments have been interesting to me, so I have been motivated to complete work in this class more so than a lot of my coursework in college thus far. The assignments are due on a pretty consistent basis so I have a solid schedule of when my work gets done that I rarely stray away from.

2) I haven't really gone through any genuine feelings of wanting to give up or drop this course, but I have had times where I was behind in work and had to consider how I would be able to get all the work done for the due dates and times. What pushed me through was remembering how much this course will help me moving forward and reminding myself that I will only make it through college with concentrated efforts even when it feels easier to allow myself to fail.

3) My tips for future entrepreneurship students are:
-Make outlines:
It's hard to work ahead but it's easy to make outlines. Many of the assignments in this course are step by step or numbered. By outlining these you can prime yourself to work ahead by only having to fill in blanks rather than starting from scratch.
-Challenge yourself:
The guidelines for assignments are pretty broad, so encourage yourself to go beyond the minimum requirements. Write 100 more words than the requirement, watch all of the videos, make the most fleshed-out blog. This always helps you do better grade-wise, but also get in the right mindset of an entrepreneur.
-Go to lecture:
This class is technically entirely online but I advise going to lecture if you are capable of doing so. Interacting with the professor by doing in-class activities and answering questions creates a much more memorable learning experience.

13A- Reading Reflection No. 1

1) Andrew Carnegie- David Nasaw
-What surprised me the most was: His gain of wealth through the now illegal process of insider trading
-The thing I admired most was: Carnegie's advocacy for world peace
-The thing I least admired was: his use of unethical methods like manipulating deals and shares by printing false certificates
-Carnegie encountered adversity and failure when he bought two British patents on new railway making methods that proved to be useless. He lost a great deal of money from this but learned from the mistake and continued with his steel business.

2) Carnegie's Competencies were: a high aptitude for math and an impeccable memory

3) Confusing part: The concept of insider trading was foreign to me at first and took a bit of personal research to wrap my head around.

4) Two questions:
-When did you feel closest to giving up and why didn't you?

-Once you rose to prominence as a tycoon what drove you towards philanthropy?

I chose these questions mostly out of curiosity for some of the personal fuel behind Carnegie's public decisions

5) Opinion of hard work: I believe Carnegie believes in the idea of well-positioned hard work. as a former accountant and railroad manager, he likely experienced a lot of tough work without particularly large yields but by channeling his talents into the right areas he saw great success. I share this idea, recognizing the need for hard work to get anywhere significant but also working smarter and not harder so your efforts aren't wasted in areas they're not needed

12A- Figuring out Buyer Behavior No.1

1) Segment: Restaurant owners

2) Pita Pit Manager: Austin Sharp
    Chipotle Manager: Dave Shield
    Bento Cafe Manager: Jon Chesney

3)Need Awareness: The most common thread between all of these managers was the times in which their need is most apparent. When food products are out of season is when their need is most apparent, not only because of cost differences, but also the dwindling supply of the food product itself.

4) Information Search: The interviewees often did not have a clear exact action as to how they respond to this need. Som instruct employees to be more sparing with scarce foods, others continue business as usual and try to suggest other items to customers if they run out.

5) Report:
What I learned from these interviews is that there is a particular need for businesses when food is out of season. My business can capitalize on this need since hydroponic growing with temperature control can allow me to put out the same number of crops year long. In response to this need for restaurants, we can ramp up production of out of season crops to ensure that there is high demand for whatever is coming out of the vertical farm.

6) Conclude:
Restaurant owners won't make up the entirety of my clientele but by specifically targeting this need by focusing production on out-of-season crops, I can acutely increase the profits of my business.

11A- Idea Napkin No. 1

1) Me: Brandon McKay, skilled with organizing large amounts of information, and delegating workloads based on assessed individual talents. My related experiences include working as a shift leader at two food-oriented jobs during my time in college and creating an automatic watering system for plants in a class project

2) Service: My service is going to provide green, local, sustainable food crops to processors, grocery stores and independent businesses by hydroponically growing foods like corn and soy in temperature-controlled skyscrapers.

3) Who: My service will be similar in clientele to a farm, servicing markets that will sell the product raw and food processing plants that will use it as an ingredient.

4) Why Care: The value of my service is sustainability and propriety. We don't wear out the soil by growing horizontally, nor do we outsource the transportation of crops since it will be sold locally

5) What the others don't have: Other vertical agribusinesses don't have proprietary transportation that will allow for a quicker and easier process to get food from the building to the consumer.

I believe these elements will work together well most specifically my organization skills with what makes the business stand out, since it will require an efficient organized system to assure that transportation of crops is both accurate and prompt. Also, the clientele will contribute to success since its a constant and well-established group of people who will require my services.