23A - Your Venture’s Unfair Advantage

1. Knowledge of Industry - This is very valuable as it is essential to breaking into any industry no matter what the industry is. It is imitable as this is a well-established industry. Other resources cannot provide same benefits.
2. Personal Connection - This is very valuable because I care about my product and I have a personal will to see it succeeded. This is rare because a lot of entrepreneurs only create products for the economic benefit.
3. High Speed Technology - This is easy to copy but an important value in order to make the product as top notch as possible. This will attract more buyers. It is non-suitable.
4. Highly Sensitive Technology - Same as being high speed. It is valuable for the product to work exactly how it is meant to as quickly as it can to be the best it can be. This is sometimes rare because a lot of products slow down or break over time.
5. Marketability with Different Groups - This is very valuable and sometimes rare depending on the product. A lot of diverse groups can benefit from this product and that will lead to wider sales.
6. Efficiency - This product is eco-friendly which is a very valuable asset to many people in this day and age. It is not rare in general but in this industry it is more rare than not.
7. Interpersonal Skills - This is valuable but definitely not imitable. Any entrepreneur needs this but it is just as important to have nonetheless. Other factors can add to this benefit.
8. Novel Idea - This is important because there is not currently wide competition for the product. It is non-suitable and it can be imitated but it is not at the moment.
9. Firsthand Experience - This idea was conceived from my own experiences and this is very valuable. It is inimitable because no one else has had my same exact experiences. It is not rare in general but can be unique to this product. Nothing gives the same benefit to an entrepreneur because I can really relate to the customer.
10. Understanding of Customer Base - This is extremely important for the actual sales of the product. I think this is imitable but over time I have understood the customer base even more widely and gotten great feedback that will allow me to know my target audience well.

My top resource is my own firsthand experience with the problem that my product solves. This has led me to be really in touch with exact how the product should function. I am able to clearly see the obstacles to creating a suitable product that would provide the best solution. I understand all of the benefits of my product.

22A - Elevator Pitch No. 3

The feedback from my last pitch was very helpful. One person said it looked like I was reading my pitch. I wasn’t, but I made sure to seem more natural and fluid in this pitch. I made my presentation more conversational and natural this time around. I also know my pitch better at this point. I tweaked my hook to relate to the audience a little bit more, but otherwise I kept it mostly the same and tried to keep my safe structure and describing the problem, the product and the solution. In my feedback I was told to dress more professionally, but I did not follow this advice. I feel that I am dressed appropriately enough given the environment I am in. I would amp up my wardrobe if I was giving this pitch in front of an audience.

21A - Reading Reflection No. 2

The book I chose was Thinking, Fast And Slow by Daniel Kahneman. The general theme of the book is that we must make an active effort to understand our thought processes and control our decision making in order to avoid errors and jump to conclusions. The book connects a lot to what we are learning in ENT3003 because it gives advice that is very helpful to the modern entrepreneur. He warns against going with your gut and he talks a lot about making the most economic decisions for yourself. He says to separate your emotions from your economic decisions, which could be very helpful in entrepreneurship. For an exercise in this class, I would present a bunch of logic questions and in the end students would see which ones they got wrong and reflect on why they got them wrong. Did they take the easiest and most available answer? Did they jump to conclusions or trust their gut too quickly? A part of this book that surprised me a lot was Kahneman’s on how lazy our brains are. He said people want to solve problems with the least amount of effort, regardless of the accuracy of the solution. This surprised me because I tend to think the best of peoples’ intellects but I suppose this may be naive. 

20A - Growing Your Social Capital

1. Domain Expert

I spoke to Melinda. She is an air conditioning contractor who works in Doral, Florida for HeatAndCool.com. She is an expert in this field and knows about identifying peoples’ needs for radiators. She has worked for the company for five years and quickly picked up on the ins and outs of the industry. I found the company online and simply called them. Melinda explained how she identifies the costumer’s needs and matches them with the correct product, which will help me identify my potential customers.

1. Market Expert

Emily is a technology expert at a firm called CB Insights. Her company sources information on technology and formats it into reports for the public. She has done some individual work on energy efficient household appliances. I met her through LinkedIn. We spoke on the phone and she gave me some guidance on how to start actually getting the physical product developed. This is an important next step for me.

1. Supplier

I had a quick conversation with Randy on the customer service line at Goodman, where they do wholesale air conditioning. I also find him and the company number through Google. He told me how they contact customers and about the kind of marketing strategies the company typically uses. He described the kind of people he usually comes in contact with in this industry. This will help me expand my customer base.

This experience was different than my other networking experiences because all of the people I spoke too were experts in similar topics. It helped me really concentrate on the questions I wanted to ask and the answers I needed to get. In the future, I will focus my networking conversations in more instead of asking general, getting to know you questions.

19A - Idea Napkin No. 2

1. I am a journalism major with boundless creativity and well-developed social skills. I know how to effectively communicate in writing and spoken word. I think this helps me keep in touch with consumers/the people I am helping. I aspire to help people in daily life through my innovation. This business could be the venture that takes over all aspects of my professional life.
2. I am offering radiators that turn on and off using highly sensitive motion detection technology. The radiators would sense people in the room and quickly warm it up. It will turn off abruptly when people leave.
3. This product is meant for people who live in cold places and have a use for this product. People who live in the south and rarely use heat or maybe don’t even have radiators have no use for this house. These customers are people who own their homes and properties. They have a reason to invest in a product that would lower their utilities bills and save them money in the long run.
4. They care mainly because their utilities bills will go down. They will be maximizing their use of all the heating and electricity they are paying for. This will be very helpful in the colder months when heat is a large expense. Additionally, the radiator will be hyper efficient in saving energy, so it will be better for the environment.
5. My main core competency in this project is that I can closely relate to the issue of being bothered by turning a radiator off and on and suffering the consequence of a high utility bill at the end of the month. By being so close to the problem, this makes me a good person to attempt to solve the issue at hand because it will improve my life as well.

I believe these elements fit together very well. The skills I possess are needed for an entrepreneur no matter what the product or service is. The element of customer outreach and receiving feedback is very important in formulating a good business idea. I can be successful in this aspect. The only part I am really lacking is the technological background to be able to actually develop the product.

My comments said that I am a good person for this project because it is obvious that I care about it. They noted how I am closely connected to the problem and the product at hand. I used this feedback to reflect even further on why I want this product to become a reality. I incorporated that into the napkin.

18A - Create a Customer Avatar

First and foremost, my customer avatar is someone who lives in a cold place and has the use for a radiator and heating technology. My customer is most likely someone a little older with an established career and the ability to afford the motion-sensor radiator. This is also someone who plans on staying in their residence — a homeowner instead of a renter. This person has children and spends time at home with them. They are middle to upper class people. They are most likely liberal because they care a lot about saving energy and helping the environment.

I have my values and life preferences in common with my avatar. I think we want the same things out of life and see why this product would be useful for a number of reasons. The main difference here is that the product targets an older age group that I do not fit in. I don’t think these similarities are a coincidence because I created this idea based on something that was actually inconveniencing my daily life.

17A - Elevator Pitch No. 2

The feedback I received on my last pitch was very helpful. I was told to sway less and use more effective hand gestures. By taking this advice into account, I think I look more professional in my second elevator pitch. I was also advised to explain my product in fewer sentences. This advice might be good, but I didn’t find it necessary in my case. I think it is important to completely explain the product, and it should be explained fully no matter how many sentences are used. That being said, I did try to be more concise in this pitch.