Assignment 22 - Pitch 3

 https://youtu.be/Lgwu5UPslIw

I received a lot more positive feedback on my most recent elevator pitch, which was very encouraging. The only negative feedback that I received was that the lighting and setting for my pitch was pretty poor, so I strived to fixed this on my newest pitch. In this elevator pitch I really improved the lighting and setting of my pitch. I was really encouraged and enjoyed all the positive comments as they really motivated me as well to work hard and strive to do a better job on my elevator pitch. I feel like the hardest part of this elevator pitch is that the time restraint went from 90 seconds to 60 seconds, which made me feel like I had to go a lot quicker and rush in my pitch to get under the time restraint. I feel like throughout all the elevator pitches I have gotten a lot more comfortable with my idea and presenting it to others.

Assignment 21 - Reading Reflection 2

1) What was the general theme or argument of the book?

The book I read was How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, by Scott Adams. The general theme of the book was learning on how to grow from failure and be able to move on in life.

2) How did the book, in your opinion, connect with and enhance what you are learning in ENT 3003?

I feel like the book really connected with what we are learning in the class because it really hammer homes the idea of persistence and dedication. As an entrepreneur it is important to know how to earn from failure and embrace it. Entrepreneurship involves a lot of trial and error with failure, which is essentially what the whole book talks about. I feel like entrepreneurship can really be summed up by the book’s title “How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big”  considering entrepreneurship is about constant dedication and failing just to hopefully ultimately see that hard work pay off in the end.

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

What I would design for the class is to write down everything in the last 6 months that has made them freak out or consider themselves a failure. Then have them write down everything they have done in the past 6 months that they have done in terms of self care and self happiness. By doing this they will see how much balance they have in their life and can focus more on improving their self happiness rather than stressing about failure that looking backing on it that ultimately probably doesn’t matter.

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

The big ‘aha’ moment for me was when Adams mentioned that he really switched to believing in systems rather than goals. This was surprising to me as usually you hear people talking about sticking to their goals, but Adams totally discouraged this as they are too specific and too far ahead in the future.

Assignment 20 - Growing Social Capital

Domain Expert:

Who they are?: This person works for a sports analytics company that actually inspired me to make my business idea. The company is called SportsAnalytics247 and they use data of hired sports analytics experts to help determine picks for games.

Which slot?: They are filling my domain expert spot and fill it because they are experts of the kind of product I would like to serve.

Contact?: I contacted them by direct messaging them through Instagram and they were surprisingly very helpful and enthused to help me.

Exchange?: They told me all about the natures and specialties and offers of there business. They told me all about how they like to use a system where they offer more picks and discounts to others that they feel are “valued” customers that follow them on all kinds of platforms. This was a cool and unique idea to me that I had not considered. The favor they did for me is they gave me knowledge and inside information of their expertise. The favor that I did for them is that I help them by following them on more platforms and got a lot of my friends to follow them and use their services.

How will they help you exploit an opportunity?: They already helped by giving me expertise on their business model and what they like to do and how big social media can be for an upstart business with a new service.

Market Expert:

Who they are?: This person is one of my professors for my sport management classes, Sport Marketing.

Which slot?: They are filling the market expert as they are experts on the field of sport consumer behavior, plus understands the sports gambling field.

Contact?: I just asked him after class what he thought real quick of my idea.

Exchange?: He informed me that although I have a god grasp of who I am selling to, I should include how the effects of some characteristics of the behaviors of sport consumers should factor into my business model.

How will they help you exploit an opportunity?: He helped me understand that my opportunity to reach my consumers goes far beyond what I originally thought it was. He helped me see that using what he taught me about understanding sport consumer behavior, I can really target my customers better and use this opportunity to grow my business. The favor they did for me was by helping me grow more knowledge of my customer base.

Supplier:

Who?: This person is one of my friends’ dad that actually sells to sport consumers and primarily golf fans and consumers.

Which slot?: They are filling the supplier slot as they sell to sport consumers, which I intend to do.

Contact?: I asked my friend to give me his father’s contact information and set up an phone interview where he allowed me to pitch my service and business idea to him.

Exchange?: He told me that I should continue to adapt my model based off more personal selling to customers as I am going to be an upstart business and service and that customers would be more trusting if they put a face to the business as well as backed up data that proves my service is something that is more accurate then just basic gambling off feel or someone making a glorified guess. The favor he did for me was giving me more knowledge on how to sell and gain customers.

How will they help you exploit an opportunity?: They will help me exploit the opportunity of trust in my industry as there is not a lot of areas of trust with other companies, but I have the opportunity to gain trust with my service.

Reflection: This experience really showed the importance of networking as there are many people out there with a lot of knowledge that can help guide me with my business. This differed a little bit from my networking experience in the past as it required me to ask more in depth questions and get outside my comfort zone.

