20A: Growing Your Social Capital
I. Joe
A) Joe is my uncle and was a manager of a transit bus company in New Jersey. He drives around New Jersey and understands the struggles of dealing with parking in a crowded city.
B) Joe is the Domain Expert because he has knowledge and experience of the ins and outs of transportation and vehicle services provided within a crowded city.
C) Joe is my uncle so I have had his contact information.
D) Joe mentored me in the pay-to-park services and how I could improve them. Joe's return expectation of me is to know how to talk to the services and include him as a partner when I start my business.
E) Joe is a very valuable resource, he possesses a lot of knowledge about this field and would be a great partner to have when creating my business.
II. Brad
A) Brad is a local restaurant owner in Gainesville. His target market is college students, which will be my primary market as well.
B) Brad is filling the market expert slot because he understands how to run a profitable business in a college town.
C) I had worked at Brad's restaurant for a period of time and was lucky to gain access on his methods of marketing.
D) I was employed by Brad, I provided a service which he paid for.
E) Brad is experienced in the market I am trying to target and will be a valuable resource when I begin marketing to my target audience.
III. Adam
A) Adam is a homeowner in Gainesville who rents out the empty parking space in his yard to local college students.
B) Adam is a supplier to the industry because he is the leaser of the peer-to-peer concept.
C) Adam is my girlfriend's father and it was easy to contact him through her.
D) I rent a room in Adam's home as well as one of the parking spaces and he is paid.
E) Adam deals with college students and understands the process behind providing a product such as a parking space.
Reflection: I believe this experience will be very valuable in understanding the logistics of pursuing a business in this industry. I will begin to think about how each person I meet can serve as a resource in bringing my vision to life. This experience has differed from my previous network experiences because I have not had to look as critically about the people I meet as I did in this assignment. In this assignment I had to determine who would play what role instead of simply understanding this person could be valuable to me in the future.
Thomas,
ReplyDeleteYou definitely have a good group of people there with experience and personal connections. I think that you chose three excellent individuals as each of them seems very likely to be able to assist you both now and in the future.
Hey Thomas, as always I love commenting on your blogs because they are always super clean and easy to read, therefore easy to digest as well! First, I think the three people you have chosen will be able to help you so much with your business! Having your Uncle Joe be not only an expert in his field, but also a family member would be a great help because he would be able to help you keep personal matters out of the business. For my expert I chose my aunt which I think is crazy because you chose your uncle! I think your other two people will also just help you stay well rounded and ready for everything that comes your way!
ReplyDeleteHey Thomas, really enjoy reading your blog posts because of the way you structure your writing. I think every person that you included in this post are valuable people to have for resources. You definitely looked for who would be valuable as of right now and who would be able to help for your service instead of being valuable in the future.
ReplyDeleteThomas, you have a wide variety of connections which is always a good thing! I also like how you know people in different cities. In the business word today, that is almost essential in being able to network with other people. You can easily find advise, job, or someone you can hire in the near future with knowing different people with different backgrounds. Keep up the good work!
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