Alternative & Post-Purchase Evaluation

Interview 1:   https://youtu.be/oe-nkQtDfUg
This interview gave me some insight that even though someone may think that price is more important that quality or style, when it comes to my service, quality is much more important. This tells me that there are some things that those who are on a tight budget are still willing to pay bigger money for because of their importance. I also mentioned my personal venture to her and she said that her specific age demographic would greatly benefit due to the college admission process.

Interview 2:   https://youtu.be/dYCxN9xqwXc
This interview was very telling about how our spending habits may change as we get older. At the beginning of our monetary independence (such as my first interview) we are very careful with our spending and oftentimes value price as the most important purchase option. But as we get more comfortable fiscally, we can value quality and style over price. I also learned that while shopping in person, this "interviewee" is very unlikely to seek advise from other people. When shopping online on the other hand, she is almost always checking the reviews from other customers.

Interview 3:https://youtu.be/721xokh-ibE
The person I interviewed here was over the phone so I apologize if the quality of the audio is not as great! This interview also solidified the importance of online reviews when making a purchase. This particular customer was the only one who preferred to shop in person rather than online. He said that he likes to have the options laid out in front of him rather than seeing them on a computer screen. He also mentioned that he seeks the advice/recommendation of others before almost every single purchase he makes. This shows the importance of the word of mouth!

Conclusions:
The most important thing I took out of these interviews is that as the age changes, purchase behavior absolutely changes as well. Another thing that I learned is the importance of online reviews. Many people do not bother with reviews when making purchases in person because they are able to see and try out the item themselves, rather than just looking at a screen. When it comes to my service, testimonials and reviews are going to be very important as it will be a completely online service with online results. This way, people will be more confident with their purchase. They will be able to know that they are not sacrificing quality or price.

Portmanteau - "Dogillow"

Dogillow! Have a medium to large sized dog and use him/her as a pillow or cuddle buddy???? You have used a dogillow. Super dumb but works in those situations where you are cuddling with your pet!

This word was really easy for me to use regularly because my dog is constantly lying on my couch with me and my other family members. He is a big chocolate lab and a perfect dogillow. Whenever any of us would be lying with him, I'd use the word. At first, it got laughed at. This is due to the words silly sound and concept. Neither of my parents ever used the word (except to make fun of it). But my sister used it! She was lying with Moose (my dog) and said "he's such a great dogillow!" I think that this word would actually catch on to people who love to share the couch/bed space with their dogs.



One dog using the other as a dogillow. 

Halfway Reflection

   
                                           

     I have really enjoyed the course thus far. I find it so hard to believe that we are already halfway done with the summer. There are many behaviors that this course has required me to use, as well as some that I have developed throughout the course. For one, keeping track of my schedule for this course has been crucial to succeeding. There are lots of assignments, and many require more time than I thought. I realized though, once I sat down and began working, the assignments were rather enjoyable. They have taught me how to think like an entrepreneur, rather than someone just looking for a good grade. I also have particularly enjoyed the requirement of commenting on other student's ideas. It has been really cool to hear about their particular ventures and hearing their comments about mine in turn.

     There have certainly been some times where I became very frustrated and felt like giving up. What comes to mind particularly is just the general idea that we have had to dig really deep into our ideas. Normally, I just would have thought of the idea and called it a day. This class has required me to basically analyze every little aspect of the idea, including conducting interviews. This seemed annoying at the time, but I now know that it is imperative for entrepreneurial success. 

     The first tip I would offer to someone who is going to take this course is: make sure you love your idea. If you aren't fired up about what you came up with, it isn't going to work out. There are dozens of assignments based off of your one idea, so you really have to be interested in fostering it and making it the best it can be. Secondly: be honest with your peer comments. Nobody likes hearing criticism, but it is imperative for success. Anyone can just say "great idea!" but that does not help the person in the slightest. Third: put yourself in the shoes of your customers. This is the number one best way to come up with new ideas for your ventures in this class. When I became stuck on my idea, I thought of myself as the customer. What would I want? What services would I benefit from? And more ideas came flowing! 

