Assignment 20A - Growing Your Social Capital

Domain Expert

1. Who they are and what their background is.
1. Damien, area coordinator for the Continuum
2. How this person is a domain expert: 
1. He coordinates housing with the Continuum on behalf of UF. The Continuum is currently the only UF housing affiliate that is off campus. This is what I am looking to build on.
3. A description of how you found the person and contacted the person. 
1. I found this person through the UF housing website and emailed him at the email provided. 
4. The nature of the exchange you have with the person -- what favor did they do for you? What is the return expectation? 
1. He listened to my service idea and answered any questions I had about the logistics of the Continuum’s affiliation with UF. He seemed very excited to talk about his job. 
5. How will including this person in your network enhance your ability to exploit an opportunity? 
1. Including them in my network would enhance my ability to follow-through with my idea in terms of logistics. For instance, they can help me figure out how to get started, who to speak to, etc.

Market Expert

1. Who they are and what their background is.
1. Matthieu is a fifth-year UF student, who will be graduating this December. 
2. How this person is a market expert: 
1. This person is a market expert because they are graduating this December and have been through the process of searching for flexible leases. 
3. A description of how you found the person and contacted the person. 
1. This is one of my friends so I just texted him. 
4. The nature of the exchange you have with the person -- what favor did they do for you? What is the return expectation? 
1. The encounter was casual. I told him that I will most likely end up only needing a lease for a semester during my senior year, so I was curious as to processes he went through/complexes he looked at. 
5. How will including this person in your network enhance your ability to exploit an opportunity
1. He is a great representation of the opportunity I am trying to exploit. Since he has been through a flexible lease search, he represents the market with the unmet need and exhibits the extent to which a prototypical customer is interested in my proposed service.

Industry Supplier

1. Who they are and what their background is
1. Stacey is a manager for one of American Campus Communities’ properties.
2. How this person is an industry supplier:
1. She is an industry supplier because she is a manager of an apartment complex. She said she is always looking for ways to improve the living experience and would be open to hearing my idea. Stacey added that American Campus Communities is focused on providing comfort to their residents, and that is typically why they try to remain close to college campuses and out-price its competitors.
3. A description of how you found the person and contacted the person.
1. I work in the leasing office, so this is my manager.
4. The nature of the exchange you have with the person -- what favor did they do for you? What is the return expectation? 
1. Since I work in the leasing office, Stacey always wants to hear my ideas. I gave her my pitch and she seemed interested, but is worried about the feasibility and the profit margin of such an idea.
5. How will including this person in your network enhance your ability to exploit an opportunity
1. Once I get my service up and running, I think it would be smart to start with this apartment complex. It has a mission that is designed to provide comfortable living for its residents and the complex is close to campus, which is one of the things that students look for when applying for UF off-campus housing.

Reflection

• Targeted marketing is difficult, but I think it is extremely beneficial. It helped me work out some the logistics and allows people in your market or industry voice their comments on the service and its feasibility. For instance, the industry supplier mentioned that my service is definitely ideal but it might be hard to get apartment complexes on board if they aren’t seeing a profit. Additionally, targeted marketing can be difficult because some people you reach out to may not be cooperative. I was lucky to not have experienced this!

