My Customer's Avatar

Above is the avatar I created of my prototypical customer. While my product has a large target segment which many types of people fall into- for this exercise I chose to focus on the customer that is a mom of five children. This mother is an extremley busy woman, in addition to raising her 5 children ages 6-18 she also works full time in sales. To fit all of her children and their busy schedules, she drives a grey van that even includes a fold out table. This van allows her to drive all of her children to soccer practice where she is a part time volunteer coach. Her children are extremley active and at some times she can feel overwhelmed. Her children keep her young at heart, and she loves to host parties for her children and her friends at their two story house.

Growing up the oldest in a family with five children, I relate to the chaos that becomes a daily expectation. I don't think it is a coincidence as I tried to create an avatar that represented large families which I did grow up in. These families, including mine, probably buy the large party bags of chips to feed all of the children which my product is based on.

Waottle

Waottle: A plastic bottle used to contain water to drink.

When I first introduced my 'new word' to my family- I did so discretely. Instead of saying "Hey, pass the water bottle" I would say "Hey pass the waottle". Of course, I knew from the beginning of this assignment that this wouldn't go so smooth with my family. At first they did a double take, and then laughed at my seemingly mispronunciation of 'water bottle'. However, as I kept using the word for the next two weeks, it quickly became something that was completley ignored. While I did continue to use the word, my family definitely did not adopt it into their own personal dictionary.

Halfway Reflection

1) Over the course of the class so far, I have used several behavior traits to get through. I use planning a lot, we have many assignments in this class and if I did not plan, I would likely be missing many of them. I also enact time management skills- this is not my only summer class and I need to set apart time periods to give this class individual attention.

2) So far, this class has proved to be difficult for me, not so much for content but for with time management. Like I mentioned above, I am also in FIN 3403 which demands great amounts of time to study. I have really struggled, and at times just all out mentally broke down, because of the stress of balancing these two very different classes. On top of that, I also have been moving down to Orlando to start a job with Disney. The moving process required a large chunk of my time, and now that I have full time hours it is inly going to get more difficult fro m here. Its important to not look at a list of things due on the same day and get overwhelmed. What pulls me through is knowing that soon I will have a degree from the best school, and I will not remember those little moments that seemed like I would not ever get though the stress.

3) The three tips I would suggest to upcoming students are as follows: 1. Work ahead. This is a class where you have the gift of creating your own schedule, do not wait until the less second or you will have a bad time. 2. Once you begin, it gets much easier. I could stare at the list of assignments for hours- dreading them. However, once I finally begin, it is so much easier to knock them all out. 3. Develop time management skills. As I said before, you are able to create your own schedule. Determine what works best for you and allocate your time wisely.

Need Awareness and Information Search

INTERVIEWS:

https://soundcloud.com/user-384275903/need-awareness-1

https://soundcloud.com/user-384275903/new-recording-10


https://soundcloud.com/user-384275903/need-awareness-3



SUMMARY:
Overall, all three of the people I interviewed had need awareness over the opportunity for resealable chip bags. All three of the interviewees preferred sources from the average person versus experts. The websites that they like to do they source search for are: Youtube, Reddit, Yahoo Answers, and blogs. What I found interesting is that all three said that family and friends is not a source that they use often. With living in a technological world, it is now easier to just do a 3 second search on Google whereas twenty years ago family and friends would have been a more frequently used source.

Reading Reflection No. 1 ...Week 7 Reading Reflection

The book I chose to read for the autobiography/biography portion of this class was Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson. 

1.

• What surprised you the most? Having never really researched or listened to much about Steve Jobs, I was really surprised to read about his early life. I never knew that Steve was put up for adoption because of the parents of his biological mother not approving of his biological father. However, what I think is most interesting about this is that his new adoptive parents are probably the earliest driving factor of how he became so successful. His father was an engineer and introduced Steve to engineering design and mechanics at an early age.

• What about the entrepreneur did you most admire? I found that I actually admired Steve Jobs' entrepreneurial spirit and motivation the most. When Steve and his partner, Steve Wozniak, creating the idea for the combination of a computer, keyboard, and screen all in one- Wozniak wanted to give the idea away for free, yet the entrepreneur in Steve pressed that they could make money off of it -and they did. 

• What about the entrepreneur did you least admire? What I least admire about Steve Jobs was his selfishness. Of course it a good to be a little selfish, like in the admiration I wrote above- it made him money and started one of the most successful companies, but there is a fine line to cross. When the girl that Steve Jobs was dating on and off got pregnant, he refused to recognize it as his own. I think this was a signal that he was getting to caught up in chasing his dreams that he wanted absolutely nothing to get in the way. He also continued to display selfishness, when he first was seeing success in profit- Jobs refused to give away any stocks to employees while his parter, Wozniak gave away most of his. He also berated employees for being stupid because he saw the world in black and white- people were either smart or they were idiots. 
• Did the entrepreneur encounter adversity and failure? If so, what did they do about it? I found so many example of Steve Jobs overcoming adversity and failure in the book. His abandonment in early life, having ideas stolen from him at gunpoint, his betrayal by Bill Gates, competition from IBM and Microsoft- and so much more. Steve Jobs powered through them all, he just kept going. I think it was his obsession with perfectionism that allowed him to pursue his goals relentlessly despite adversity and failure.

2. 

