The Twenty Percent

1) Find a business owner and talk to them about their customers. Who do they think their target customers are? What are their customers' unmet needs?Where do they find their customers? What are their customer's demographics? What kinds of media do their customers consume? Etc.

Business Owner

I decided to interview a franchise owner of a company called MyFitFoods that my wife and I frequent.  We are health nuts and so I was somewhat amazed to hear that we weren't a part of their top 20% target market.  The target audience is actually people looking for weight loss opportunities and those too busy to prepare their meals.  I like that they target not only gyms and doctors offices but also local businesses to add to their client base.  

2) Next, go and talk to 3 'target customers' -- using the demographics/psychographics the entrepreneur described. As these 'target customers' the questions in the paragraph directly above.

Target Customer # 1

Target Customer # 2

Target customer #3 elected not to be recorded but I had a similar experience with all three potential customers.  All of them thought more towards the idea of busy families with children; weight loss never came up once.  Kids came up all three times.  Oddly; I brought this up with eh business owner later and she told me that they don't have a plan for children at all.  While teenagers could partake in the program it is exclusively catered towards adults.  

3) Reflect. Does the entrepreneur adequately understand their customers' problems? Where are the differences? Why might these differences exist. 

I'm somewhat torn... they are a relatively successful business and based on my interview she seemed to have a very clear plan about who her customers were and how they gathered them to the store.  That said perhaps she is just 'missing' a market opportunity to add in a 'healthy kids' section for busy parents to grab lunches and snacks for their children on the days when they're just too swamped to prepare a healthy meal.  

Week 8 Reading Reflection

What was the biggest surprise for you in the reading? In other words, what did you read that stood out the most as different from your expectations? I was surprised by the venture capital myths; I've always know that funding was a challenge for new entrepreneurs.  One of my old mentors used to say that it was easier to get a $10 million investment than it was to get a $1 million one.  It was interesting to read how much venture capital community actually gives to new ideas.  

Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you. Most of the reading was good from an explanation perspective; however, I was slightly confused by the idea of trade credit.  It took me a few times reading through to get the gist of it. 

If you were able to ask two questions to the author, what would you ask? Why? Still silently protesting this question until someone responds to my questions from earlier blog postings J

Was there anything you think the author was wrong about? Where do you disagree with what she or he said? How? Nothing this time around; as I stated I believe they could have written the idea of trade credit a bit more fluently so that it was easier to understand. 

Half-Way Reflection

For this exercise, I'd like you reflect on the past two months. In your blog post for this exercise, pretend that you're talking to a student from next semester's ENT 3003 course. What would you tell them?

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

I won't lie that the content of this course is amazingly interesting; that said it is a bit sporadic and difficult to keep up with if you're not on a rigid schedule.  Even then you can miss some if you're not paying attention.  Print a calendar and GET AHEAD quickly.  Aside from the speed of the course you'll have a ton of fun.  Pick an idea at the beginning of the course and essentially you'll get to cultivate it through the entrepreneurial process. 

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 got behind early in the course; I missed a few easy deliverables and as a result have been playing a bit of catch up.  It was tough to swallow at first because I'm kind of a perfectionist.  Once I was literally able to share my assignment but didn't have enough time left to declare it... That was a touch frustrating.  My fault to be honest but the reality is that I missed the window and had not planned well.  That and walking through the grocery store with a video camera strapped to my chest was pretty scary too.  

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' ?

(1) Most of the tenacity that I've experienced in myself came after the moment that I realized that I couldn't FINISH everything. One of the things I teach at work to my employees is that if you try to completely eliminate risk or completely avoid risk you will ultimately fail at either task. I think that same thing comes into play with failure.  If you try to eliminate it or completely avoid it altogether you will not be successful.  You have to be comfortable with it and have a tolerance for it.  (2) Rise and Grind; the very first thing that the tenacious mindsets needs to understand is that no one else is going to hand you your dream to be exceptional.  You can't wait for greatness to be given to you in that way.  If you want 'average' then it is readily available all around you but if you want greatness then you have to take it. 

Free Money

My strategy will be somewhat simple today.  

Where will I go: 

I’ll be headed to the grocery store to give away dollar bills in the aisles in order to assist the girl scouts that will inevitably selling cookies.  My goal will be to give someone 20% off of their cookies.  

