Elevator Pitch: Part 3

Here's my pitch!

Reflection: 
So some of the feedback I received mentioned how I was not as enthusiastic about my business plan and did not seem engaged. I was sitting down too so that probably took away from the significance of what I had to say. I did include pricing options in my second pitch and provided a more specific description on the content and service I would provide, so at least that was an improvement.

Changes:
Based on the feedback I received, I did my best to try to stay engaged in this pitch. I used substantially a lot more hand gestures and I believe the inflection in my voice incited more enthusiasm in my subject matter. My background was more neutral too and I happened to be standing up, which should help with audience attention (hopefully). I still struggle with memorizing my pitch a bit, I had to read a good portion of it off the computer but what can I say it's a work in progress.

Reading Reflection, No. 2

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Carol Dweck

1. What was the general theme of argument of the book?

There are two different kinds of mindsets, the fixed and growth mindset. The growth mindset can play a bit part in someone's success. The growth mindset focuses on the life-long journey of learning and development and embraces the idea of failure. The fixed mindset believes intelligence and development is "carved into stone" and cannot be changed or improved, setting a more negative outlook on life when things may not go as planned.

2. How did the book, in your opinion, connect with and enhance what you are learning in ENT3003?

The discussion on failure and seeking it as an opportunity of growth really resonated with me especially when reflecting my experience with this class and my business idea. There are plenty of times where I may have felt discouraged at the thought of the failure, where I kept falling into that fixed mindset. This book taught me to look at failure in a different lens and use it as a learning experience. Entrepreneurship is a lot like that too. A business won't become successful right away, it must suffer through many trials and tribulations to perfect its plan and be able to implement it.

3. If you had to design an exercise for the class, based on the book you read, what would that exercise involve?

Similarly to the examples used in the book, I would most likely describe some sort of hypothetical scenario that the participants would have to imagine. In my description, it would be a scenario where a lot of random negative things would happen to the participant. For example, they received a really bad grade on an exam, got pulled over for speeding, and were broken up with their significant other. All these hypothetical events would be imagined as happening one after the other. The participant would then have to provide some sort of response on how they feel about these events happening to them. This discussion would hopefully spark a conversation on mindset and the difference between having a fixed mindset and growth one.

4. What was your biggest surprise or "aha" moment when reading the book? In other words, what did you learn that different most from your expectations?

I never really thought about it this way, but in Dweck's book she brings up a really valid question. "Is success learning or proving you're smart?" It really had me to take a step back and reflect on some of my past life decisions and their motives. Many of those times, it was this ongoing battle of trying to constantly prove my worth or showcase my intelligence when in reality I was taking all those experiences for granted. Even during the times when I made mistakes or didn't understand how to do something, I always brushed off those experiences when in reality those were the ones I should've been focusing on the most. Success can be such a blurred thing and a lot of the times it feels like a contest. This book allowed me to realize that they only person and/or thing I should be competing with is myself, and it should be about becoming better not proving my worth.

Growing Your Social Capital

Interviewee #1

1. Who? Peggy Trudeau: former Human Resources Manager at Naylor Association Solutions; former boss of mine
2. Slot? Domain expert
1. Peggy Trudeau has worked in the Human Resources industry for 20 years. She worked for a plethora of businesses, whether they were related to health administration or consulting. Since she worked in a more generalist role, she was able to gain experience in recruitment, payroll, compensation and benefits, and legal compliancy. She’s gained a lot of knowledge and experience from her years of experience that I would consider her a domain expert.
3. How did you find them? I have worked directly under Peggy, as I was her intern. Therefore, she provided a lot of professional guidance and knowledge on many topics, especially those related to HR.
4. Nature of exchange? As previously mentioned, I worked under Peggy as an intern; therefore, the relationship I have is one with a superior. She’s been a mentor for me, and someone who has taught me a lot about HR and its related fields.
5. Will they help exploit your opportunity? Even though my business is related to building self-defense workshops, including Peggy in my network will help with any compliancy or legal issues I may have regarding my business. There are many rules that need to be followed for a business to be considered legal and transactional, therefore having her expertise would definitely steer me in the right direction.

Interviewee #2

1. Who? Morgan Faroni: a RAD self-defense instructor (another RAD instructor, different from the one I previously interviewed)
2. Slot? Market expert
1. Morgan has been a RAD instructor for a few years and has been teaching young women in the college campus area about proper self-defense techniques 
3. How did you find them? I have personally taken self-defense classes with Morgan and I was able to contact her through that way. She also happens to work at the Financial aid office on campus. 
4. Nature of exchange? Having been a student of her class, she has a very personable yet authoritative experience. I see her as a resource and advocate for women and protecting them. 
5. Will they help exploit your opportunity? She is a big advocate for women and having them feel the need to protect themselves in unsafe situations. I believe with her help she would be more than willing to act as a potential instructor once this business were to establish itself. She also would be willing to teach on crisis management and give any of her past experiences and knowledge to other potential instructors.

Interviewee #3

1. Who? My neighbor: app creator of emergency alert features
2. Slot? Supplier expert
1. My friendly neighbor has some experience dabbling in app making. He’s a Computer Science graduate and has a daughter in college, and during his free time he went and created an application that sends out alerts to the officials when pressing a button. He created this app because he figured it would help his daughter as she went off to college.
3. How did you find them? Since he is my neighbor and his daughter and I are really good friends, I was able to find out more about his app and his supplier functions through proximity.
4. Nature of exchange? I mentioned my business proposal to this supplier, and he was able to provide me some feedback on how I can market it better and maybe create some sort of database system that could help track membership. He’s always been like a father figure to me, so he was providing me constructive feedback and showing me my options.
5. Will they help exploit your opportunity? I believe including this person in my network will allow for a more structured format on the business and its services. He’s very techy; therefore, any sort of logistical issues that may arise can be handled by him.