Assignment 19A - Idea Napkin No. 2

• You. Who you are. What your talents are. What your skills and experiences are. Also: what are your aspirations? Specifically regarding your business concept, how do you see this business (if you were to start it) playing a role in your life?
• My name is Izzy Chigurupati. My name is Izzy Chigurupati. I am an Accounting major here at the University of Florida and I hope to be doing my Master’s in ISOM starting next year. My skills and talents have stemmed from my experiences thus far. I usually must do a lot of things by myself and I would say that this has caused me to be very driven. When I talked to the people closest to me, they agreed that I am a problem-solver and very driven. 
• These qualities make me want to have every aspect of my life planned out. This is what led me to my business concept. If there was a service that paired UF with off-campus housing that resulted in flexible leases for us, the student body, a lot of financial stress would be alleviated. I would be able to not worry about finding a summer sublease and could use that money to pay for the next step in my journey which is my master’s degree. 
• What are you offering to customers? Describe the product or service (in other words, how you'll solve customers' unmet needs).
• This did not change. I am offering a service in which UF partners with off-campus housing. This can result in flexible leases for us. This solves many unmet needs such as international students who only need housing for a semester, parents who are worried about their children being homeless during Summer C finals week, and those who have trouble finding sublets and face a money deficit (i.e. end up paying two leases at once).
• The only feedback that I have received in terms of improving my idea is regarding cleaning the apartments. I think this would solve itself because any housing that pairs with UF would have to have higher cleaning standards. 
• Who are you offering it to? Describe, in as much detail as possible, the demographic and psychographic characteristics of your customers. Think especially of this question: what do your customers all have in common? 
• This aspect might change in the future. Currently, I am offering this to UF (and possibly Santa Fe) students who are not Gainesville-native. This entire category has the fact that they need housing (and thus flexible leases) in common. Another category which may substitute the students would be the parents/guardian of the students, if they pay for their child’s housing. According to some feedback I received, this is a problem for other institutions so I may be able to expand my service to other college towns.
• Why do they care? Your solution is only valuable insofar as customers believe its valuable to them. Here, explain why customers will actually pay you money to use your product or service.
• The customers would pay to use this service because of the convenience. For instance, an add-on fee of $200 for a flexible lease is still substantially less than having to pay for months of unoccupied rent space and it beats being homeless. Even the feedback I received was regarding how people personally have been victimized by the housing problem. 
• What are your core competencies? What sets you apart from everyone else? Also: what do you have that nobody else has? 
• What sets me apart from everyone else is the novelty of my idea, as well as the statistics I used to support my idea initially. For instance, I cited in my elevator pitch that over 70% of undergraduate students live off-campus which means that they face these problems regularly. It also means that there is a huge untapped market for UF. The only part that I feel that my business concept is weak is that my service depends on cooperation from UF. I know that UF is spending money renovating dorms right now as admittance numbers go up and we trek to a top five public school, but convincing UF to pair with off-campus housing might need lucrative support and could take a while to implement.

Feedback Memo: 

• One piece of feedback that I incorporated into my idea is to address the cleaning issue. Apartments currently don’t do a thorough job of cleaning between lessees, but this is something I am hoping will solve itself when apartments pair with UF housing. If not, I will attempt to address that directly. 
• Another piece of feedback that I have including is expanding the market. As my idea launches into effect, I would like to keep my market small (aka just in Gainesville). That being said, I think there is true potential to expand to other college towns in the future.

Assignment 17A - Elevator Pitch No. 2

Check out my new pitch here!

Reflection of feedback: Based on the feedback that I received, I was able to pinpoint some things that I conveyed well and others that could use improvement. For instance, my hook correctly pulled on people’s empathy strings and I effectively was able to establish pathos. I also tried to incorporate gestures into my pitch so that my pitch wouldn’t appear rigid and that was another aspect that I received good feedback on. The most useful feedback was to clarify my solution, which I tried to do this time around. 

What I changed, based on feedback: I clarified my solution. It was unclear whether I whether I was suggesting that UF pair with off-campus housing or buy entire complexes in order to provide the flexible leases. This also had the added benefit of adding some length to my pitch. My pitch the first time around was about one minute and the clarification added about 20 seconds, to achieve the optimal length of a minute and half.

Assignment 18A - Create a Customer Avatar

My service can theoretically have two segments of customers: the student or their parent. This depends on how proactive the student/parent is. For the sake of this exercise, I am going to focus on the parental segment. 

