20A - Growing Your Social Capital
1.) The first person I contacted as a domain expert for my industry is a restaurant owner/family friend. As Restaurant owner of 20+ years, Christina knows a lot about the value of time and how important it is in creating value for your customers. Adding convenience to people's everyday lives is a crucial part of running a restaurant, especially a fast food restaurant. I reached out to Christina after reading over the assignment to gather her thoughts on my idea for an app that would inform people of wait times at restaurants in their area. We exchanged emails for a few days and she offered some ideas on how to improve my app and add value to my product. Including her in my network will help me to exploit this business opportunity by adding an experienced opinion to my idea.
2.) The second person I contacted as an expert on my market is a friend of mine that works for Uber Eats, another app-based service that creates value for people by saving them time in their day by shortening the length and hassle of mealtime. I contacted Andrew over the phone and shared my idea napkin with him. Throughout our conversation, Andrew offered his opinion on my idea to create an app that would save people time in the dive-thru/waiting rooms of restaurants as well as save them a trip to an overcrowded restaurant. We brainstormed ways to make it stand out from other apps like Uber Eats and Postmates. Including Andrew in my network will help me to create a business that stands out from the rest of the companies with similar ideas.
3.) The final person I attempted to contact and was unfortunately unable to get a response from before writing this is a family friend of mine who designs apps and therefore supplies the technology needed to start businesses like mine. Randall was contacted via email. I gave a brief description of what I was interested in creating and asked for his feedback on my business idea. Adding Randall to my network would greatly enhance my ability to exploit this opportunity. He would be able to make my idea come to life and offer unique suggestions for ways to increase the usefulness of my app.
1.) The first person I contacted as a domain expert for my industry is a restaurant owner/family friend. As Restaurant owner of 20+ years, Christina knows a lot about the value of time and how important it is in creating value for your customers. Adding convenience to people's everyday lives is a crucial part of running a restaurant, especially a fast food restaurant. I reached out to Christina after reading over the assignment to gather her thoughts on my idea for an app that would inform people of wait times at restaurants in their area. We exchanged emails for a few days and she offered some ideas on how to improve my app and add value to my product. Including her in my network will help me to exploit this business opportunity by adding an experienced opinion to my idea.
2.) The second person I contacted as an expert on my market is a friend of mine that works for Uber Eats, another app-based service that creates value for people by saving them time in their day by shortening the length and hassle of mealtime. I contacted Andrew over the phone and shared my idea napkin with him. Throughout our conversation, Andrew offered his opinion on my idea to create an app that would save people time in the dive-thru/waiting rooms of restaurants as well as save them a trip to an overcrowded restaurant. We brainstormed ways to make it stand out from other apps like Uber Eats and Postmates. Including Andrew in my network will help me to create a business that stands out from the rest of the companies with similar ideas.
3.) The final person I attempted to contact and was unfortunately unable to get a response from before writing this is a family friend of mine who designs apps and therefore supplies the technology needed to start businesses like mine. Randall was contacted via email. I gave a brief description of what I was interested in creating and asked for his feedback on my business idea. Adding Randall to my network would greatly enhance my ability to exploit this opportunity. He would be able to make my idea come to life and offer unique suggestions for ways to increase the usefulness of my app.
Reflection: The focus on 'targeted networking' in this exercise will help me in the future to make connections with the right people. In the end it is more important to have the right people in your network rather than the most people in your network. Especially when you are just starting out with a brand new business idea.
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