Social Capital (20A)

Who: Rodrigo, Network consultant for Raytheon

Slot: Domain Expert: Fills the spot as he is someone that is working with networking components. He works for Raytheon but is an independent contractor also involved in multiple technologies, mainly with industrial computer and networking components. His specialty is in wireless technologies for industrial uses, such as machinery.

Description: I found this person from a friend who has a connection with him through a job they had with AT&T together. Was able to get his contact information an email him, eventually spoke with him.

Nature of Exchange: I explained to him my business idea, and he gave me feedback on the network concepts of how having a product like this would work.

Ability to exploit an opportunity: I believe he can help me if there were any opportunities with wireless technologies as far as the implementation to make the technology work in any environment. 

Who: Darren, Sales Director for VMware

Slot: Market Expert: He fills this slot as he has been involved in the sales but also innovation side of technology products for a long time. He’s worked with a lot of analysts that give him data about consumers that would be interested in products, and also has relationships with the people who use the products.

Description: My brother met him as a lead role in a project team he was working on using VMware products. I got to send him some emails after asking my brother if he knew anyone.

Nature of exchange: I told him about my idea, and he explained about the capabilities of 5G technologies he is working on with some other companies in collaboration with VMWare. One of them including wireless charging on tech devices without the need of any peripherals. It would literally just begin charging devices if it received a 5G connection.

Ability: He would definitely help me in being able to find a demograpphic of consumers that would be interested in the product, and in particular potential enterprise customers.

Who: Ryan, Lambda Labs Engineer

Slot: Supplier: He works with a team that makes deep learning workstations, servers, laptops, and cloud workstations. His team makes them for various big companies.

Description: Made this connection at work as our team was wanting to buy a GPU server off of them, or at least wanted a quote from them. Then I just asked him if he would be willing to hear out my business plan afterwards through email.

Nature of Exchange: I explained to him my business idea, and he talked about the various steps of how to get this product out into the market. His focus was on enterprise, but he gave me ideas on how I would be able to get this product on the market, and what potential suppliers I would need in order to do this. He also talked about the relationships you want to develop with suppliers, in his case computer hardware suppliers, and how deals can arise after a long enough time developing those relationships.

Ability: He would help me in being able to develop an effective supply chain and how I would be able to develop relationships with my suppliers.

Reflection: I would say it shaped me in being able to be a little more forward and confident in asking people for feedback and questions. A lot of people are willing to help, I just need to do more asking and develop those connections. I wouldn’t say it’s differed other than I tried targeting a more direct audience which helped because I was more comfortable being in my element in talking about technology. Overall though the methods to developing a network has been the same for me in just being intentional but also giving something back and not letting it be a one-way relationship. Other than forming the initial connection (which is my problem), I really do want to form meaningful relationships that go past “business,” or just getting something out of them.

Idea Napkin No.2 (19A)

Idea napkin No.2

1. You

            My talent is being able to understand concepts and to put things together. I’ve been told I just understand how things work, and, I’m a jack of all trades because of it. My skills are mainly  investigative, but also analytical, and being good with technology. I think this business would start playing a role in my life as it’s exactly how I would envision myself in the future; involved in a lot of areas. Not only in tech, but in finance, people managing and all the areas that encompass running a business.

2. What am I offering to customers

            What I’m offering to customers is a way for laptops to be recharged without having to be plugged into an outlet. It would be a USB wireless charger (Just like the USB drives that store your files, except not with that purpose). Being connected to a network with the USB plugged in would automatically start charging the laptop. I believe as more people are using laptops as their main PC, a big issue is battery life of laptops and the hassle of having to plug it in while not at home. Many people are on the go most of the time with their laptop, so there is always the case of them running out of battery and having to recharge it in a public location, or having to ratoin their battery life ofr fear of having to do so.

3. Who are you offering it to?

            I’m mainly targeting tech professionals and college students. Typical age would be 18-45 (can be older, or younger of course). I’m targeting this age group as I would say this demographic has grown up with technology, is constantly using it the most and has experienced the evolution of it. What my customers all have in common is that they are using technology daily, and perhaps can’t live without it.