Assignment 19 - Idea Napkin 2

You: I am a sophomore sports management student at the University of Florida. My talents are that I am creative, a positive thinker, I persevere well, and I can adapt to situations quickly. Some of my skills and experiences are that I have good customer service skills and have a deep understanding and knowledge of the sports world. I have attained this knowledge from my experiences of being around sports and sports fans as well for the majority of my life. I see this business as a business that helps service sports fans by giving them insider information and proven data that helps fans and consumers make better gambles with their money.

What: I am offering to customers a service that will help new gamblers make better choices with where and how they place their money. My service will give them insider information and backed data and research that helps them get a better understanding of a team they are gambling on. This will help them be more educated on their bets and gain a sense of confidence that they know what they are getting into and earn more money off their bets.

Who: Sport consumers that either enjoy gambling, looking at gambling predictions, or want to start sport gambling. I will mostly target the newer sport gamblers as they are the ones with the highest need of my service. All my consumers share the fact that they are sport consumers that would like to benefit monetarily by gambling.

Why: Consumers will care about my service as it will help them become more informed gamblers and become better gamblers as well. They will understand how to place bets consistently instead of betting based off feel like most do, especially new gamblers that will be starting to gamble after the new legislation.

What: What I have is the same as before, what I have that other companies do not is that I will add in a brief trial period that will hopefully get the consumer interested in only my service particularly. This is different from most sport gambling consulting companies as they either do not offer trials or they will give out a reduced fee for certain picks.

I think that there is definitely room for improvement in my business concept. I think a lot of my competencies can e copied or duplicated by other businesses, especially if they see success. Because if this it makes it hard for my company to continue to stand out. This will cause me to have to adapt to the market and the other businesses around me as I go with my service.

Assignment 18 - Customer Avatar

My customer avatar:

My customer avatar is one that thoroughly enjoys sports and the thrill and competition of sports betting. They most likely enjoy the thrill of winning and like being on the right side of events. They mostly likely drive just the standard sedan type car and are feeling like they can do in better in life by using sports betting to make a few extra bucks. They long for an even better car and aren’t completely satisfied with where they are in life, as they hope to use sports betting to better their position in life. They probably watch a lot of sport talk shows and sport betting shows as well, as they have a general basis of understanding for the sport betting world. This customer avatar is probably a young to 30 year old adult that likes to feel younger by making risks.

What I have in common:

What I have in common with the customer avatar is that I also thoroughly enjoy sports and heavily watch sports and sport talk shows. I also am a risk taker that enjoys the thrills of competition that comes along with sports and sports betting. I do not think that this is a coincidence as I am targeting those that are most like me and those that I know.

Assignment 17 - Elevator Pitch No.2

Elevator Pitch No.2:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsFjwK2z_b4

Reflection:

The feedback I received was mostly about confusion on whether or not my service was a booking service that actually placed bets for customers. I cleared this up in my video explaining that although we would be taking advantage of the new sport betting laws and market out there, we are not a service that takes bets like a booking service. We are a service that just provides information and data to customers to help them more accurately make decisions that benefit them with their bets.

What I changed based off  feedback:

Based off this feedback I changed my pitch up a little bit. I made sure I was more relaxed and calmer in my new elevator pitch. I spoke with more confidence and spoke slower so my viewers could understand me. I also cleared up that my service is not a booking service that helps place bets for customers, but rather one that aids those that are new to the sport betting world.

Assignment 15 - Buyer Behavior Pt. 2

I interviewed 3 individuals of the segment that I am targeting, which are those that are new to sport gambling and would want to pay for a service that provides them analytics and expertise to guide them in their sport betting ventures.

Alternative Evaluation: A couple of my interviewees said that they have done some brief searching before about these kind of services saying that they were really interested. They mentioned that what really prohibited them the most from joining any of the service is that it was expensive and obviously there is no guarantee when it comes to sport betting. I had one interviewee who said that he has researched a lot of these sport betting consulting companies and that they too were very expensive, but he said what really kept him from paying for any of the services is that some of them seemed gimmicky and did not know whether he could trust them.

How/Where Consumers Buy: All my interviewees said that they have seen these alternative companies all online. They said that this was not really a problem for them as they usually place their bets through services like Paypal, Venmo, wired transfer, or just credit card.

Post-purchase Evaluation: What my interviewees said what really mattered for them was the results of whether the services helped them accurately place the right bet. One of my interviews said that he follows a company on Instagram and that they often post stories and posts highlighting their correctly picked bets.

Conclusion: What I found from these interviews is that what matters most to consumers are the results and that when the consumers see results they will continue to flock to the company. The problem I saw however was that it is very hard to gain the trust of consumers as some of these companies seem gimmicky and untrustworthy. Also, prices for these services seem quite expensive to consumers, especially the new ones that have not firsthand witnessed any type of results yet. The prices prohibit new consumers from joining the services, this causes them to not see any results and limit their want.