Your Venture's Unfair Advantage

1. Relationship with Restaurants
1. This resource is very valuable when developed. It ensures that competition will not undercut you to take some of your marketshare. It is also rare, and once the relationship has been implemented and is strong, it is hard to imitate. It is also non-substitutable
2. Network- UF Students
1. This is a very valuable network because it will provide customers to get my business up and running. I think it is rare as well because not many people have access to a large college network of over 50,000 students. At this scale, I don't think it will easily be imitated or substituted.
3. App Development
1. This is a resource, but it seems to be one of the weaker ones. Although it is valuable for its ease of access, it is not rare as there are already so many apps out there. It is also easily imitated by other app developers and easily substituted by other forms of media like websites.
4. Problem Solving
1. This is a very valuable trait and is rare in some senses. It also can't be substituted easily. However, it can be imitated.
5. Location
1. The location of my business is strong because there is a high density of people living in a small area. This is valuable and rare, but not non substitutional or inimitable.
6. Marketing
1. My particular business will have an easy marketing effort because of the demographics surrounding where my business is located. This is rare, valuable, and non substitutional. However it is imitable.
7. Demographics
1. The demographics of my customers is strong. They all use their smartphones a lot and have a lot of use for phone apps as well as them eating out a lot. This is valuable and rare, but also substitutional and imitable.
8. Financing
1. The financing for my company will mostly come from banner ads and promotions running through my app. This is valuable because it makes sure that the company actually makes money and allows the app to be free to customers. However, this practice is not rare and it can be imitated and substituted.
9. Convenience
1. Not only will this be a convenient service as it will tell you wait times at different website, it will also be convenient for its ease of access. This is valuable, rare, and non substitutional as convenience is very important. But of course, it can be easily imitated
10. Customer Service
1. Another strength of my business is the ability to communicate with customers and address their problems directly through the app. This is valuable, however not rare, non substitutional, or inimitable.

Overall, I think the relationship with restaurants factor is the most important part. A strong relationship ensures lower costs, and more efficiency in the service. It is also a way to make the barrier to entry higher for competitors. 

Elevator Pitch 3

1. https://youtu.be/0311Yh6rkAk
2. The thing that stood out to me as most important was to try and make my pitch seem less scripted.
3. I attempted to memorize the pitch better so that it didn't seem as scripted and made sure to use pauses to emphasize certain points.

Reading Reflection No. 2

Thinking Fast and Slow

1. The general theme of the book was that people make decisions in an irrational way, even when attempting to be rational, and that their is two decision making systems in your brain, an automatic one and a conscious one.
2. The book enhanced what I am learning in ENT3003 because this class deals with solving a lot of problems. Now I will start to think twice before I make decisions knowing that my brain is naturally lazy and attempts to take short-cuts when solving problems.
3. An exercise would involve people answering a couple of questions that seem easy but require more conscious decision making. This way people will see the action of their brain taking short-cuts to solve problems and how it can hurt them in the long run.
4. The biggest 'aha' moment for me was learning how all human brains like to cut corners and look for the easiest way to solve a problem even if it inhibits the solution that is uncovered. Because of this, people aren't able to use all of their intelligence.  

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.

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.

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.