ENT 3003 Assignment 19A – Idea Napkin No. 2

Second Shot at Idea Napkin No. 2

1) My name is Jared Narzissenfeld, I’ve spent most of my life in the Orlando area including my first 2 years of community college at Valencia. I have since transferred to UF as general business major. I believe my best skills lie in learning and adapting, I find myself capable of adjusting to whatever scenario I’m placed into and learning quickly to become the best I can be at whatever it is I set my mind to. I have large aspirations in terms of success, I hope to become better off than my parents and peers, I hope to let nothing get in my way of being the best person that I can be. I believe that if I were to start this business that it would become something mainstay to my daily life, in such a way that I expressed earlier by my skills. I could easily see my business being something I put full effort into as a means of being as successful as it and I can be, realizing the idea’s full potential.

2) My product will offer customers a substitute to what is currently on the market, and I believe these current products are inferior. I plan to make a mechanical pencil that solves the issues currently found among the major brands, these include problems with lead, reusability, and convenience. My product will have more durable lead with a more structured pencil so that excessive breakage will be prevented. Additionally, this pencil will have features never before seen that will allows users to refill their pencils with minimal effort, saving money for not only the consumer but for the environment too.

3) I believe the characteristics of my customers can be best described by their demographics, to which I would say is primarily 14-24-year-olds in some level of education from middle school up to university. Furthermore, I believe this product isn’t going to be weighted strongly to other ethnicity’s and such but more focused on age and occupation. I believe most of my customers will be primarily writers rather than people who type on a computer, that is people who prefer to frequently write out their notes and do their work with a pencil as opposed to other options such as a laptop, pen with ink, or just not being much of a writer at all. Ideally this product will be designed for people that prefer writing on paper rather than using electronic devices.

4) I think customers should be willing to spend money for my product as they’re already currently paying for inferior products. Any student that likes to write and chooses lead often uses a mechanical pencil, these pencils can be gone through extremely quickly, I know from personal experience I’ve used anywhere from 5-10 in a single month. Due to the large amount of turnover with pencils I believe people will have a desire to have a pencil they don’t go through as quickly, due to the additional lead in my product, users will choose to purchase it more often as they will be getting a longer-lasting product for a similar price point that will simultaneously be keeping all the thrown away pencils out of the landfills they inevitably end up in, therefore also supporting the environment. My customer market will care about this product as it will be made at little to no more additional cost but with significant benefits.

5) I believe what sets me apart from everyone else is determination, I truly believe I could have an inferior product but with my relentless effort and work I could still make it perform better than any more “superior” product. Furthermore, I truly do believe the product I’ve come up with is like nothing on the market and offers a benefit to users in a way that no other product does in its form of improving reusability, allowing one pencil to last longer than any competitive product on the market right now.

Feedback Memo:

I believe that my five elements do fit together well as my skills and capabilities are represented in my product and the demographics of my customer audience represent people of the same characteristics that my product appeals to. Based off my feedback, I tried to incorporate the fact that the changing times of society with more technology has resulted in a shift away from users hand-writing in favor of using electronic devices. With that said, I believe my target audience will be those people that still prefer to write by hand. Additionally, I believe it's important that I make my product affordable for students and children in my target audience so that they can make the purchase of the product themselves that they may be unlikely to do at a higher price point.

ENT3003 Assignment 17A – Elevator Pitch No. 2

Elevator Pitch Practice! (Part 2!)

1) The pitch. Same as last time, about 90-seconds long. No Web cams. No sitting. Be dynamic! Upload the video to YouTube (as you do with all of your videos) and post the link.

2) A reflection on the feedback you received from your last pitch. 

• I believe I gained useful feedback from lecture regarding introductions and avoided introducing myself, opting for a more product-focused pitch. I think this is important because I want my pitch to be all about why my product is great and why it's worth an investment or interest, while my personal information can be gathered more easily and can be redundant. I believe I was given some good advice regarding concrete numbers and facts and tried to focus on the objective qualities of my product this time around. 

3) What did you change, based on the feedback?

• During this elevator pitch I made some alterations based on feedback. For one, I jumped right into my pitch to start as opposed to introducing myself. I also focused more on facts and and information about my product than I did the first time around.

ENT3003 Assignment 18A – Create a Customer Avatar

Customer Avatar

My product can be nailed down to a primary demographic of 14-22 year olds that are also students, it's not particularly suited for a specific gender or some other attributes but for the sake of this assignment I'll try to specify all the characteristics that are more likely.

My customer is a 19 year old female attending university as an English major. She enjoys hobbies such as partying, watching football, and socializing with friends at local restaurants. She drives a green 2010 Toyota Corolla that her parents purchased for her to use up at school. She typically watches Netflix as opposed to traditional TV, watching shows like Orange is the New Black, Friends, and The Office. 