She is a Florida Alumna and excited to have her son follow in her footsteps. She is fifty years old, so UF looked vastly different back in her day. That being said, she’s excited to have her son commit to UF so that she can pass on her wisdom. She drives a 2008 Honda minivan and reminisces about the days she had to drive her little boy to and from football practice. She occasionally enjoys a good issue of People magazine and has a pet pug. Some people say that she is bubbly and easy to be friends with. She watches House Hunters, Grey’s Anatomy, and Ellen in her free time. Basically, she’s a perfect date for a wine night. Others say that she is a helicopter parent, but she’s just worried about her only boy leaving for college, hundreds of miles away from her.
 

This picture was taken from Rosemary’s Twitter account (@roasty194). The woman on the left is representative of the customer avatar that I am picturing for my service.

What do I have in common with her? I think that I also can tend to be helicopter-y. I am the kind of person who likes to have everything planned out (e.g. where I will be living next year, how I want things done, etc.). This tendency will probably result in me being a concerned parent, similar to my customer avatar in the future.

I don’t think this is a coincidence. I came up with this service because of hassles I’ve faced with housing that I would have liked to avoid. I think that my customer avatar would also like to avoid these hassles with her baby boy.

Assignment 16A - What's My Secret Sauce?

Five ways in which I think I have human capital:

1. Direction – I have a clear sense of direction in terms of what I want out of life aka career, family, etc. I think this is a unique quality to have because a lot of people tend to waver on what they want (e.g. how some people switch their majors frequently or job hop).
2. Loyalty – I am loyal to my friends and family. I have unwavering faith in them and would stand up for any of them. That being said, I can still identify their strong suits and their shortfalls so that my faith isn’t misplaced. 
3. Expressive – I tend to always express what I am feeling. This means people can often read my face to see how I am feeling. Although this can be a shortfall, it has been an asset because people often view me as trustworthy since they can get a good read of me. 
4. Competitive – While this can be viewed as negative, I think it is beneficial because it gets results (and it’s all done in good fun). 
5. Sociable – I tend to make friends easy. 

Interviews:

Recordings can be found here.

Reflection:

I interviewed five of my closest friends and I think that my view of myself is similar to how they view me. A lot of the words they used to describe me were synonymous with things I said about myself. This makes sense because I would think that, if anyone, my closest friends have an accurate perception of me.

One interesting thing that I learned from one of my friend’s interviews is that my loyalty to people depends on their loyalty to me. I think that I can be a great, loyal friend but it ultimately depends on if I feel that will be reciprocated. If I could change anything from the list, it would be the loyalty part; I’d clarify this point.

Assignment 15A - Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 2

• Find three people who would fit that segment and arrange to interview them.
• Similar to last time, I am focusing on the segment of parents of UF students. Interviewee #1 has a child who just signed a lease off-campus for his sophomore year. Interviewee #2 has a child in graduate school in need of housing for one semester. Interviewee #3 is the parent of a child in a sorority. 
• Report the findings. 
•  Begin with alternative evaluation. In this step, your job is to figure out how they do their picking. Does price matter the most? Does quality? Does style? Is there more than one factor that is important to your customer segment? 
• In the first interview, the parent expressed that they signed an off-campus lease because that is what his child’s friends were all doing. The third interview was similar in that the parent mentioned she was not looking for housing for her child because her child wanted to live in the sorority house with her friends. Both interviews differed vastly from the second interviewee who mentioned that they were still looking for housing and did not care much for roommates. Upon further questioning, I realized that due to the higher course load in graduate school, this parent preferred her child lived alone or in a quieter setting to focus on school. All the interviewees did mention that furnished housing was a requirement. Any additional questions regarding quality, style, and pricing seemed to be irrelevant. 
• How/where do they buy? Elements of the actual transaction can help characterize your segment. Is your segment more likely to buy online or in a store? Are they more likely to use cash or will they finance the purchase? Etc. If this is a B2B purchase, who's involved in the purchase decision? 
• This purchase would be done completely online, whether that be through UF housing or a virtual lease agreement. The parties involved would be the lessee, the guarantor (typically a parent) and the lessor. 
• Post-purchase evaluation. What matters most to your customers when they think back on the 'rightness' of the purchase? What helps them determine the purchase was a good idea? What sorts of things make them think a purchase was a bad idea? 
• My customer segment evaluates the ‘rightness’ of the purchase depending on the criteria. For instance, the first interviewee has no regrets about the purchase because he would rather his child live with friends than be stuck with random roommates (who could be awful); to him, the price compromise is worth it. 
• Draw conclusions. 
• I think the market is still there, but the priorities are more diverse than I’d imagined. Some of the original market is still there such as the parent of the graduate student who only needs housing for a semester. They are still looking for an adequate solution and I believe my service would be utilized by them or people in a similar boat. However, it appears that some other people of my previous market are okay with compromising some financial aspects of the housing decision such as paying for an empty apartment over summer, if it meant that their child would have roommates they know (aka comfort over value). That being said, I think they would still utilize my service because the core need, housing, is still there. The flexible lease service would allow them all to still live with friends but choose the amount of time they would actually need the apartment for (summer vs. no summer).