4. Why do they care?

            This target audience has the need of wanting more convenience in charging their laptops. There might be times where because of time constraints someone may not have been able to charge their laptop at home, or potentially forgot to leave it charging and then they must go out with little battery life.  Having a wireless USB charger can eliminate these problems as you don’t have to sit next to a wall outlet anymore or must carry a charger in your bag. All you need to have is the USB (carry on your key chain: extremely portable) and a Wi-Fi connection. Customers really enjoy convenience and this product is exactly for that.

5. What are your core competencies? 

I would say what sets this product apart is the fact that it is truly wireless and extremely portable. No wires, power brick or wall outlet are needed for this product to work. The size is of a USB stick, and it’ll come with the various USB adapter connections that computers are now offering today (USB 3.0, 3.1, USB type-C, thunderbolt).

 Summary:

I believe these elements fit together but my concern would probably be the reason as to why someone would buy this product, or the audience. I still believe this is a luxury item but investigating more I’ve realized the phenomena of having more convenient and efficient tech products is creating new markets (Ex, Apple EarPods, wireless phone charging, etc.). People don’t realize how “useful” they are until they are using it, and word of mouth starts. This could benefit as my product will gain popularity and free advertising through that word of mouth. However, if the market does turn out to be more niche than expected it could raise a problem in how valuable this product is to consumers.

Feedback memo: What I took away from my feedback is that this item potentially more beneficial than EarPods, discovering the want and potential need of convenience consumers are wanting in their products, and just how involved people are with their technology everywhere. I incorporated this in my napkin by talking about what the actual need is that could make this product successful, and that is; the convenience of it. I mainly incorporated the fact that the product can be valuable to consumers because of the practicality and convenience of it,

Elevator Pitch No.2 (17A)

Link: https://youtu.be/2pLGI_hrUAo

Don't know why the video quality came out like it did, sorry about that.

2 & 3: Unfortunately wasn't able to do the first elevator pitch, so I wasn't able to get the feedback for these parts.

Creating a custom avatar (18a)

                My prototypical customer is a software developer. They are really into movies (action thrillers, science fiction the most), and love playing video games. They are also very analytical, are exceptional in math and gifted with logic questions. They typically stay up late either working on a program or are just playing video games with their buddies. They are still young and aren’t married and don 't have any kids. Roughly they are about 23-25 years old, and are working right out of college. They feel a bit older though because of their sleeping patterns and as they really can't see anything past than 2 feet without wearing glasses. They really don’t affiliate with any political party; they just choose the best candidate based of of actions, plans, and character. Quite skeptical though of political parties in general though. 

I say I some things in common with my custom avatar. Definitely not a math person, but would consider myself analytical in trying for figure out the best solution, and do like to think carefully. I also like to play video games and watching good movies is a big hobby for me. I think I can relate to my avatar as I think everyone has been used to using technology in their everyday lives, and some can't live without it. 

Figuring Out Buyer Behavior (2) 15A

In my first interview,  although I gave some alternatives, the research scientist actually gave me a completely different idea on the potential of not even needing the USB wireless laptop charger, but instead relying on creating a software that can take the Wi-Fi signal and then convert it into power for your laptops. This would work as she stated some devices (very few) can already convert the Wi-Fi signals into energy. So, the idea would be the software can transmit the signal through the processor (a semiconductor circuit in all computers “the brain”) and then release the accumulated power into the battery already in your laptop.  She said this kind of software could then either be payed and downloaded by consumer or make contracts with laptop manufacturers if they wanted to implement the software with their laptops. Either way she would be willing to pay the extra price for a completely hardware or wireless free alternative to recharging her laptop

My other two interviews were a little more straightforward as they said instead of a wireless USB charger, they would be intrigued in buying laptops that offer wireless charging already integrated if they had the chance. In my second interview he said that he was looking to buy a new laptop, and if it offered wireless charging, he would pay the extra price for that one “perk.” His basis for this decision is he is looking to buy laptops with the best features and specs as his work is in video game development and he also likes to game. His laptop purchases come from looking online and surveying some of the best gaming/ workstation laptops he can buy. Most of his purchases come with a lot of thought and research and he’s happy when he finally decides on the one he wants. 

