Assignment 21 - Reading Reflection No. 2

1. What was the general theme or argument of the book?

The book that I chose to reading for this assignment was The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users by Guy Kawasaki. Overall I believe the argument that the book made was how important social media presence is for businesses, especially in today's society, and how correctly managing your businesses social media accounts can really help a business become successful.

2. How did the book, in your opinion, connect with and enhance what you are learning in ENT 3003?

Although the app that I have been doing my assignments about is not necessarily social media related I think that it does go to show you how much our digital connections influence today's society. I most likely would use social media to advertise my app, so it was also very helpful in that respect. Additionally, all of our assignments are submitted as blog posts so I think in many ways the book directly relates to our assignments in this class for that reason.

3. If you had to design an exercise for this class, based on the book you read, what would that exercise involve?

If I had to design an exercise for this class based on the book I think I would create an assignment in which students had to set up social media accounts for their business idea based on the knowledge this book provides.

4. What was your biggest surprise or 'aha' moment when reading the book? In other words, what did you learn that differed most from your expectations?

It's amazing to me how much influence social media has over today's society, but it also interested me that the book mentioned how seriously you should take your start up's social media posts and pages. I guess this makes sense as you do not yet have a reputation so you still need to build one. I always see larger brands like KFC or others posting smart or funny responses to posts, and after reading this book it kind of surprises me that they do that (as many companies have also gotten backlash for doing this and offending someone as a result).

Assignment 22- Elevator Pitch, No 3.

https://youtu.be/Zekpb-530fg

I did not have any comments on my last video, so I did not change anything based off of that when I recorded my elevator pitch this time around. However, I do think that I tried to make it a little bit more upbeat. I struggle with not being monotone whenever I speak (even when I took my public speaking class), and I noticed that I did not have very much variety in my tone with the last attempt. This time around I tried to vary my tone throughout the recording, and I think that the result came out much better. I did also have the pitch almost memorized this time around which I think significantly helped me. It also took me about half the time to record as when I did the first pitch because I felt much less awkward. Overall, I think that these exercises have helped my confidence with speaking in front of the camera a lot!

Assignment 20 - Growing Your Social Capital

1) Domain expert: I was able to contact a mutual friend named Joe via FaceTime to interview him about the idea that I have for ReFresh. He has learned coding and has previously created other apps before, so he has plenty of experience with that. I let him watch my elevator pitch and read some of the posts on my blog so as to get a better picture of what I am envisioning with the app. From what he said the app would be created in the way that I would like, although of course it would be a process of trial and error. He actually wanted me to give him an example recipe to try out for himself. Having Joe in my network could definitely help me come up with a flawless app design to draw in more customers.

2) Market expert: I previously worked for a wellness center in Orlando during high school. I was able to call my old boss, Tracy, and speak with her since she got her degree in Nutrition. She said she loved the idea that I had presented after seeing my blog and would love to partner with my if I created the app. As long as my idea comes to light she also said that she would help me come up with calorie counts, etc. for my proposed recipe ideas. This could help me so much, as all of her clientele would then have access to my app!

3) Supplier: One of my connections from the job that I had in Orlando had my frequently working with someone who supplied health food to a raw bar in the area, and I had a chance to sit down and talk with Deborah about my idea. She was of the opinion that my app would take off, and I will definitely be talking with her about my app idea more in the future so that we can coordinate. She also mentioned she would be happy to give me some of the recipes the raw bar uses and some tricks of the trade to making the recipes flavorful.

Reflection: I think that this assignment actually helped me in many more ways than I thought. I've always had an interest in nutrition and health food, but it helped me see how far your connections can really get you. All of the people I interviewed also seemed very interested in the idea and found it unique and refreshing, which as the idea supplier was extremely gratifying.

Assignment 19 - Idea Napkin No. 2

• Who am I?
• My name is Arielle Bloom, a 4th year Business Marketing student at UF. I also have a huge passion for food, whether that cooking, baking, or just eating. Before switching to business I was actually a culinary arts major! This was a huge inspiration for my app idea, ReFresh, because I have always loved coming up with crazy ways to make healthy food taste good. 
• What am I offering to customers?
• Within the app I am offering a database of healthy food recipes that take under 30 minutes to make and cost $20 or less for 4 serving sizes. I also plan to offer a map feature which uses the users locations in order to direct them to the closest quick eating locations that have cheap, healthy food options. Each location will then offer options based on calories, macros, vegetarian options, and overall "clean" eating options. This will give people who are on a budget but looking to eat healthy a good range of options based on what they want with their diet. That being said, I will charge a small fee to initially buy the app. 
• Who am I offering it to?
• Specifically, I am looking to market towards students and busy professionals (people who travel a lot). My target market is essentially anyone who has a tight budget or is low on time but is looking to lead a healthier lifestyle. 
• Why do they care?
• I think that ReFresh provides a feature that many health-food or diet apps do not provide, it relates to customers in a way that many others do not by putting a focus on time and money. Many Americans do not have much time or funds to eat healthy, or so they think, and ReFresh is looking to change that. 
• What are your core competencies?
• ReFresh focuses on providing a budget-friendly healthy lifestyle for customers.

• Since my last Idea Napkin I have decided to charge customers a small initial fee for the app in order to make some profit from the idea, but I would ideally like to keep the app costing under $2 per user. I think that these ideas do fit together pretty well and I think that there is a need for this kind of app.
• The feedback that I received was only positive, which led me to the takeaways that: there is definitely a need for this app, and I can also market to app to people that travel frequently which is something that I had not previously thought of. I believe that most of this feedback was already initially included in my first idea napkin since most of the comments made seemed to agree that the app would be of use. 

