Thursday, March 19, 2020

Create a Customer Avatar

My Prototypical customer is a college student. They spend more time in the library cramming for their exams than they do talking to people during exam week. Their preferred method of transportation is a bike, scooter, or bus. Some of them may even live close enough to campus to walk everywhere. They love eating out, especially at Chipotle because it is so close to one of the main libraries at the University of Florida, however they hate how long the line gets around exam season. They range in age from 18-24 and can be anywhere from a brand new undergrad who thinks they took hard classes in high school, to a seasoned masters student who learned very quickly that UF exams are nothing like those in high school. They've probably watched The Office more than once and have no regrets about it. They drink Starbucks late into the night and have a messed up sleep schedule.

I relate heavily to my customer avatar because my business idea stemmed off of problems that I have personally experienced as a UF student and throughout life. Therefore there is absolutely no coincidence that we have things in common.


Elevator Pitch No. 2


  1. https://youtu.be/a1xtrOfoDJo
  2. My responses to my video were generally positive. The main thing that stood out to me was that I should create more detail about what my idea was with my business proposition.
  3. I decided to add more detail about the user interface of the app for my business and state the different things that you can achieve on the app.

Friday, March 13, 2020

Figuring out Buying Behavior 2

The segment that I interviewed last time and will interview again is college students at the University of Florida.

Two out of three of my interviewees stated that when choosing alternatives, price is the first thing that they look at. Usually if they are going to choose between two products that are very comparable to another and when brand loyalty isn't a factor, they almost always choose the cheaper product over the more expensive one. My other interviewee has a strong sense of brand loyalty when buying products. So for this customer, he values quality higher than price and has had success with a specific brand of products so he is willing to pay a premium for the brand name product.

All of my interviewees state that it depends on the product for whether or not they buy it online. Products that they have to consistently buy, such as household products like toiletries, kitchen products, and groceries, they will buy in person. However clothes and technology they prefer to buy online. They all state that they rarely use cash to make a purchase. One of my interviewees, who is a graduate student that lives in a house off campus, said that they use cash when making large purchases such as furniture because when they walk into a furniture with a wad of cash, the company is more inclined to give them a better deal because the money is much more tangible and the company doesn't have to pay credit card charges.

My interviewees state that they always have expectations of the products that they purchase before they actually make the purchase. The way that they evaluate whether or not the purchase was worth it is if those expectations are met or not. They all state that when the expectation is matched with reality, they are neutral on the purchase and may or may not make the purchase again in the future. When their expectations are exceeded, they are satisfied and very likely to make the purchase again in the future. When their expectations are not met, they will never make the purchase again in the future unless there are no alternatives. They also claim that they make sure to tell their friends how bad the product was. This is why it is so important to exceed expectations to bring back repeat customers. Meeting expectations won't get it done and not meeting expectations can be detrimental to your customer base.

I would evaluate my segment as having high product diversity in that they are not loyal to a specific product and care most about price. Their choice of whether or not they should buy online depends on the product they purchase and their post purchase behavior depends on if their expectations are met.

Friday, February 28, 2020

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.

    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?
  4. 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

Friday, February 21, 2020

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.