Reading Reflection No. 1

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

1. Elon Musk is really cool. Before reading, all I knew about him was that he invented the all-electric car, Tesla. What surprised me was his "ultimate mission." Elon Musk wants to put people on Mars. Not just for a visit, but he wants to create the technology that allows people to live on Mars. Upon entering what the author calls "Musk Land" aka the SpaceX headquarters, you see two large banners: one with a current photo of Mars and the other with Mars with trees, rivers and life. His ability to dream big is what I admire most about him. The ultimate mission is not just some wild fantasy that he hopes will come true. He ACTUALLY intends for people to inhabit Mars one day. He says that if he can leave this world with more confidence of humanity's survival, he will die a happy man.
Something I did not admire about him was his relationship with his family. He has been remarried more than once, and only gets to see his children a few times a week. I know there are many circumstances that involve these things and that he is a very busy man, but it still is upsetting to see that his work kind of comes before them.
Musk had a rough patch in 2008. Tesla Motors was on the verge of bankruptcy, SpaceX's third rocket failed to launch, and went personally broke (cash not assets). As we know now, things have turned around for Tesla Motors and Elon Musk's personal wealth.

2. Elon Musk has been bright since his childhood. The book goes into lots of detail about his home life as a kid in South Africa. Despite his emotionally abusive father and constant bullying throughout school, Elon excelled academically. His mother and friends described that he would "zone out" a lot, just staring off into nothing, his brain moving a mile a minute. He read books in a day. He read multiple copies of the encyclopedia just for the sake of learning everything he could about everything. He designed a video game at 12. Something that the book describes the most that set him apart from other innovators is his genuine passion for everything he does. One of the main reasons he was/is so successful at his ventures is because he fully immerses himself in each and every one. They become his livelihood. He even said that if he could omit eating from his life he would so that he could have more time to work.

3. One part about Elon that was confusing to me (this doesn't pertain directing to the book, but rather Elon himself), was his dietary choices. Elon tries to restrict himself to a "no-carb" diet. For someone so brilliant, these seems quite stupid to me. He would restrict himself so much that he would wind up binging later on due to deprivation. He should know that carbs are necessary (and one of the macronutrients we need the most)!

4. Questions I would ask Elon:
"If you could go back and change one decision of your life thus far, what would it be and why?"
I'd ask him this because I am curious if there are any regrets that he has. He has been wildly successful with what he has done, and I wonder if there is anything that he thinks he missed out on (besides PayPal).
"Do you wish your different companies were located more conveniently or do you like living in two different places?"
When traveling weekly to his Tesla headquarters, he literally "couch surfs." He does not have a residence there but rather crashes at various friends homes every week... Seems impractical to me but I'd love to learn more about how that dynamic works for him every single week while juggling a family.

5. I think that Elon's opinion of hard work is literally becoming obsessed with what you do. His projects take over his mind and his life. He lives and breathes his mission and I absolutely believe that is why he is so successful today. I do think that can be extreme though, as it appears to me he barely has time for his children and wife. In the book, he talks about his wife as a second "job," considering how much time he should allot to her weekly. I do not share that with him. I think that family should come first, job second.

Idea Napkin No. 1

1. Me
My name is Sarah Gies. I am from Rye, New York and currently a third year student studying Finance at the University of Florida. I hope to one day enter the financial services industry with a role in wealth management--preferably at a small, private firm. I have developed strong leadership skills through the various leadership positions I have held throughout my life. I also have strong interpersonal skills and am very organized and analytical when it comes to problem solving. I think that these skills will equip me well in terms of translating the wavering financial markets to helping people with their own personal assets. As for this class' venture, I think that it could play a role of helping me with my sales skills.

2. What am I offering to customers?
My service, which I've unofficially named iCleanup, will essentially "clean-up" the customer's online presence. These days, many people do not get hired because of inappropriate content on their social media profiles. iCleanup would manage the customer's various social media platforms, deleting and clearing out anything that could potentially ward off employers (or anyone that could inflict consequence due to online content). Another service we'd provide is perfecting the customer's Google search. With the usage of SEO's (search engine optimization), we could reorganize what shows up on the "top" or "first" page of Google when the customer's name is searched. That way the customer's LinkedIn, portfolio, blog, etc., would show up first rather than a Facebook page or an old MySpace account.

3. Who am I offering it to?
My target market would mainly be college students and post-grads who are seeking jobs and internships. This is generally the age-frame where people are applying for careers and it is also the age-frame where we would find the most incriminating content online (i.e. drinking photos, sharing inappropriate or offensive memes and posts, etc.). Through my interviews, I also found that students applying to college would also benefit from this service as colleges are now searching social media platforms before accepting new students. Another segment to target would be those who already have an established career, but would like a set of eyes on their name online. We would provide a service to them that notifies them when new content including their name appears on Google, and promptly hide anything that would harm their reputation.