I have a lot in common with this avatar as far as characteristics. I don't use traditional TV, I can be found at local restaurants, and i'm a university student with a car purchased by my parents. I don't think this is a coincidence as my reality is skewed by what I believe and see and I assume everything I see is as likely or as common as everyone else's life. 

ENT3003 Assignment 16A – What’s Your Secret Sauce?

Know Thyself

Describe five ways in which you think you have human capital that is truly unique.

1. Determination – When it comes to accomplishing a task, I’m extremely strong-willed and will work on a task tirelessly until I’m able to complete it to the best of my ability.

2. Adaptability – No matter what situation I’m put into, I’m extremely quick to adapt and learn how to be successful in the position I’ve been placed in. In an atmosphere where stuff is always changing, I’m able to keep up effectively.

3. Reliability – My consistency in work and mindset is superior to most, I feel like if something needs to be done you can always count on me to either get it done to the best of my ability or take the appropriate steps to ensure the best result.

4. Independence – I have a sense of independence that allows for me to operate on my own with less social contact and with less help needed than that of most people, while also still being able to interact and communicate with people effectively.

5. Problem Solving – When faced with an issue or assignment, I put my all of my effort into solving the task at hand and normally I’m able to figure out how to succeed in most situations, finding the solution to a complicated issue.

Interview the five people who know you the best.

1. Naomi Interview (https://soundcloud.com/user-368372101/naomiinterview/s-hNqFL?in=user-368372101/sets/ent3003-assignment-16-interviews/s-NazKF)

• Naomi, my girlfriend of 4 years now described me as having great insight and care for others. I think this makes sense as I've been there for her throughout many problems in her life and she's seen a supportive side of me that most don't get to see. 

2. Dad Interview (https://soundcloud.com/user-368372101/dadinterview/s-2JtOe?in=user-368372101/sets/ent3003-assignment-16-interviews/s-NazKF)

• I think my dad's answer was the most similar to what I believe about myself. My dad has been a great influence in my life with saving/financing and being good academically. These things were expressed in what he described as self-motivation and being able to do everything I put my mind to quickly and effectively.

3. Rachel Interview (https://soundcloud.com/user-368372101/rahcelinterview/s-N3MgJ?in=user-368372101/sets/ent3003-assignment-16-interviews/s-NazKF)

• My sister who is really just a sweet girl, described me as being attentive and a knowledge-seeker. To her point about learning, I definitely think I have a  genuine interest in school that most truly don't have.

4. Jason Interview (https://soundcloud.com/user-368372101/jasoninterview/s-V7uc5?in=user-368372101/sets/ent3003-assignment-16-interviews/s-NazKF)

• Being my best friend, Jason knows me in a lot of ways that family don't. His description of me was different from everyone else's in the way that he described my energy and humor. My family and girlfriend described me as kind and intelligent whereas he focused more on why i'm a good guy to "hangout" with.

5. Mom Interview (https://soundcloud.com/user-368372101/mominterview/s-qnl33?in=user-368372101/sets/ent3003-assignment-16-interviews/s-NazKF)

• My mom, who I initially started my interview by saying knows me best had one interesting take on what differentiates me. That point I think is something quite admirable in that I like to do everything to the best of my ability, kinda like a perfectionist as Naomi mentioned.

Reflect on the differences. 

I see myself as an independent and reliable person who is a hard worker and a quick learner with an abstract intelligence that allows me to be an effective problem solver. Others seem to see me in similar ways, primarily with the hard working and quick learning attributes. However, I was also seen as caring to my girlfriend and fun to be around by my best friend which I didn't quite instinctively think about myself. With that said, I think my interviewees were correct about me, everything sounded right, I think the differences are simply because of what side of me I express to each person. I don't think I would make any corrections to my aforementioned list, I think it covered my main five differentiating attributes.

ENT3003 Assignment 15A – Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 2

Evaluating How Your Customers Evaluate Stuff

Report the Findings and Draw Conclusions:

My three interviews were again with people that were a part of my selected segment of students with a hand-writing preference, and particularly those with a mechanical pencil preference (I did however settle for one student in my three interviews who primarily used a pen when hand-writing.) My first Interview was conducted with a 19-year-old, Female Student attending UF as a Psychology major. My second interview was with a 21-year-old Male Student that’s is studying Finance. My final interview was with a 19-year-old Female at UF attending UF’s college of nursing.