Assignment 17 - Elevator Pitch No. 2

https://youtu.be/XCOSZapwrgw

After reading over the commentary from my previous elevator pitch, I determined that I mostly received positive reactions from those who watched my video. I received good comments about my energy and how I dressed in my business clothing, as well as positive feedback about my app, ReFresh. Everyone seemed to relate to wanting to eat and lead a healthier lifestyle, but seemed to feel restrain based on lack of money or time as a student. Due to this, they were all on board and seemed interested in trying the app should it exist. They only thing that I did find I needed to change was that I originally mentioned the app as being free, but decided to change it to cost a small $1.99 fee based off of the fact that it would still be cost efficient while providing some sort of return to me as the designer of the app. I think that this is a very fair cost, and look forward to seeing how readers react to the price change in this version of my pitch. 

Assignment 18 - Create a Customer Avatar

My customer avatar is based on the prototypical customer that I have described throughout this blog, and today I will be describing more specifically the typical student looking to eat healthy on a budget (or without spending hours on meal prepping and cooking).

My character, I will name her Laura, is a student at a 4-year university between the ages of 18-23 years old, and she is involved heavily in on-campus life! She's a part of the business club for women in business and basically lives on campus, making it pretty difficult for her to eat healthy throughout the day.

She, like most girls, lives in leggings and her sweatshirt for most of the week and when she does have free time she likes to binge-watch Netflix or just chill with her friends. Basically, she does not have much free time and not tons of extra income to be spending $15+ on "healthy" meals to-go. She feels like she is just a typical girl for her age, but wonders how anyone in school has time to balance everything properly AND make time for their personal health.

I have a good deal in common with my customer avatar, and I believe this is because it is easier to determine opportunities for a target market when you are a part of that market. Essentially, you can determine what you need yourself and build off of that as long as others have the same needs as you. So no, I do not think this is a coincidence. I feel like overall I have a pretty good feeling of what my customers need based off of being a part of the target market myself.

Assignment 16 - What's Your Secret Sauce?

1) Describe five ways in which you think you have human capital that is truly unique. I think that five things that make me unique would be my sense of creativity, my love of learning and being a student, and also my sense of adventure. I love finding new ways to make things that aren't very fun a better experience. Finally, I also have a great sense of mediating conflict most of the time (something I learned from having a large, close family), and I am good at assessing every angle of a situation. For example, my mom went to get a new car and did not want to test drive a certain car because the sales person compared it to another car she had mentioned that she was not interested in. I saw the sales technique as him trying to up sell her, and asked to test drive it. In the end, she loved the car!

2) Interview the five people who know you the best.

I interviewed several co-workers and several close friends of mine, as I spend a lot of time at my job and we are like a huge family most of the time. 

https://soundcloud.com/interviews

3) Reflect on the differences. I think that most of the things I observed in myself were pretty accurate, but generally I think we are also our harshest critics and so there were also plenty of things that I did not expect to hear. I was really nice to hear that my co-worker, Jacqui, thought so highly of me. I would keep my list the same, however, I do think that they added some very kind points.

Assignment 15 - Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 2

• Find three people who would fit that segment and arrange to interview them. I interviewed three people for this assignment, Britney, who is a resident where I work who is a dental student, Jamie, who is in one of my classes and works part time as well as being a full time student, and Alec, who is a recently-graduated friend of mine that moved out of the Gainesville area for work.
• Begin with alternative evaluation. I found that price and the user interface mattered the most to those in my segment.
• How/where do they buy? They would buy the product online, either through the Apple Store or on an Android marketplace, and they would pay out of pocket. I do not believe I would need to provide financing due to the low price of the product.
• Post-purchase evaluation. I believe they would find gratification in leading a healthy lifestyle. The app is supposed to making the journey to a different lifestyle much easier and painless, so they would be satisfied based on the results of feeling better, losing weight, or whatever their personal goals may be.
• Report the findings.

Britney is a resident at the apartment complex that I work at, and we have become friendly over the time that she has lived there. However, I know that she struggles with her weight and eating healthily due to being in dental school. She has talked to me so many times about her level of stress and lack of free time in the graduate program. Of course, that came up when I interviewed her as well. She loved the concept of the app and did not seem to mind paying a small $1 or $2 fee for something that would be so useful to her. She did stress that the app would need to be easy to use, because she found many actual "diet" apps were not. 

Jamie is a busy undergraduate business student that feels like he rarely has time to cook based on having a job, being involved on campus, and being a full-time student. He was excited by my app idea for ReFresh, and said that the price would be more than worth it as long as the app did what I had mentioned. His only concern was that he uses his meal plan occasionally, so for college students I may also want to provide "the healthiest restaurants on campus" or something along those lines. 

Alec works full time now and has a hard time adjusting to the fast-paced life of Miami, so he was very interested in my app idea. Especially because his area already has so many options, he said it would be very nice to be able to narrow those down and know he's making a healthy choice. The price, for him, did not seem to be a factor. 

• Draw conclusions. Most of the people that I have interviewed did not care about paying a dollar or two for the app if it was as useful as I have led them to believe. I was a bit surprised by this, because I know sometimes college students are very budget conscious, especially if they do not have enough information about a product. They are much less likely to buy it. Ease of using the app seemed to be the biggest concern among respondents, so when creating the app I will make sure it is very straight forward and streamlined.