•  What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited? I think the biggest competency that Steve Jobs had was his actual mind. Steve Jobs was a visionary, and had the ability to see, create, and pursue like few others have ever had in the history of entrepreneurship.  

3. 

• Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.  While reading the biography, I was quite confused on why Steve Jobs kept hiring people above him. The book says that he felt he was too immature to run a company well, but that is so contradictory to the behavior of him. Jobs not only had more maturity above his years, but like I said before- he was selfish. I'm confused as to how a man so selfish and success driven was able to swallow the pride to hire somebody above him.

4. 

• If you were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur, what would they be? If I was able to, I would ask Steve Jobs at what point, if there was a point, did he realize he was meant to fully invest himself in entrepreneurship? I would also ask him if he thinks the entrepreneurial drive and motivation he had could be taught? I would ask these questions because with failure practically being a synonym to entrepreneur, I find it interesting to see what point you just decide you are going to go for it, and never stop when failure comes. I also would be interested in knowing if the characteristics of an entrepreneur could be taught, because so many people, myself included, could benefit from this.

5

• What do you think the entrepreneur's opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion? I think Steve Jobs is one of the best examples of hard work, and therefore I believe that he would be a total advocate for working your hardest. However, I think Steve Jobs would hold the opinion that you should only work hard where you think it matters, hence him dropping out of college despite his extreme intelligence. I agree with the first part, hard work will lead you to success, but I have an obsession with perfectionism and competition that does not allow me to pick and choose where I work hard. 

Idea Napkin No. 1

1. You. I am a college student at the University of Florida. This course is the first thing to introduce me to the entrepreneurial route, but I have had key personality factors my whole life that allow me have potential to be a successful entrepreneur. I am extremely goal oriented, I like to set big goals for myself. Once I have a well defined goal, I usually will get a bit obsessive over it. Making sure I do everything in my power to achieve that goal, so far most of my goals I do achieve. I also am very empathetic, which allows me to relate to consumers more and realize how they really feel about a problem or a product. Lastly, I am motivated. I believe that motivation is one of the biggest factors in many lines of work, especially entrepreneurship.

2. What are you offering to customers? I am offering to customers a resealable option on chip bags. I will be targeting large party bag size of chips. My product will be a full adhesive seal that extends the entire length of the chip bag. The seal will be strong, yet resealable as well. This will solve consumer needs by offering an option to instantly reseal a chip bag, preventing staleness before you have a chance to finish the bag. Currently, consumers have to rely on chip clips (which easily break or are lost) or just rolling the bag up.

3. Who are you offering it to? Currently I am debating on whether or not to focus the target on the manufacturers of chip bags. If I go this route, I have several decisions to make. I can form a partnership with one manufacturer that maybe does one brand of chip, or I can open it up to several types of brands. My target customer has the commonality that they all manufacture bags for chips, bags that do not have a resealable option.

4. Why do they care? Chip companies care because a resealable option gives them leverage over a company that does not have one. It also gives the image of higher end (well the most higher end you can get for a chip market). Customers will respect the product/company more and associate them with quality. This means profits have the potential to increase. Manufacturers care because that can bargain higher prices for adding in the seal, and it will be very easily to physically implement with todays technology.

5. What are your core competencies? Physically, what I have that no other has is an option to instantly reseal chip bags. I also have the advantage of being a college student where college students are a large percentage of the consumer makeup. I also have the motivation and drive to actually make it happen.


I believe that my 5 points on the idea napkin assignment do work well together. The only aspect that I believe is a weak point in the design currently, is meshing out who I will be exactly targeting in terms of manufacturer/supplier/company.

Tweaking the Innovation

My opportunity that I chose to extend on for the 'Tweaking the Innovation" is a resealable chip bag.

TWEAKING THE INNOVATION:

Sketch out the product/service mix:
The product is creating a chip bag with a resealable option. This product can be diversified as I can target multiple brands of chips or form a partnership with one brand.


The Benefit:
The benefit of creating the product of a resealable chip bag is offering consumers an immediate way to preserve their chip purchases from going stale. This benefits the consumer also because they would no longer need to purchase chip clips. Chip clips easily break and are easy to lose. The resealable option on the bag would also be much more effective than a chip clip as the adhesive seal would extend the entire lip of the bag- not like a chip clip would clip onto just the middle portion. It also is more effective than simply rolling the bag.

The Tangible:
A creating of a new chip bag for larger 'party' size chip bags. The bag would feature a resealable adhesive seal that extends the entire opening of the bag.

The Augmented:
If chip companies chose to buy the new design- they are offering customers a more compelling reason to chose their chip brand. If consumers chose to buy the bag, they are preventing their product from becoming stale and potentially saving money by no longer have to buy chip clips. They of course also save time as the seal is an immediate solution.



The tangible can be altered in terms of size of the seal used or even size of the bag used. The augmented can be altered by partnering with serval chip companies or just one.

Elevator Pitch No. 1

The opportunity I chose to extend on for the elevator pitch assignment was resealable chip bags. Currently the only options are chips clips (easily breakable and easy to lose) or rolling up the bag (ineffective).

My solution is to create an option for manufactures of large 'party' chip bags so consumers may immediately reseal the bag.

For now, I have been calling my company Chip Seals.


Below is the link to my elevator pitch. I am in the process of buying a new phone, so I did not have the ability to record video but will be able to for the next assignment.

https://soundcloud.com/user-384275903/elevator-pitch1