When it comes to alternative evaluation, my interviews have led me to believe that the primary substitutes to my product are current mechanical pencils, wooden #2 pencils, ink pens, and an array of technological replacements to writing such as laptops, PCs, iPad’s, etc. My first interviewee described how she chooses which product to use based on the situation, saying that she’s much more likely to use her laptop in content-heavy classes, whereas she’s always using a mechanical pencil when taking hand-written notes for her math classes. I had similar responses in terms of subject determining utensil among my other interviews on this occasion and previously.

Among my three interviews, they all happened to say that they had brought their writing utensil from home and that it was purchased by themselves or a family member in-person never online, at a typical supermarket like Walmart or Publix. My third interview further described how her family tends to load up on school supplies right before the school year (July/August) and that this is when her current ink pens were purchased. My general impression across all three interviews is that they’re quite pleased with the purchases of their pencils/pens but that it’d be rare for them to be unhappy with a similar purchase.

To conclude, I believe the segment I chose to interview is highly interested in the convenience of purchasing and using their respective writing utensils. With that said, I think that they’re not too concerned with the price or effectiveness of their pencils, as the purchases are not thought about too extensively and are most likely not even purchased by themselves.

ENT3003 Assignment 14A – Halfway Reflection

Tenacity & Paying It Forward

1) Tenaciousness is a competency. What are the behaviors that you have used (or developed) to keep up with the requirements of this course?

I would say that when It comes to this course, you have to be consistent, aware, and well organized. There are so many assignments due each and every week that you must stay on top of the coursework. I think this can be best done by setting a schedule and sticking it to it week in and week out, while also being continuously aware of your upcoming assignments and what they entail. Overall, I believe this class really comes down to just staying on top of the work and getting ahead so that you have sufficient time to do everything as required.

2) Tenaciousness is also about attitude. Talk about a moment or two when you felt like "giving up." What pulled you through? Do you feel like you've developed a tenacious attitude during the past two months? What experience or experiences most contributed to this?

When I first started dealing with the assignments of this class I ran into a lot of moments where I wanted to stop and just quit. The workload appeared like too much and not worth my time. However, the more lectures I watched and the more I learned, I quickly started to appreciate the hard work it took to get everything that I needed done. From this, I think ENT3003 has really prepared me for a work-like amount of assignments that will keep me more tenacious in the future, allowing for me to be more experienced with an intense amount of work.

3) Three tips. What are three tips you would offer next semester's student about (1) fostering the skills that support tenacity and (2) developing the 'tenacious mindset' ?

1. You should keep up with all of the work given to you and persevere through and complications you find, these can be even more simplified by preparing ahead of time.

2. Stay mentally strong, with anything in life this is quite applicable. No matter what you’re dealing with in the moment try to always keep your strength emotionally so that you’re able to be your best at all times.

3. Finally, make sure you’re doing something you enjoy. I personally believe that tenacity comes easier when you have something you WANT to be tenacious about. The attitude and mindset will come a lot faster when you’re passionate about your craft.

ENT3003 Assignment 13A – Reading Reflection No. 1

Reading Reflection: Steve Jobs, By Walter Isaacson

1) You read about an entrepreneur:

· What surprised you the most?

I never knew that Steve Jobs was adopted, which was brought up early on in the book, and was quite a surprise as I feel like that would be something more widely-known. Furthermore, he was given up for adoption because his biological mother’s family was not supportive of her relationship with Jobs’ biological father who was Muslim.

· What about the entrepreneur did you most admire?

He didn’t allow himself to fall into a pit of failure despite experimenting with drugs like LSD and marijuana, getting into trouble at school, and just dealing with his odd life of adoption and having 2 sets of parents. He began to make himself self-motivated while growing up and it resulted in a passion that lead to his success.

· What about the entrepreneur did you least admire?

Steve Jobs was too motivated by money, even when he had opportunities to make a product more popular or give It away as a free service, he always resented. Wozniak originally wanted to give away the apple design for free but Jobs found a way to make money off of it, and while he was successful at that it was just the start of his many money-focused tendencies.

· Did the entrepreneur encounter adversity and failure? If so, what did they do about it?

Steve Jobs faced one specific encounter that was of great adversity, and that’s when he and his friend Steve Wozniak made a product called “Blue Box” that allowed you to make long distance phone calls for free using frequencies, they started selling it but this led to one being stolen from them at gunpoint. However, despite this experience, Jobs continued to follow his imaginiation and created more and more products until he became a success.

2) What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited?

Persistence. Steve Jobs was very persistent in getting what he wanted. I can recall at one point he went into Atari’s offices and stayed there until they would offer him a job and sure enough, he got one. However, as common throughout his life, his personality rubbed people the wrong way and created issues but even with these personal issues he still excelled in doing whatever he was asked, including creating a one-person “pong” game when asked, in just 4 days.

3) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.

I feel like this book didn’t address Steve Jobs’ relationships well enough. Chapter 7 described his relationship when he started dating Chrisann Brennan including the birth of his first child, Lisa. Lisa was later described as the possible reasoning behind the initial computer invention Jobs came up with, named the lisa. I feel like the author could have done a better job explaining Jobs’ intimate relationships and specifically his relationship with his daughter.

4) If you were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur, what would you ask? Why?

If I could ask Steve Jobs two questions I’d ask first: “Why didn’t you care for your relationships as much?” And secondly, I wonder “What was your life like when you were rich, was it better?”
I’d ask these 2 questions specifically, because he maintained such an odd relationship with his family that I can’t really understand, and I wonder if he regrets it, or if he’s not much of a family-man. I feel like this could also be related to how money changed his life, I’m interested if all the money was just too much that he felt like a superior person to everyone else.

5) For fun: what do you think the entrepreneur's opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion?

I think Steve Jobs was an extremely hard worker, he was relentless in being a success. Despite being your typical “hippie” Steve Jobs still wanted to be rich, to be famous, to make the next big thing. I share his passion for wanted to be a success that’s for sure, and I hope I can maintain the work ethic that he had. Jobs’ hard work was indescribable as he was a strange man that went all over the place, even to India for a year that seemed quite random, but if one thing is for sure… it’s that he’s was hard worker.

ENT3003 Assignment 12A – Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 1

Sketching out the Beginning of the Buyer Behavior Process

1) Pick a segment:

I chose to interview students that all fit into a segment of hand-writing preference and with a specific preference of using mechanical pencils when doing work or taking notes. To figure this out I went around UF Reitz Union and inquired from people that were already doing work with a mechanical pencil as they fit perfectly into the segment, I then asked if they'd be available for a short 10-15-minute interview and went from there. The students I interviewed were of different genders and between the age of 18-21 but were told they'd remain anonymous for the assignment.

2) Interview Summaries:

1. My first interview was done with a female, age 18. She was from Orlando, FL and told me she always prefers to write notes by hand as it helps more with her memory, while also opting for mechanical pencils over standard wooden ones whenever possible. 

2. My second interview was conducted with a 21-year-old male from Jacksonville, FL. He is currently a business student at UF and told me he likes to take lecture notes by hand, primarily using a mechanical pencil. Furthermore, he also told me that he chooses to use a mechanical pencil when writing out practice problems for classes like finance and business statistics in the past.

3. My final interview was with a 20 year old male from Miami, FL who's attending UF as a Statistics major. This student said he does a lot of his work on his computer but that whenever it comes to writing something he chooses to do it with a mechanical pencil, whether that be notes or problems.

3) Need Awareness: 

The unmet need my product hopes to solve is the current issues with mechanical pencils, primarily with the lead used inside of them. Throughout my interviews I received very similar responses for some parts and a lot of varieties with others. Similar among all the interviews was that the primarily usage time occurred during school seasons (Fall/Spring semesters), and especially during the daytime when lectures were occurring either digitally or in-person. My first interviewee explained that she primarily was writing when she has lectures to watch online, doing so in the Reitz Union. My second and third interviews gave similar responses in that they mainly only wrote with their mechanical pencil when doing work for the courses, primarily for problems in math/business classes. However, they explained when they go home they tend to just use their phone and/or laptop to do any other work that doesn't involve hand-writing.

4) Information Search: 

For the most part I believe my problem isn't talked about too much, which leads me to believe that perhaps my product needs to take a creating demand approach by first showing the audience what's wrong with their product prior to making the demand, which is inherently more difficult. With that said upon questioning all my interviews lead to the same answer that they do face issues of running out of lead with no backups, and they've all said that they've been guilty of replacing a completely fine pencil with a new one simply because of lead shortage. With that said, I'm not sure any information can easily be search on google, when people face these current issues with mechanical pencil most people claim that they just ask a friend or nearby person if they have a spare pencil as a means to finding the solution to the problem. Often this pencil doesn't even get returned from what I've heard in my interviews and personally experienced. 

5) Draw conclusions: 

I believe that the segment I interviewed is essentially just my target audience that I've had similar previous interviews with. The need awareness for this group seems to be with people that like to do their work on-campus but this is clearly gonna be a little biased to my study method due to the fact that I chose people to interview based off of finding them doing work on-campus. With that said, I was able to learn a significant amount in information search as I think many people I plan to target simply aren't too experienced with the main issue my product hopes to solve, meaning a primary obstacle to my idea will be getting awareness for the issue.