Reading Reflection No. 1

1. The thing that surprised me the most about Andrew Carnegie came from a very poor immigrant family and literally had to work his way up from poverty to become one of the most successful businessmen of all time. The thing that I admired the most is that Carnegie was very frugal with his money early on. He realized the key to getting rich was to live below your means early on in order to have money to save and invest to make more money. The thing I least admired about Carnegie was that a lot of the ways that he made money later on were shady and unethical. Carnegie encountered failure when he bought two English Patents to make strong railroads. After costly implementation, it turned out that these patents were actually useless and didn't help him. 
2. Carnegie was very successful at making money no matter what it took. He was also very good at structuring deals to his favor so that he would profit the most from his endeavors. A lot of the things that he did would be illegal today, such as insider trading, but Carnegie was able to find inefficiencies in the market and loopholes in laws and exploit them for profit.
3. There was no part of this reading that was confusing to me. Based on the character of Carnegie, many of the things he did to exploit people and the businesses aligned with his values and were not confusing at all.
4. 
   
1. What do you think the main thing that sets you apart from other entrepreneurs?
2.  If you could go back in time, would you do everything you did exactly the same?
5. I think that Carnegie's vision of hard work was that of natural selection. Those who worked the hardest and tried to learn as much as they could about a certain industry would be the most successful people. And those that weren't able to put their head down and do anything they possibly could to be successful would quickly fail and be weeded out. I share his view in that hard work is very important.

Tenacity and Paying It Forward

1. This course has a lot of work so you have to stay on top of it. I use time-management and organizational skills to make sure that I meet the deadlines. 
2. I have developed a tenacious attitude in the past two months. I have felt like giving up multiple times because I had other obligations and other things that I wanted to do other than write blog posts. However, it is nice to take a break from the complexities of life to self-reflect and look at the world in different ways and to look for problems in everyday life that no one has thought to find solutions for. This semester, I have had a heavy course load so I had to buckle down to get all my work done. Thus, tenacity was born.
3. The three tips I would suggest is to
1. Stay organized and keep a planner
2. Keep a positive mindset 
3. Never give up no matter how much you want it

Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 1

1. Interview 1: The first person that I interviewed was a freshman student at UF. This student notices their need to know wait times at restaurants when they are on their way to class and need to grab a bite to eat beforehand. Usually they are in a hurry and don't have time to wait in line for their food because they might be late to class. This person usually tries to call the restaurants ahead of time to find the restaurant with the shortest wait time, but this is usually a time-consuming process.
2. Interview 2: The second person I interviewed was a second year student at UF. This student says that they can't stand waiting in lines at restaurants. Their need stems from the social anxiety aspect of waiting in line. They get anxious when they have to wait in line especially at places like Chipotle where the line is bordered on both sides keeping you restricted to the line. This person also calls restaurants ahead of time to figure out if there is a significant line. They also have taken notice when the busiest times are for their favorite restaurants. 
3. Interview 3: The third person that I interviewed was a graduate student at UF. This person's need arrises after studying at the library for a while. After studying late in the night, they get hungry and there is only a few restaurants open. They need somewhere where they can get in and get out and go back to studying or go home and get some sleep before waking up early the next day to study again. They usually combat this need by checking Google to see how busy specific restaurants are during different times of the day. They have also called these restaurants in advance to see how long the wait is.

Conclusion: It seems like the need for this segment usually stems around needing to know the wait times to save time so that they can study or so that that can make it to class in time. The most common way for these people to meet this need is by calling the restaurant ahead of time and judging the wait time by how long the restaurant employee thinks it will take. This seems to be an inefficient task that can be exploited.

