Idea Napkin No. 2

1.     My name is Eric Chyatte and I am currently a junior at UF. My talents tend to gravitate towards the creative aspect of things. I have worked several jobs many of which involved some sort of marketing or sales role. I have also spent time in the custom apparel industry and believe that the businessman is in desperate need of a new, more sweat resistant product. I see this business playing a large role in my life and potentially becoming the basis of my career. My goal is to create a long lasting brand that will embody the style and effectiveness I envision. My goal is to effectively capture the attention of the businessman and woman and to create a product that can alter the market.

2.     My product Dress Fit is light weight comfortable stylish dress shirt that removes the anxiety of unappealing sweat stains. This product is made from a sweat wicking material that completely alters what most know about dress clothes. This product will revolutionize the business apparel industry and allow for a more comfortable workday for both men and woman.

3.     The target demographic is not extremely specific it is simply directed towards anyone interested in business apparel that has a moderately high financial budget. The product is luxury product, but will have styles for men, woman, and children. The answer to the question what do all my customers have in common is that every single person at one point or another is in need of a nice outfit for a special occasion. The one variance is budget.

4.     Customers will buy this product for the simple reason that it prevents an embarrassing issue. Not only that everyone likes to look good and everyone likes to be comfortable. My product allows for both while eliminating the anxiety of sweat stains.

5.     With any apparel company the differentiating feature is the design of the apparel. With Dressfit there is two different features the utility and comfort of the clothing and the design of the apparel.

This product has huge potential in its concept stages, but the real challenge is creating a product that balances utility and style. I have seen several lightweight dress shirt styles and most of which do not effectively maintain the appearance and texture of a standard dress shirt. The business plans weakest link is the ambiguity of the creation process. Most likely the product would require the creation of a new material to make clothing that does not yet exist.

I did not receive much feedback aside from the question of pricing. The product would definitely be geared to a luxury clientele, but many of the issues the product would encounter are hard to explore simply because it is not being pursued. Startup companies constant face different issues many of which I have no knowledge of. I would expect brand recognition and marketing to be a daunting task as well. As there was not much feedback for me to work with I simply edited and improved my Idea Napkin as best as I could.

Week 8 Reading Reflection

1.     I found it extremely interesting to learn that past a certain amount of capital there are disclosure and information requirements. When payments get close to 1 million there is little or no requirement, but at 5 million there is.

2.     The concept of angel investors is slightly confusing.

3.     If I could ask two questions of the author it would be one: If you were attempting to grow a business what type of investor would you look for. The second questions would be: If you had five million dollars to invest what would you invest it in?

4.     The majority of this chapter was definitions so no I did not find anything that I disagree with.  

Half-Way Reflection

1.     The course has required a significant amount of time management and planning. Another skill required to succeed in this class is the willingness to try new things and execute on extremely obscure tasks.

2.     I do not think I have developed any sort of tenacious attitude from this class or any sort of tenacious skills, but I do believe this class has forced me to do things slightly out of my comfort zone. During the stages of customer interviews I wanted nothing to do with the assignment, but pulled through and received several random interviews.

3.     The three tips I would suggest for upcoming students in this class is to work on assignments ahead of time, accept the fact that sometimes you will have to do obscure tasks, and lastly to constantly check your canvas page for assignments. In the perspective of developing a tenacious attitude the tip I would suggest is to just go out and do it regardless of your feelings about the assignment.

Free Money

My plan of attach was to simply look for people walking near my house on there way to the library. 

For the most part people were extremely surprised that I was trying to give them money for no reason. I was surprised more people did not accept the money, but assumably if it was more than a dollar most people would have accepted it. 

I don’t really understand the value of the exercise as it relates to entrepreneurship, but it was an interesting social experiment. 

Week 7 Reading Reflection

1.     I found it extremely interesting to see the way marketing segmentation has developed and how psychographic segmentation may be the best way to dictate how and to whom firms market their products

2.     I found the rationale for why market segmentation is so ineffective a little confusing. I believe that in essence the practice makes sense, maybe it simply is just isn’t performed correctly.

3.     If I could ask the author two questions the first would be: If you could choose a specific product category to market, which would it be?  I am curious to know what products the author thinks are growing and valuable. The second question would be: What do you think the future of marketing will be 10 years from know? I am curious because I believe in the future almost everything will be technology based.

4.     There was nothing I particularly disagree with.

Elevator Pitch No. 2

Reflection: I only received one comment for feedback on my first video, but the recommendation I received was definitely valuable. The comment mentioned that it is important to mention the quality of the material rather that what issue the product solved especially with my idea.I did not receive any feedback other than the one comment so none of which I would consider outright wrong or silly.

What changed: In the new video I maintained a similar introduction, but added a segment explaining the quality of the material in the end section. 

Link to Video