What kind of people will I approach: 

Folks that are doping their their grocery run for the day and hopefully wanting some extra cookies to add to their cart. 

What will you say to get the conversation started / what is your plan:

Every year I purchase a ton of girl scout cookies; one year I think I spent over $100 and froze them for the4 year.  I particularly love tagalongs.  However, this year because I’m training I’m not planning on buying any… So I want to help the girl scouts by inciting people to participate and give those cookies who would otherwise go without being eaten a good home.  

Out of five attempts, how many dollar bills do you think you will be able to give away? 

Thats a tough one… half of me thinks that I’ll easily be able to give them all away… That said; I’ll be the guy with a camera handing out dollars next to girls scouts… That in an of itself might make people want to run away.  Here goes nothing: 

Free Money 1

Free Money 2

A few others asked me not to post the videos (I probably should ask first next time).  

Key Takeaways:

So WAY better than I guess I expected.  If you’re clear in purpose and are offering something that people want then they will certainly take advantage of it.  I actually ended up giving away all $5 and ended up with a box of cookies for myself.  Other than a few weird looks and people walking the other direction because I had a camera strapped to my chest it was a fun little experiment.  

Interviewing Customers No. 3

Imagine the idea of a fund raiser thermometer that tracked your progress to a long term goal.  This is our idea for a new product on the market; a way to not only track the successes you achieve along the way but to preset what some of those goals should be.  No matter if your goal is to lose weight; go back to school; or renovate a room in your house; the software that we are developing will help you reach your goal by outlining the steps and milestones you have to reach and giving you a boost by showing you how far you’ve come.

Interview 1

Interview 2

Interview 3

Interview 4

Interview 5

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?

This idea is one that rounds out and completes my life.  Is it wrong that it start as completely selfish "I wish I had a..." Which turned into iDrive.  My talent is essentially the ability to untangle a weave of strings and find the way to untie it both conceptually and in construct.  This is true with both people and process.  It is what drives me and what I love.  We bought our home and I could instantly see past the clutter and poor design to a beautiful and modern interior and a massive amount of potential. Then is when I start to fall apart though I found A and I can see "Z" and I know it can go to Z if I follow the steps in the middle... But then life gets in the way; or I don't know how to do step D or step J has to start and stop 100 times for whatever reason.  It's frustrating and there needs to be a way to balance it. 

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

What I'm offering is a planning tool; that has built in plans.  Want to remodel a bathroom, start school, lose weight?  All admirable goals to obtain and while every home, school and body is different there are fundamental similarities in the way you plan for these activities and some similar things that you have to measure towards success.  Layer in with that the idea of "oh by the way" life doesn't stop while you're remodeling the bathroom.  You still have laundry, dishes, dinner, shopping and everything else that you do from day to day.  So how do you measure it ALL and guess what the lightbulb needs to be changed and the smoke detector is beeping at you.  :) are you stressed yet?  In comes iDrive to help you sort manage and track your day so you can feel accomplished on all of your goals.  

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?

There are a certain groups of people that this just won't be for.  This may work for those folks who are good note takers and plan makers already; it may make their day just a little easier.  The reality is though that they won't be looking to spend $5.99 on an app to help them do what they already do.   The application is for people (most likely) between the ages of 20 and 55 that own a smart phone or tablet and have the pesky issue of not being able to put into tasks and measures what they want to accomplish.  My thought is people who are frustrated with progress or can't balance their current day's work and still wish they could add more. 

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. 

What a truly great question.  Aside from the concept of helping them to achieve their goals and the factor of motivation for their continued completion of tasks onwards toward them; there is also the factor of "do you need help with that?"  Imagine if you're planning a bathroom remodel. You type it into your app and it pushes out here are the X number of things and Y number of hours it will take... Feeling suddenly overwhelmed?  Why not link it to Angie's list so you can hire a contractor instead for that goal and move onto a new one?  Partnering with like applications (Uber, Angie's List, Groupon, etc.) could be a valuable way to create good synergies. 

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

My wife might say: strategic thinking, strategic planning, charisma and analytical thought.  I would say that there is a fine line between Customer Focus (giving your customers what they want) and Operational Excellence (being efficient and effective within your process).  If you lean too much in one way or the other you start to take from either your customers or your operation.  I am one who tries to ride that line as balanced as possible.  Ensuring that my customers get what they need but that their wants don't impede on the ability for the process to serve them. 