4. Why do they care?
What you say online is much more dangerous than what you say to someone in person. Pictures are worth a thousand words. Every day you could hear a new story about someone getting fired or not getting the job because of an offensive Tweet from 2 years ago that they forgot about. Online presence is so important these days. I think everyone would benefit from this service.

5. What are my core competencies?
There are a couple companies out there that will help you look good on Google. But no companies have offered a service to clean out your social media platforms for you. There are many self-help guides on how to do this yourself, but some people don't have the time or patience to search through their social media from the START. This is the main thing that sets iCleanup apart from the competitors... we do everything, not just one service.

Overall, I think that my five aspects on this "napkin" fit together quite well. If there is an aspect that needs work, it is the part of customer retention. Once the online presence is cleaned up, I need a way to keep customers using the service. I thought of a subscription, that would allow people to pay monthly/yearly for constant online monitoring. This way, if anyone posts anything inappropriate/embarrassing/incriminating, we would remove it or notify the customer before anyone of importance could see it. I'm still figuring out how that part would work!

Testing the Opportunity Hypothesis: Part 2

Interviews:

Normally, I'd say the general population of people that fall inside my opportunity boundary are college students and those who are currently looking for a job. The majority of teenagers-twenty "somethings" could fall under this category. At first, I thought that people outside this age boundary would still find a usage in my ICleanup service because there are still many risks of having inappropriate things online when you are holding any professional position. For these interviews, I tried to mainly conduct outside that age range to learn as much as I could about the different groups that would potentially be interested in my service.

1. My first interview was with my dad, who is already well into his established career. I began by asking about his current social media usage and if there were any things on the internet that he was concerned about. His answer was what I imagined: no. He would have no interest in a service that would clean up his social media pages because they are completely clean and harmless already. So, i transitioned to asking about if he would be interested in the Google search monitoring service that allows him to be notified whenever something new shows up on Google of his name. He said that he is already subscribed to a similar alert system that tells him whenever there is a new post that includes his name. I explained to him that the difference was that my service would then take that information and if the post was inappropriate or reputation damaging, we would push it all the way to the back of the Google search so it would not be seen by a typical Google search. He said that he personally would not be interested, but that there are people that he works with that have had things published about them that are reputation damaging and do not paint them in a very good light. He said that these people would, in fact, be interested in a service that solves this problem. 

2. My next interview was with my sister, who is a junior in high school. This service seemed to be super beneficial to her, considering applying to college is one of the most worrisome times when it comes to social media. My sister explained to me that many of her friends would not be interested in the service because they have resorted to a different way of hiding themselves on the internet, such as changing their name on Facebook to something obscure and silly. For example, a friend named Sarah changed her name to "TriSarah Tops." This allows your friends on the Internet to still identify you but keeps the colleges from finding you and your inappropriate posts. This cracked me up and it made some sense. It is a short-term solution, which is what I explained to her. She then told me that though she does not need the service YET, it would be something that she and her friends would consider in the future because you can only change your name on Facebook so many times and you can't really be making your name TriSarah Tops when you are searching for a job...

3. Next, I interviewed a student that goes to another school. I figured since she was my age and also in college, she would fall right under my boundary for this opportunity. I asked about her social media presence and what she generally likes to post. She said that her number one posts are generally food and photos of her and her friends. She uses Facebook solely to keep up with old friends and relatives and she uses Twitter to get her news and other entertainment. When I heard the comment about posts with friends, I immediately thought that this was my key to sell this to her. Oftentimes, students post photos with alcoholic beverages. Even if you are of age, this is still a major turn off to many people in hiring positions. She then explained to me that her sorority has a very strict "social media policy." This means no photos at parties (drink in hand or not), no posts with curse words and nothing posted or re-posted with inappropriate content in any way. She explained that her sorority did this because of their reputation and the reputation of the girls. I think that that is awesome! But not for my venture ;)

4. This interview was conducted with a family friend who is a stay at home mother of four. I began asking the typical questions about her social media and Internet presence and she said that she posted lots of photos of her children. This sparked an interesting idea. I thought: I hated it when my mom would show my friends awkward photos of myself as a child. Maybe some things I can clear off of social media for people are not just inappropriate photos for work, but embarrassing photos as well! I continued to ask if she asks her children for their permission before posting photos of them and she quickly answered, "no, never." She said that usually her kids get somewhat annoyed, as long as they are not "tagged" in the photos and that they don't show up on their personal pages... This interview was super helpful for me. I could open up the service to also remove and clear out embarrassing photos that your family/friends have posted of you as well!

