16A - What's Your Secret Sauce?

Describe five ways in which you think you have human capital that is truly unique.

1. Determination - When I am given a task, I will not rest until it is completed to the best of my ability.
2. Time Management - I have always been really good about scheduling things into my days and making sure I have enough time to do everything that needs to be done.
3. Passion - If it is something I am very passionate about, I will give my all from beginning to end.
4. Listening - I am very good at listening to others and being someone that they can feel comfortable talking to even in hard situations.
5. Focused - Even in a crowded room with lots of noise, I am able to get things done.

Interview the five people who know you the best.

https://soundcloud.com/ashley-andrews-395736708/sets/16a-what-is-your-secret-sauce/s-HNLYC12xs9h 

Interview 1: My mom, Robin. My mom talks about how organized I am and how strict the schedule is that I make for myself and how I do not allow myself to deviate from the schedule. She also talks about how I am self-motivated and determined in my own way and do not need anyone to tell me what to do because I probably have already done it. 

Interview 2: My best friend, Jailen. Jai talked about how I am very determined and will do anything and everything to be the best at what I am trying to accomplish. She also talked about how if she wants something done right, she will always come to me to help her. 

Interview 3: My roommate, Taeja. Taeja talked about how determined I am and how much knowledge I have about the world around me. She expanded on the amount of things I have been through in my life and how they could help me see things from different perspectives in the future. 

Interview 4: My roommate, Hallie. Hallie talked about how determined I am and that I am both logically and creatively minded. By having both skill sets, she said I would be able to excel at anything I put my mind to.

Interview 5: My roommate, Caroline. Caroline talked about my perfectionism and how I am really good at hiding it but when given a task I will not rest until it is done to the best of my abilities. She also talked about my willingness to learn new things and how if given the opportunity I will jump at the chance to try new things.

Reflect on the Differences

Based on what my friends and family said, I think we see me in very much the same way. All 5 of my friends and family discussed my determination which is the very first thing I listed about myself, which I thought was super cool to know that I exude the determination I believe I have. Going back to what I think about myself, I would add organized because as soon as I heard my mom say it, I realized how much of a neat freak I am and how organized everything in my life is. 

15A - Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 2

1. Interviews: For this assignment, I interviewed three more students who attend the University of Florida and live in on-campus housing.
   
   
2. Begin with alternative evaluation: While talking with these students, they told me that the most important factor to them was the quality. They wanted to have the tv shows and movies that they would actually like to watch, because they would not pay for something that they did not get use out of. The second most important thing to them was cost. Even if a service had what they were looking for, they were not willing to spend a ridiculous amount of money.
   
   
3. How/where do they buy?: In this segment, they are most likely to buy online because of convenience and the ability to compare prices on the spot. Since they usually make purchases online, they also usually use credit cards to make purchases.
   
   
4. Post-purchase evaluation: What matters most to these students is if the thing they purchased was worth the money they had to fork over to get it. The things that help them determine if the purchase is a good idea is if they got a lot of use out of it and if their friends approve of the purchase. They think a purchase is bad if it doesn’t work like it was intended to, they don’t get as much use out of it as they thought, or if it simply just doesn’t meet the expectations that they think the it should.
   
   
5. Report the findings: All three students seemed very interested in the product when I presented the idea to them, but asked many questions about how it would work, the cost, and the types of movies/tv shows it would offer. They all said that the most important thing to them was the entertainment offered through the service and the cost was a close second. One student said they would be more inclined to purchase the service after other students had reviewed it. 
   
   
6. Conclusion: Based on these interviews, I would describe this segment as quality driven and money saving. They like to purchase things online with their credit cards, and would be even more inclined if the service billed them monthly so they didn’t have to remember to keep up with payments. They also care very much about if the service is worth the money and would not like to have something that they regret or feel as though it does not meet their standards. 

14A - Halfway Reflection

1. The behaviors I have used to keep up with the requirements of this course are time management and working ahead. By writing things down on my calendar and specifying days when I wanted to have things done, I was able to properly manage my time for this class. Working ahead was also very helpful because I was very overwhelmed with the amount of assignments in the beginning.
   