Assignment 13A - Reading Reflection No. 1

1. I read Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance.
• What surprised you the most?
• I was surprised to see him compared to Steve Jobs, who has a prominent role with both Pixar and Apple. This was mostly surprising to me because I have an esteemed view of Steve Jobs, being an iPhone user of seven years and a strong advocate for its technology/simplicity. I haven’t thought about the commonality between the two entrepreneurs until this book pointed it out not me (probably because I haven’t personally been exposed to his products); after all, Musk has commandeering three industries with Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity.
• What about the entrepreneur did you most admire? 
• As we talked about this week, tenacity was the thing I admired the most about Elon Musk. In the wake of the recession in 2008, both his companies, Tesla and SpaceX, were losing funding. Instead of giving up, he scraped together financing for the two the day before payroll was due. 
• What about the entrepreneur did you least admire? 
• Elon Musk was known for talking a big game. This is what I least admire about him because I believe that actions speak louder than words; in this case, his innovations should speak for themselves. 
• Did the entrepreneur encounter adversity and failure? If so, what did they do about it? 
• Elon Musk has faced failure. As previously mentioned, he was losing his investments in Tesla and SpaceX; he went from a millionaire to living on a friend’s couch as he tried to get these start-ups going. Musk has a problem with SpaceX primarily as it was competing with Lockheed Martin. He overcame this adversity and failure by promising innovative things and doing everything in his power to follow through on them. 
2. What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited?
• There are many competencies that Musk exhibited including imagination, drive and previous entrepreneurial experience. Musk’s imagination allowed him to move from one successful venture to another, his unwavering drive made him successful in his ventures (especially in the wake of adversity), and he was able to build upon his entrepreneurial experience with Zip2 and PayPal. For instance, from Zip2 he learned that it’s easy to lose control of your company and vowed to stay CEO for any future ventures. Today, he remains the CEO of Tesla. 
3. Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.
• An overarching part of the reading that was confusing to me was how Musk jumped back and forth between ideas. For instance, he divorced his wife but later go remarried despite lengthy prenuptial agreement settlements. He also mentioned wanting PayPal back after making the decision to sell it. Entrepreneurs tend to need to be decisive, but he does not appear to be and that was personally confusing to me. 
4. If you were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur, what would you ask? Why? 
• The two questions I’d ask are as follows: 
• Tesla sales are down despite it being the first largely successful electric car. What are the next steps to recovery? 
• Why would you go from one venture to another? For instance, Mark Zuckerberg stayed with Facebook, instead of selling back in early the 2000s and it is now the most lucrative social media platform. 
• I would ask these questions because they would let me understand what Elon Musk is motivated by. Is it the ability to create a lasting impact? Is it money? For instance, Musk mentioned wanting PayPal back; does he have regrets? It will also allow me to understand more about how to deal with failure, and that is valuable insight considering the number of entrepreneurial ideas that fail yearly. 
5. For fun: what do you think the entrepreneur's opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion?
• I think Elon Musk valued hard work. He once told an employee that it was not okay to miss the SpaceX launch for the birth of his child. That paints a good picture of his work ethic and values. I share a similar opinion; I value hard work and discipline and believe it pays off in the long run. That being said, I do not think that missing your child’s birth for work is appropriate (but I could see myself postponing starting a family if I had a business venture underway).