Reflection:

I was very lucky in this “targeted networking” experience since a lot of the individuals who provided feedback on my business are all people I know well. In a way that avoids the need for icebreakers and goes straight into the networking. As for future networking experiences, my approach might have to be a bit more subtle and I should probably do my best in easing into my business proposal rather than presenting it right off the bat.

Idea Napkin: Part 2

Who are you?

As previously mentioned, I am currently studying Psychology and Management interested in a career of employee development and training, specifically in the Human Resources field. My business idea is centered on self-defense training and crisis management education, specifically for all women, including women of color. With my passion for employee development and training, I hope to transfer those skills and abilities into this business venture and continue on empowering individuals 

What are you offering to customers?

The service is a workshop course that provides self-defense techniques and educational workshops for women and marginalized. First time members can do a course for free if a friend referenced them, but after that classes will cost approximately $15. These self-defense workshops will incorporate some physical techniques, such as Krav Maga, karate, and some judo. In addition, we will incorporate action and case scenarios in which members and instructors can act out hypothetical violent scenarios. Crisis management education will also become a function of the course, where presentations and knowledge on gun violence, domestic abuse, and assault will provided by professionals in those areas. These presentations will provide insight on the necessary dialogue, communication styles, and precautions that need to be taken during these types of crises. We hope that as our service starts to grow and become more popular, we could potentially offer monthly memberships at $20, with four sessions per month.

Who are you offering it to?

The demographic my business will specifically cater to is females between the ages of 17-30 who live in big, urban cities. We hope we can gauge interests and feedback by posting google forms on our social media pages regularly. With this notion, we can then learn how to better cater to our main demographic.

Why do they care?

The portion of persons age 12 or older who were victims of violent crime increased from 0.98% in 2015 to 1.14% in 2017.

In a perfect world, we would not have to fear for our sense of safety. But since we do live in a society where violent crime, especially on women and minorities, is on the rise, being able to acquire the basic skills to defend yourself is becoming more and more integral to peoples’ lives. With violent crimes increasing and life expectancy decreasing in the U.S. from gun violence, assault, and suicide, we need to find a way to better empower our people, specifically white women and women of color who fall victim to these factors. The mission of the business is to feel a sense of security in your neighborhood and be able to live to tell the story. We want to empower our customers and make them know that they are strong enough to deal with these kinds of situations if the opportunity presents itself.

What are your core competencies?

• Empowering women through strength-building workshops and crisis management education
• Not your average gym membership, healthy mind, body, and soul is at the root of our business and most importantly a sense of security, safety, and confidence to conquer any precarious thing life hits you
• There are free programs that provide basic self-defense skills (e.g., Rape Aggression Defense (RAD) program) but they only offer a limited number of sessions. Our program is on-going and is always finding new ways to educate and exercise new self-defense techniques. 
• We believe in giving our dedicated members an opportunity to become instructors and teach these workshops too.

Evaluation

I believe I did a better job at evaluating my product this time around. I described the service more specifically and expanded on the mission of the business. Overhead and rent on performing these workshops is still a work in progress. But if I want to start small, I could reserve space on-campus for free and use that opportunity to provide free services for interested members. It would help with marketing the business and seeing what kind of initial feedback I’ll receive.

Feedback

A lot of the feedback I received on my first Idea Napkin was centered on providing a service that will turn a profit. I reflected on it a bit, and I think increasing the price of the sessions might be a good idea, especially if the benefits are marketed well enough. In my core competencies, I even go about differentiating between the traditionally free RAD programs to this particular service. I make the distinction that my service is an on-going program, not limited to a certain amount of sessions such as other self-defense programs. Hopefully, this distinction will be enough to grow the brand of the service.

Elevator Pitch, No. 2

Elevator Pitch, No. 2

Reflection: I was truly grateful on most of the feedback. A lot of people brought up some interesting points related to my content that would allow for a better sales pitch. They appreciated my personal appeal to the topic, and I maintained that in my new elevator pitch. In my second elevator pitch I grew more confident in my topic and expressed more conviction in my explanation of the business proposal.

Changes: Based on my previous feedback, most of the people mentioned that I should discuss the price and be more specific about the service I am offering. In this elevator pitch, I discussed some of the pricing options and the possibility for a membership. Also, in my last elevator pitch my background environment was a bit more distracting so I took the liberty to find a more neutral background that way more focus would be centered on the content I am discussing.

Create a Customer Avatar

Customer avatar: Females of all races between the ages of 18-30

Description: Based on the service I want to sell, my prototypical customer would consist of primarily young adult women living in big cities. Many of these customers will fall in the 18-22 years of age because my service does plan to cater to the younger, college crowd. They are most likely middle class and if not in school, they are young professionals in their careers. Their political views are most likely liberal and many of them will be big advocates for women empowerment.

Commonalities: I myself fall perfectly into this group of individuals. I am a female between the ages of 18-30.  Currently I fall into the segment of those in college, but I will be a young professional within a year so even as I transition into my life this segment will still apply to me. I am a white women so I fall under the more privileged category of women. This segment is more inclusive catering to women of all color who have ever felt inferior in isolated places.

Pictured below are the prototypical customers I would expect in my segment.