   
2. There have definitely been times in my college career where I’ve felt like giving up, like hour 20 of studying for a financial accounting exam. The thing that pulled me through was my friends; they were my accountability partners. When life gets hard we all band together and work to get through it together, sometimes even through healthy competition on what grades we get on the tests. I am tenacious and very hard working and yes, I do believe that these past two month have developed me even more. I think that having three assignments due each week really caused me to power through a lot and get them all done for the due date.
   
   
3. Tip #1: I would order your reading books as soon as you see the list, because the sooner you start the less stressed you will feel that something is hanging over your head. Tip #2: Listen to the constructive criticism that your classmates provide so that you can do better in the future. Tip #3: Always have your eyes open to opportunities around you. This will greatly help you throughout this class.

13A - Reading Reflection No. 1

1. The thing that surprised me the most was the fact that Phil Knight was originally the distributor of other shoes called Tigers from Japan before he came up with the groundbreaking idea for Nike. The thing that I admired the most about Phil Knight was that he stuck to his morals no matter how hard the times got. He did not want to take the company public and no matter how hard it got, he came up with other options until he was convinced that it would be the right thing for his company. The thing I least admired about Phil Knight was his ease of lying about things to get what he needed done. Although he usually fixed the lies before people figured out he had lied, I still did not find it admirable that he did that more than once. Yes, Phil Knight encountered much adversity and failure. His partnership with Tigers was dissolved, some of his shoes had to be recalled, he was in a lawsuit, he was fined by the government for importing, and he had an employee quit and go and work at the competitor’s firm, Adidas. Through all of this, he constantly continued on and leaned on his family as well as his employees for support.
   
   
2. Phil Knight was a hard worker and extremely competitive. He did not accept losing, he worked as hard as he could to always be the winner. He never let people tell him what he could and could not accomplish. His own father did not initially believe in him or his idea; he found this line of work to not be respectable. He was also extremely gifted in seeing past people’s physical appearance and hiring them for what they could do for the company.
   
   
3. One part of the book that confused me was that it never talked about his daughter. When I looked him up on Google after reading the novel to find more information, I found out that he has a daughter named Christina.
   
   
4. I would ask Phil Knight if he ever imagined having his own brand of shoes when he started importing Tigers. I think it would be interesting to hear if this was ever a plan for him, or if it was just something he did when times got tough. Another question I would ask would be what his best memory of starting up the company was. I think sometimes it's easy to just talk about the hard things that we have to get through, but there are good things too and I’d love to hear them.
   
   
5. I think Phil Knight’s opinion of hard work was that it was absolutely necessary. I think he’s say that without hard work, he probably wouldn’t even have his empire anymore. I definitely share this opinion because of my dad. He is a college dropout, and is now a Senior Vice President of ClubCorp Inc. He worked his way up from the bottom and he has always instilled in me that hard work is what gets you places.

12A - Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 1

1. Segment: The segment I chose is “students who live in dorms.” I wanted to interview those students who lived on campus.
   
   
2. Interviews: The people I interviewed were all UF students who live in on-campus housing. The first talked about how hard it has been for him to find a job in Gainesville that worked with his schedule, and as a result he did not yet have a steady income. When I explained my new service, he said this would greatly help him because he'd be able to drop their current services (Hulu and Netflix) and be able to just pay for one service. The second person I talked to described how expensive it was to pay for tuition and their dorm, which has put a strain on her disposable income. This strain has caused her to rethink if she needs the streaming services that she is currently paying for. She was interested in the product due to its affordability. The last person I interviewed talked about how she has watched almost everything on Netflix and Hulu. This new service showed the promise of new shows and movies to watch. This possibility was enough for her to show interest in the service.
   
   
3. Conclusion: Based on my interviews, it seems as though this segment has a need for my product. However, I would have to make sure that the service was relatively cheap to run so that it was cheap for students. If it was unaffordable for students, it would be a great failure. Each of the interviews displayed a different reason for why my service could greatly benefit this segment.