Assignment 14A - Halfway Reflection

1. Tenaciousness is a competency. What are the behaviors that you have used (or developed) to keep up with the requirements of this course? 

• Organization is the key to keeping up with the requirements of this course. Before the semester began, I wrote down the due dates for this class (amongst others) and made it my goal to finish each set of assignments the week before they are due (see to the right). This meant that I would dedicate Fridays (since there is no class on Fridays) to completing the following week’s assignments. This allowed me adequate time to schedule interviews, write meaningful peer reviews, and read any course material such as this week’s [auto]biography. 
2. Tenaciousness is also about attitude. Talk about a moment or two when you felt like "giving up." What pulled you through? Do you feel like you've developed a tenacious attitude during the past two months? What experience or experiences most contributed to this? 
• I felt like giving up earlier this week because I had two exams on the same day and fell behind on homework assignments and studying due to a combination of my 21st birthday and our homecoming game. Come Sunday, I had not looked at a single thing for any of my classes. Even after 12 long hours in Lib West, I was not any closer to being done and the frustration of it was getting to me. However, I pulled through. I was able to keep studying because I told myself that I had spent the last few days relaxing and blowing off steam, and that a few days of studying is well past due. Additionally, I reinforced that sometimes it’s okay to fail and that a single exam grade should not be the reason I give up on myself. This tenacious attitude has been developing for quite a while now, mainly starting last Spring where I was working full-time and taking 12 credits (including Business Finance). 
3. Three tips. What are three tips you would offer next semester's student about (1) fostering the skills that support tenacity and (2) developing the 'tenacious mindset'? 
• Ask for help. While things like deadlines can’t be changed in the interest of academic fairness, you can still ask for help from others whether that is as simple as asking your roommates to pick up groceries for you because you need to study. 
• Treat everything as if it’ll contribute to the next chapter of your life and the tenacious mindset will follow. For instance, I know that in Spring I will be applying to graduate school and I remind myself that every time I want to give up on classes because what I do now can affect my future. 
• Manage your time! If you manage your time well, this is not a demanding class (especially with no exams). However sometimes life gets in the way and there will be days that your friends will go to happy hour, and you are going to need the self-discipline to say no and stay in.

Assignment 12A - Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 1

Choosing a segment 

For this assignment, I choose a segment of parents. All three of the interviews were with parents of children who are currently enrolled at UF. One of them is the parent who has to pay two leases for their child over summer, their existing lease in Gainesville and one in Philly, where their child interned. Another interviewee is the parent of a freshmen who has not thought about where their child will live during summer. The last interviewee is the parent of a graduating senior, who has opted to live in a dorm the entirety of his four years here.

What I learned 

Need awareness: 

• From these interviews, I learned that the actual customer base may be extended to (or even replaced by) parents as opposed to the actual students. It became evident that a lot of students rely on their parents, prepaid or something of the like to pay for housing. All three of the interviewees admitted that this would be a good service for UF to be a part of. However, some interviewees felt more passionately about the problem and its corresponding solution than others. For example, the parent that had to pay two leases talked about the financial burden and how he wished there was a better alternative to housing in Gainesville. On the other hand, another interviewee (the one that is the parent of the freshmen) was not completely aware of this need until I had mentioned it because they haven’t had to think about it yet. However, upon me explaining the likely predicament that will come up in summer for their child, they expressed more interest in my solution.