Idea Napkin No. 1

1. My name is Patrick Schreiber and I am a second-year finance student at the University of Florida. One of my main talents or skills is that i am very analytical. Whether it is a math problem or a societal problem, I enjoy analyzing all possible solutions and outcomes. This analytical drive assists me in my internship where I conduct a lot of data analysis. I aspire to get a job in investment banking out of college and then proceed to a more analytical role that revolves around market analysis in finance. If I were to truly pursue this business idea, it would take a large part in my life because I pride myself in putting in my all to run the business. However, I believe that there are so many opportunities in life and so much to learn from failure that if the idea doesn't take off as I would hope, I would have no problem moving on to the next project.
2. This product will give customers a real-time prediction of the wait time at different restaurants through simple access on their mobile device.
3. This product will truly be offered to everyone. However, there are some people that never eat out at restaurants, so they would not be included in the target market.
4. As the old saying goes, time is money. Therefore, I believe people would be willing to pay money to save time. Also, the app will include discounts at the different restaurants whose wait times are being monitored.
5. I have a drive that sets me apart from others. When I see an opportunity, I put my best into it. In high school when I saw a lack in the youth involvement in lacrosse, I took it upon myself to start a summer lacrosse camp that would increase the exposure of lacrosse to the kids in my community.

I think that these elements all mesh well with each other. I think that my personality as well as my skills make this product strong and an attainable one. The only problem that I currently have is how to monetize this product. I could make customers have to pay for the service, but it seems hard to make them commit to that. I could overlay ads throughout the product, but ads ruin the consumer interface. That is the only element of this product that I am currently having trouble with.

Elevator Pitch No. 1

https://youtu.be/MQYNGyHZvyU

Testing the Hypothesis Part 2

Who: Through my interviews, I found that there is a number of people who do not have the need of knowing how long a line is before arriving in a restaurant. One person in particular even told me that they enjoy waiting in the line. It gives them time to talk to friends and socialize before having to go study. It is a study break for them and if they flew through the line then they wouldn't have time to relax and enjoy a study break. Another of the interviewees said that they usually order delivery food so there is no reason for them to need an app that tells them how long of a line there is to get food.

What: One of the interviewees brought up the point that even if they knew how long a line was, it wouldn't eliminate the fact that they still have to wait in the line. Most people have 3 or 4 restaurants that are their go-to for food based on convenience, price, and quality. If all of these restaurants all have long lines then knowing how ling the lines are is useless because they will have to wait in the line anyway.

Why: The need does not seem to be different. Some people, like myself, hate having to wait in lines because they make you wait for something that you really want. Others see a line as an opportunity to take a break from the fast paced life that we usually live and cool down and chat with their friends.

Inside the Boundary	Outside the Boundary
Who: People in a rush or people that do not have the time to wait in a line	Who: People who enjoy waiting in line as a way to take a break or clear their head
What: A way to predict how long the wait is at a restaurant before showing up	What: They do not have a need to know how long the wait is at a restaurant
Why: Line are inevitable when trying to buy food and some people don’t have the extra time to wait	Why: They enjoy waiting in line as a way to take a break from the fast-paced lives that we live and to socialize with friends.

Solving the Problem

1. The problem is not knowing how long a line is at a restaurant before showing up to it.
2. I think the best way to solve this problem is by partnering with restaurants and implementing a sensor at the door that would track how many people have entered and exited the store. This information would then be sent to an app that a potential customer could see on their phone and know a rough estimate of how many people are waiting in line at the store at one time. 

Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1

1. Lengthy lines at restaurants.
2. People in the United States do not know how long the lines at restaurants are before showing up to them and may be in a rush and don't have time to wait in the line. 
3. I think that more than just Americans have this need as I'm sure people around the world also experience showing up to a restaurant and realizing they have to wait thirty minutes before they order. Some people may be able to judge the line from outside by looking into the restaurant or by checking how packed the parking lot is. They could also call the store ahead of time and get a rough estimate of the wait. I think that the why pertains to most people and there aren't many boundaries for it.
4. Interviews
1. The first interviewee was a current freshman at the University of Florida. They also hated waiting in line for food and especially hated showing up to a restaurant and finding out that the line was much longer than expected. Although they never thought of it themselves, they saw that there was an opportunity for a product that would be able to tell people the length of a line before they show up to the store.
2. The second interviewee was a graduate student. This person has been at UF for 5 years and says that they have figured out which restaurants get busiest at what times and has been able to plan around this. He doesn't see a problem in waiting in line and thinks that if it did matter, he could just call ahead and figure out how long the wait was. 
3. The third interviewee was a sophomore at UF. This student is on the meal plan at UF and doesn't eat out very often at school so they don't have a need to know the wait times in the line. I asked her if it would help when she went back home and was no longer on UF's meal plan, but she said that she rarely eats out and usually eats home-cooked meals.
4. The fourth interviewee was a junior at UF. This student claimed that he had been late to classes before because he was waiting in line to get food and it took much longer than expected because the line was rather long. This student sees a need to know how long lines at restaurants are beforehand so that they are no longer late to class because of waiting for food.
5. My last interviewee was a faculty member at UF. I asked this faculty member if they eat out a lot and they said that they only do so on the weekend. During school hours, they bring a lunch to their office and eat at school. They believe it is cheaper and that paying money to eat out can cost a lot of money. When they eat out on weekends they usually make reservations at restaurants so they don't have to wait in a queue anyway.
5. I now know that not that many people have the need that I thought did. Some people never eat out and others don't mind waiting for their food or have other ways of avoiding lines.