 My third interviewer was indifferent to all the alternatives I gave him. He said he would really be fine with any of the products, but he would decide depending on his budget and need at the current time. He recently received a laptop for Christmas, so he went with my solution of a wireless USB charger, though he said it wasn’t necessary. Among the alternatives he also picked an already integrated Wi-fi charging laptop. He said though that his choice wouldn’t be based off the wireless USB charging, but the price of the laptop. Although he would like for his laptop to have it, if it wasn’t in his budget, he wouldn’t really give up the extra money for that “perk.” His shopping was also online, and his evaluation was really based on if he got the best deal for what his money could buy.

In conclusion, there was a lot to learn from this. It's all about the budget. Two really didn’t care and wanted to have the feature of wireless charging, yet one had a budget and wouldn’t give up the extra cash for that feature. In terms of post purchasing evaluation, I believe everyone had the same concept of getting what they specifically wanted whether it be with features or in a budget. If it met those criteria, they were happy with the purchase. I also realized the alternatives to the Wi-fi USB charging are more directly integrated with the laptop rather than a peripheral which could potentially hurt my product.

Halfway Reflection (14A)

1. I feel the best thing for me has been keeping up with a schedule of when to do my work. I think I’ve developed more discipline in terms of focusing on getting the work done and working a little ahead to not fall behind on some weeks where my other courses took a heavier weight. Also changing my morning schedule to wake up earlier to get work done has really helped my mindset overall of getting work done.

2. I don’t feel like I’ve had a moment where I’ve wanted to give up. I believe it’s because I took a gap semester and as this is my first semester back, I feel really motivated to get the work done. I feel my attitude has developed in that I feel like I’m close to finishing school, so this is the last “push” before I get to do so.  I would say the experience that has helped me is that gap semester, as at that time I really didn’t feel motivated to study, but now I do.

3. I would say developing a tenacious mindset comes from being disciplined and having goals/ ambitions in mind. This becomes a “life” attitude as in college there are deadlines, and your sense of alertness comes from wanting to get a passing or good grade. I would say for three steps: Have a schedule and be disciplined about it, get involved in other things other than school to develop a work habit, and I’d say get sleep and wake up early. I’ve found doing the work early in the morning gets me feeling accomplished already throughout the day and makes me want to keep going.

Reading Reflection (13A)

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

1. What surprised me the most me was that he worked with Bill Gates early on. I never knew Bill Gates was helping Steve Jobs with software on the Macintosh, and the eventual betrayal Jobs felt when Gates made Windows. Though they technically both stole from Xerox, I found it interesting that Jobs felt as if Gates “stole” "his" idea of a GUI for computers. I most admired the perfectionist attitude he had with technology. I believe it shows as the quality of Apple and its innovation somewhat “peaked” or stagnated when he wasn’t there, and now as he isn’t here. I think that stems from that perfection he wanted in the products Apple made. What I least admired is his almost two-faced attitude or sort of thinking he was  above everyone else. Like the Bill Gates incident, he believed Gates stole the idea when making Microsoft, but Jobs stole the idea of the GUI from Xerox. Steve Jobs did encounter failure, and he handled it by just being resilient and he kept working. He moved from different projects, and in life, he was always able to reflect and then move on and try to improve on his mistakes and achievements.

2. The competencies I notices were his artistic ability, and his drive to achieve a “perfect” product. In his artistic capabilities, he was able to produce and envision technology that would be beautiful and efficient in how they were used. He didn’t just want it to work, he wanted it to look good and in a way that would improve efficiency in using the technology. His drive I would also say is a competency as he was always looking to make a product that was perfect. He wouldn’t settle for anything less, and that’s what made him achieve so much in terms of Apple and with Pixar.

3.I really didn’t find anything confusing, but one part of the reading I found kind of off was the Music Man chapter, as it deviated from the autobiography a little bit to talk more about musicians. It was in the part of the book about the iPod and iTunes, so it made sense somewhat, but I found it talking more about musicians rather than Jobs.  

4.Two questions I would ask Steve Jobs:

Did you enjoy your time more at Pixar or at Apple?

What would be the next potential product Apple should research into making?

5. I think he believed hard work was a symbol of who you are. I think he believed hard work was a factor for success and for a solid reputation. Though he had his problems with people, people also knew that he was someone that worked incredibly hard to achieve something special, which they had to respect. I would agree with this opinion as working hard can lead to a lot of success and build a reputation that can lead to success.