Information Search:

• One thing that my interviewees brought up was the feasibility. This is something I had considered in a previous assignment. I was hesitant about UF’s willingness to partner with off-campus housing but I let them know that it is just a concept at this point and if it were to have enough of a base to implement, then I would look more into statistics/projections of profitability and other benefits for UF in implementing this solution. Until then, these interviewees told me that they would be looking for alternative solutions such as subletting from someone who resigned (so that their child won’t get kicked out) through the UF Facebook page or ask UF alum to see how they’ve handled this problem thus far.

How I would describe this segment 

I think that there are some parents who are aware of this problem, and have found adequate solutions such as having their child stay in a dorm the whole time they are at UF, but I think there are some parents who aren’t quite aware of this problem. This is not an evident problem at other universities such as USF, so parents can only learn about this problem if their child goes through it or through word-of-mouth. Overall, this segment saw merit in my solution as they want what’s best and most convenient for their child.

Assignment 11A - Idea Napkin No. 1

1) You. Who you are. What your talents are. What your skills and experiences are. Also: what are your aspirations? Specifically regarding your business concept, how do you see this business (if you were to start it) playing a role in your life? 

• My name is Izzy Chigurupati. I am an Accounting major here at the University of Florida and I hope to be doing my Master’s in ISOM starting next year. My skills and talents such as being organized have stemmed from my experiences thus far. I usually have to do a lot of things by myself; for instance, at one point I was working 60 hours a week and was enrolled in Business Finance. This causes me to be busy and overwhelmed, so I aspire to make processes or aspects of my life (and others’ lives) easier. This is what led me to my business concept. If there was a service that paired UF with off-campus housing that resulted in flexible leases for us, the student body, a lot of financial stress would be alleviated. I would be able to not worry about finding a summer sublease and could use that money to pay for my master’s.

2) What are you offering to customers? Describe the product or service (in other words, how you'll solve customers' unmet needs). 

• I am offering a service in which UF partners with off-campus housing. This can result in flexible leases for us. This solves many unmet needs such as international students who only need housing for a semester, parents who are worried about their children being homeless during Summer C finals week, and those who have trouble finding sublets and face a money deficit (i.e. end up paying two leases at once).

3) Who are you offering it to? Describe, in as much detail as possible, the demographic and psychographic characteristics of your customers. Think especially of this question: what do your customers all have in common? 

• I am offering this to UF (and possibly Santa Fe) students who are not Gainesville-native. This entire category has the fact that they need housing (and thus flexible leases) in common. Another category which may substitute the students would be the parents/guardian of the students, if they pay for their child’s housing.

4) Why do they care? Your solution is only valuable insofar as customers believe its valuable to them. Here, explain why customers will actually pay you money to use your product or service. 

• The customers would pay to use this service because of the convenience. For instance, an add-on fee of $200 for a flexible lease is still substantially less than having to pay for months of unoccupied rent space and it beats being homeless.

5) What are your core competencies? What sets you apart from everyone else? Also: what do you have that nobody else has? 

• To my knowledge, the only competitors on the market are those that do not completely fulfill the needs of the students (i.e. dorms) or give up convenience (i.e. apartments far away from campus). Dorms provide flexible leases but there are often not considered because many upperclassmen prefer apartments and the only apartments that offer flexible leases are at least a thirty-minute bus ride to campus thus compromising convenience. My service will cover aspects in which the current solutions fall short.

In addition to these five elements, please spend a paragraph evaluating whether you believe these elements fit together or whether there are aspects of your business concept that are weaker / out-of-joint with the others.

• I believe that all of these elements work well together. For instance, I cited in my elevator pitch that over 70% of undergraduate students live off-campus which means that they face these problems regularly. It also means that there is a huge untapped market for UF. The only part that I feel that my business concept is weak is that my service depends on cooperation from UF. I know that UF is spending money renovating dorms right now as admittance numbers go up and we trek to a top five public school, but convincing UF to pair with off-campus housing might need lucrative support and could take a while to implement.