20A- Growing Your Social Capital

 Domain Expert
1)    Who they are and what their background is.
Alejandro Pulgar, works in a company that sells customizable products, including calendars.

2)    Which 'slot' you are filling with each person (i.e., domain expert, market expert, supplier), and how the person fills the spot..
Domain expert. He sells customized calendars, among other products, and serves as a technical expert with experience in the field.

3)    A description of how you found the person and contacted the person.
A friend had to buy a large batch of custom products and had the contact information of the company. I got his contact information from this friend, and emailed him.

4)    The nature of the exchange you have with the person -- what favor did they do for you? What is the return expectation? 
They read my business concept and product description to understand what would be sold to consumers. He did not expect anything in return.

5)    How will including this person in your network enhance your ability to exploit an opportunity?
He has a lot of knowledge on how to create and sell calendars that vary from the traditional ones. He sees which designs sell the most, which are hardest or take longest to produce, and how to market them.

    Market  Expert

1)    Who they are and what their background is:
Fabiola Abraldes is a third-year student at UF.
2)    Which 'slot' you are filling with each person (i.e., domain expert, market expert, supplier), and how the person fills the spot:
Market expert. She represents a large piece of the market, as she does her own groceries, and is vegetarian. Her diet therefore consists primarily of fresh fruits and vegetables, and encounters the problem of fast expiration often
3)    A description of how you found the person and contacted the person:
My roommate knows her and sent me her number. 
4)    The nature of the exchange you have with the person -- what favor did they do for you? What is the return expectation?:
She read my business concept and product description. She did not expect any favor in return.
5)    How will including this person in your network enhance your ability to exploit an opportunity?
Her feedback on the problem allows me to understand how others, especially those who encounter the problem often and depend upon fresh fruits for their meals, perceive the problem and solve it. Her insight helped me understand the priorities that consumers have, and which features are especially important. For her, being able to easily read the calendar while it not being cluttered or ugly was important for continued use.
  
Supplier
1)    Who they are and what their background is.
Rodrigo Perez; Works in selling household and office supplies to companies wholesale.

2) Which 'slot' you are filling with each person (i.e., domain expert, market expert, supplier), and how the person fills the spot. 
Supplier; He has experience with selling products in bulk.

3)    A description of how you found the person and contacted the person.
A family member had known them from purchasing wholesale before, and I contacted them through email.

4)    The nature of the exchange you have with the person -- what favor did they do for you? What is the return expectation? 
They viewed my pitch and read my business concept, they didn’t expect anything in return.

5)    How will including this person in your network enhance your ability to exploit an opportunity?
They know which markets to target, and how to sell a product to not the target audience, but those who will be able to provide consumers with the product. I would be able to understand how the supply chain works, how much has to be budgeted and accounted for towards it, and the length of time that this step takes. As it is the intermediary between product to consumer, the step may not otherwise be as understood, and the product would be incorrectly marketed.

Finally: Reflect. This experience requires you to do a little 'targeted networking.' How will this experience shape how you participate in any future networking events? Did this experience differ from your networking experiences in the past? How?
Yes, this experience was difference in networking. Previously, networking was with people close to my own age and was more informal in nature. This required having to search for specific people, or rely on word of mouth, rather than simply contacting them through text or asking for an informal interview in person. For future networking events, this showed me how to professionally email and request information, as well as how to identify different experts or professionals in the field.

Comments

  1. Tarang DongaMarch 30, 2020 at 1:20 AM

    Hi Adriana, I enjoyed reading your post. You have good set of people contributing to make up your social capital. I think that this group of people would definitely help you out in your entrepreneur journey. Similar to you, even for me, most of my previous networking experiences have been with people of approximately same age as me. Overall, it is a great post.

    ReplyDelete

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