Identifying Opportunities in Economic and Regulatory Trends

1. A regulation that recently went into effect was the legal age to buy tobacco related products was raised from 18 to 21. I found this opportunity while reading an article on the Wall Street Journal and seeing that vape stores and gas stations raised the required age to buy tobacco related products to 21. I believe there now exists an opportunity because of the fact that so many people are already addicted to the nicotine that is in these products so there is a market for these people that is currently unreachable. This customer is those that are in between the ages of 18-20 and are unable to buy these products. This opportunity is definitely a difficult one to exploit. The reason is that it takes a lot of work to overturn and change a government regulation. I found this opportunity because of the fact that I have been around these products a lot as many of my friends use them and I l have also used them before. I don't think I particularly am the only one who sees this opportunity because a lot of people I know have the same problem.
2. Another regulatory trend that has happened was the banning of plastic straws in Alachua County. I found this opportunity because I started to notice a trend that every restaurant I went to in Gainesville was giving out paper straws instead of the plastic ones that I was accustomed to. I then looked it up and figured out that they were banned around Gainesville. I believe there is an opportunity because these straws less quality than plastic ones. They tend to whittle and get soggy the longer that they are in the drink. I also personally think that it is not pleasant drinking out of them. I think there is an opportunity to make a renewable, biodegradable straw that is still of good quality. The customer that would buy this is a restaurant that is under the paper straw ban or any company trying to be more environmentally conscious. This seems like a relatively easy opportunity to exploit. I stumbled upon this opportunity because I personally find it very irritating to drink out of the paper straws.
3. A recent economic trend is the increase in completely electric cars. We see it everyday with the Tesla and other similar electric cars. Now, the big motor companies such as Ford and Volkswagen have started coming out with their own flagship electric cars with the Ford Mustang Mach E and Volkswagen's Audi e-tron. Electric cars are only getting cheaper and I believe that they are here to stay. I believe that there is an opportunity to open up multiple electric charging stations around the country. These spots would be just like a gas station, but would have multiple fast charging stations for people with electric cars. The customer of this opportunity is anyone who owns an electric car and is driving further than the range that they have in their car. I think that this is a difficult opportunity to exploit because there seems to be a high barrier to entry especially monetarily. It is an expensive opportunity. I saw this opportunity because while watching the Super Bowl I noticed all the ads for new electric cars. My thought was that electric cars were going to start becoming mainstream and there needs to be a way to charge them other than just at an in home charging station.
4. Another economic trend that I have taken notice to is that Americans have started to put more of their budget to eating out. I noticed this opportunity by reading an article about how people are cooking less and eating out more. With more people eating out there is going to be an increase in the wait time in lines at restaurants. I think that there is an opportunity to create an app or some other software that tracks the amount of people in a store at any time of the day. This way, when your are in a rush to get somewhere, you can check the wait times at restaurants and figure out what your best option is. I think that the customer that would use this application would be the average American who tends to eat out. I think that this is a relatively difficult opportunity to exploit because of the fact that there is software that needs to be built and you would probably have to get approval from restaurants to do this. I think that I was able to find this opportunity because I hate waiting in lines whether it is car traffic, lines at stores, or rides at theme parks.