11A - Idea Napkin No. 1

You - My name is Ashley Andrews and I am a second year Business Administration major and Event Management minor. In the one year that I’ve completed at the university, I have learned many skills from my classes regarding marketing and accounting. I have learned the basics of how to keep the books in a business and how to market products to specific target audiences. This business, if I were to start it, would play an integral part in my life because new businesses are very hard to start up. However, I would probably have to have another job at the same time to have a steady income in order to invest into my business.

What are you offering to customers? - I am offering a service to students that will reduce their monthly costs for streaming platforms and will consolidate all of their previous subscriptions into one subscription. My streaming service is meant to make students entertainment more affordable and entertaining.

Who are you offering it to? - The target market for my new service is UF students between the ages of 17-24. The things that my customers all have in common are that they are students at the University of Florida, they pay tuition, and they have some sort of need for a streaming service or are unhappy with the ones they currently have.

Why do they care? - Customers will actually pay money for the service because it will save them money and will provide a greater variety of tv shows and movies, as well as access to UF sports, than the streaming services they already had. By replacing all of the services that they previously had with the new one, they will be saving money each month.

What are your core competencies? - UF is not yet in the streaming business, so no service like this exists on campus. Although there are other streaming services, many students I talked to complained about the costs that accumulated each month. The things that set this service apart from others is that we would have the UF sports on our streaming service. This along with the variety and lower prices would greatly set us apart from the competition. 

I believe these five elements listed above fit together to make a strong business plan in theory. The more I think about this new service, the more ideas keep popping up into my head. I think that my skills of marketing and accounting will be a big help once the company is up and running. Like I have stated before, there are no services like this on any college campus, so this is an entirely new concept that will hopefully take off at UF. I think this is a very well thought out idea that will require a lot of skilled people, a good amount of money, and many years to allow it all to come together.  

10A - Elevator Pitch No. 1

9A - Testing the Hypothesis, Part 2

Who: The first person I interviewed thought this was a good idea for the students on campus, but she did not think it would work for her because she is happy with the shows and movies that Netflix and Hulu offers and would not want to go through the trouble of canceling the services that she already pays for. The second student I talked to did not have any streaming services. Since they do not have any these services now, they will not benefit from the new service that will be provided because they see no point in paying for a new service. The third student I talked to had brand loyalty with Netflix and was willing to pay extra for the guarantee of the service provided by the Netflix streaming platform. The fourth person I interviewed was simply uninterested because they did not want to be locked into a monthly payment agreement. The last student I interviewed did not see the appeal of another streaming service and did not think the new service would be appealing enough to make the subscription fee worth it.

What: The need I identified is the need for a cheaper movie/tv show streaming service for students to save them money. This need differs from the need of a cheaper music streaming service or a new rental service for students.

Why: Those outside of the boundaries of my need either need a cheaper music streaming service, movie rental service, or do not have any need for electronic entertainment. 

	Inside the Boundary	Outside the Boundary
Who	Students who are looking for a cheaper movie/tv show streaming service	Students who are not looking (either happy with the services they have, are loyal to another streaming service, are not currently looking to have a streaming service, do not want to pay a monthly fee, or do not find the idea of a new service appealing)
What	Need for a way to lessen the amount of money students spend on movie/tv streaming services.	Do not have the need because they do not need a new service or do not find the service they have as a large financial burden.
Why	Need exists because college students are known to have a very low amount of spending money and the streaming services they are currently paying for take up a large chunk of that money.	The students could have alternative needs for things such as music streaming services and movie rental services.

8A - Solving the Problem

As stated in the previous exercise, many UF students spend a good chunk of money on multiple streaming platforms to watch shows and movies. However, this money could be used for other things or saved for the future. To help students in reducing their monthly costs, my proposed solution is that UF creates their own streaming service. The average amount that the students I interviewed spent on streaming services a month was around $20. So, as long as the new service was less than $20 and had a good variety of shows/movies and included UF sports, I believe it would be very appealing to the target market of UF students. I also think that for the students living in dorms, this could be an add-on option that would be very eye-catching because they are already spending so much on the dorm, it would seem like a very cheap added bonus.