6) 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 think that the whole concept here is trying to build my Jarvis (Echo, Cortana, Siri, etc.) to fill in the void of my skill set.  I'm not a project planner.  I'm the idea man and I know the people and technology extremely well.  This has made me acutely aware of my weakness in setting the plan in motion and as such am extremely certain of its value in the process of success.  The gap here is that I (personally) don't have the pure understanding of how to make this business successful.  Sadly I'd need to have the program with the long term goal of "starting a business" so that it could give me the steps I need to take to make the vision a reality. 

Interviewing Customers No. 2

1) Fine tune your opportunity. You began with an idea of what an opportunity might be. After your first round of interviews, what do you think, now? 

To be honest the idea sort of turned slightly to the left.  A motivational goals program (Streaks) is already available and I wonder if the idea of making it 'better' really fills a gap.  I do believe that the gap still exists and at the very least deserves some more white boarding.  

2) Fine tune the "who." Did you talk to the right customers last time? What did you do differently this time? How did you adjust your conceptualization of who your customers are?

Conceptually the customers would be everyday people; but probably geared more towards a younger market.  It seems that there is a bell curve of interest in longer term goals between college and retirement years and we would look to capitalize on the people that are headed up that curve. 

3) Tweaking your interview questions. You might need to ask different kinds of questions to get at a fuller, richer idea of what your opportunity is. What kind of changes did you make?

Some one gave em the feedback to ask more open ended questions and I took their advise to heart.  Some of the best interview questions are a trap; they ask for an open ended response and in turn provide the interviewer with multiple inferences of insight. 

4) Go talk to customers! This is the same deal as last time: 5 people, you can't know them, you must video record them.

Interview 1

Interview 2a

Interview 2b

Interview 3

Interview 4

Interview 5

5) Tell us what you learned about the opportunity. You now have 10 interviews under your belt. What do you think about your opportunity now that's different from where you started?  

It's actually harder to interview people for this product then I would have thought.  I have a ton of experience doing interviews at work but I've been seasoned into the questions I want to ask and the answers that I would expect.  This was much more challenging because of the amount of variation and the unfamiliarity with the responses. 

6) Tell us what you learned about interviewing customers. You're practically an expert on interviewing customers. Please write three tips that you'd like to offer students in this class next semester about interviewing customers.

1. Be open ended! The best interview question I've ever come to ask (and have now asked over 200 times) is "Do you take enough time to make a decision?" You would be amazed at the answers I get to this question. 
2. Find a wide group to start and narrow it based on your responses.  You may have an idea of your customer base when you begin and then realize through the process of interviewing that some of the folks in your group are just the wrong people. 
3. Don't help with the answers.  I found my self a few times saying "you know like this" and the person would latch onto what I said and roll with it.  The less you interact in the answer the better and you don't want to corrupt your test.  If you find people getting confused as to how to answer you may want to rewrite the questions. 

Week 5 Reading Reflection

What was the biggest surprise for you in the reading? In other words, what did you read that stood out the most as different from your expectations? The pitfalls of selecting new ventures was by far the biggest “ah-ha” moment for me.  Not that it was terribly different but I’ve never thought of the pitfalls in that light before.  I’m used to decision traps and/or project management failure terminology.  It is a good lens to put on a multitude of problems to be objective, gain market understanding, understand the technical requirements and know the marginal costs.

Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you. The studies of successful ventures were a touch confusing.  Only in that I wish they would have provided more data on the study itself.  I always take those types of studies with a grain of salt because I don’t imagine that a ton of entrepreneurs would say “it was my fault.”  That said; they again don’t make a distinction between entrepreneurs and small business owners in the study that they clearly outlined in the first chapter.

If you were able to ask two questions to the author, what would you ask? Why? Still silently protesting this question until someone responds to my questions from earlier blog postings J

Was there anything you think the author was wrong about? Where do you disagree with what she or he said? How? Not the author so much as an excerpt form “Facing Your Fears!” that lists a strategy of making the leap between punching the clock and taking the leap into entrepreneurialism.  I’m a bit confused by the order in which these ideas are presented.  Some seem to be less about the process of letting go of ‘corporate stability’ and more about finding the idea itself.  (i.e. #4 Do what you love).  If I didn’t have the idea for something why would I be thinking of leaving my job for a new venture… Just a weird compilation.