5. Lastly, I interviewed a recent UF grad. She also would normally be considered a prime target customer for my service because she is currently in the thick of job searching. She is an avid social media user and oftentimes re-posts many controversial articles that normally annoy people on the news feed sometimes, because it was just her being herself. Nothing was actually inappropriate (i.e. no drinking, no partying, no curses, etc.) and she was just posting a lot of opinionated things. She explained that she wanted to work for a place that accepted her opinions and her personality. I think that is a great point. 

Inside the Boundary	Outside the Boundary
College students People looking to get hired People with a job already who want to know what is being posted about them and when People who want a perfect online image	Those with perfect online images already People who don’t mind what is posted about them online People who don’t have careers/any reason to keep a perfect profile Children Elderly people
Need to remove inappropriate posts and photos of themselves on the internet Need to maintain a good internet image Need to make sure that when their names are searched on Google, only positive things show up first	The need is not to remove inappropriate things because there is either nothing inappropriate to be removed to begin with, there is nobody who would care if they saw inappropriate posts, or they do not mind that people see inappropriate posts. Or they simply do not use social media
Frivolous posting earlier on Posts by others that they personally cannot remove but we can push out of sight Things that they did not realize were inappropriate at the time	They don’t need anything removed because there are only good things They don’t need anything removed because they don’t use social media They don’t need anything tracked because there is no one searching for them on the internet They don’t mind that there are inappropriate things

*EDIT: For some reason the recording app that I used on my phone is not allowing me to upload to Soundcloud. I came back and made my interview descriptions much longer to make up for the lack of audio. Hopefully, this is ok.*

Elevator Pitch No. 1

Here is my elevator pitch for the newly named venture, ICleanup. Make yourself look like the most hire-able person on the Internet! 

Apologies for the awkwardness of this video:

https://youtu.be/sPF0NrwvLXc

Tweaking the Innovation

Tweaking the Innovation - Internet Presence Clean-Up Service

Revenue Drivers:

Facebook cleanup: 
Core: The benefit of knowing that anyone can look at your Facebook page and see nothing but a well-rounded, friendly, higher-able person.
Actual: Online service that gives each customer an exquisite online reputation. 
Augmented: A monthly/yearly subscription option that allows a constant monitoring of Facebook presence. This not only includes your personal page but also anything that others put up about you. We will alert you of these things and promptly remove anything inappropriate.

Twitter cleanup: 
Core: The benefit of knowing that your Twitter account will only feature interesting/funny/APPROPRIATE posts. Twitter is normally the #1 social media source that gets people in trouble!
Actual: Online service that gives each customer an exquisite online reputation. 
Augmented: A monthly/yearly subscription option that allows a constant monitoring of Twitter presence. This not only includes your personal page but also anything you are tagged in that is deemed inappropriate as well.

Instagram cleanup:
Core: The benefit of knowing that your Instagram only portrays appropriate photos that you wouldn't mind your grandmother seeing.
Actual: Online service that gives each customer an exquisite online reputation. 
Augmented: A monthly/yearly subscription option that allows a constant monitoring of Instagram presence. This not only includes your personal page but also anything you are tagged in that is deemed inappropriate as well.

Google search cleanup:
Core: The biggest part of my service with the most benefit. This benefit is that whenever your name is searched on Google, the things that you want your future employers/anyone to see will be appropriate things that benefit you (such as a LinkedIn page, online portfolio, etc.). No worries of things that you don't want to be seen showing up when you Google your name.
Actual: Online service that gives each customer an exquisite online reputation. 
Augmented: Again, the most important revenue driver of our service is the Google cleanup. This monthly/yearly subscription option would keep a constant monitoring of Google. Whenever something is posted that includes your name--you will be alerted immediately whether it is inappropriate or not. This allows you to have a constant monitoring of your presence on Google.

These items/different services can be introduced and sold as different services or as a package deal. For the different forms of social media, a client may have one platform that needs to be cleared out more than the other. In terms of the Google option, I would highly recommend the monthly/yearly subscription. This option allows me to sell the service to those who may not necessarily need a service to clean up their internet presence but are worried about what may be posted about them on Google. Many people are curious about what information shows up when they are Googled, and we can show that to them and constantly keep tabs on what they want open to the public or not.