Tenacity & Paying it Forward

One of the big behaviors that I have acquired through the development of this course was the ability to think in a way that is focused around the problems. This has proven useful since the beginning of any pitch should always be the development of a problem. Only when this is established are we able to create the right solution to this problem.

One of the times that I felt like giving up was when I hit a series of roadblocks with the people that I interviewed. Because of this, I was discouraged and it was hard for me to move forward with the same tenacity as I did when I first started the business idea. I was abe to overcome these setbacks by readjusting my strategy and looking at the problem from a different perspective. I think its also important to note that most businesses don't fail because the business failed but that the entrepreneur gave up.

The first tip that I would offer would be to always be open to criticism of the idea that you have. The second tip is to always play devil's advocate and to be slightly pessimistic at times if you need to reevaluate certain topics. The last tip that I would suggest is that an entrepreneur should always continue to move towards their goal no matter what people say. It is important to take critisism but to not take it seriously enough where it demoralizes you.

Reading Reflection 1

The book that I read was Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson. Isaacson did an excellent job of speaking on Job's strengths and weaknesses as an executive in his position as Apple's founder. One of the thing that surprised me the most was the Job's excessive authoritative nature. For example, I didn't know that he was such a jerk to his co-founder Steve Wasniak. This can be seen by how he failed to acknowledge the apple 2 team when he was presenting the original Macintosh computer at a shareholders meeting.

The thing that I admire most about Steve Jobs is his impeccable work ethic. According to the book, he would have a laser focus where he would work on any long project. Such as when he was working on the Macintosh project he would cover his floor in papers and documents and submerge himself in his project for hours on end without taking a break.

One of the least admiring aspects of Steve Job's personality was his lack of respect towards his team. For example, he was characterized by always treating his employees with an iron fist and never giving them breaks from their projects. He also was known for not agreeing with anyone's ideas other than his own.
Yes, perhaps one of the biggest setbacks was when he was fired as the CEO of Apple, the very company that he founded. After experiencing this setback, he went on to found the company "Next" and then Pixar.
One of the parts of the reading that confused me the most was his reluctance to pay for his daughter even if he neglected her time after time. This is especially confusing considering the fact that he was so rich at the time.
One of the questions that I would ask Steve Jobs would be "How would you handle the crisis with privacy concerns about apple?" I would also ask him what new technology he would introduce to Apple's vast list of products.
Steve Jobs opinion on hard work was very simple. "Do what you love, and work as hard as you can to get it" I without a doubt support this opinion.

Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 1

The main market segment that I will be focusing on is the vacation enthusiasts who will be out of town for a long time. In certain instances, there are travel agencies who have all of the information for their clients so there might be a possibility to coordinate a partnership with them. But first, I will see the thought process behind these travel enthusiasts and how they decide to purchase a product like this. 

The first interview I had was with a friend named Sami Katan, he is a travel enthusiast and he is away from the house a decent amount. he told me that there are a lot of travel agencies out in the space and it might be oversaturated for a consumer like him to make a final decision to use one provider. Thus, he told me that it would be a good idea to partner with websites that have a large user base and a fair amount of followers. 

The second interview I had was with a young lady by the name of Gill Stewart. Gill is also a traveler and she mainly circulates between Los Angeles and Florida. She told me that she would like to personally see who is the person who is driving their car and a little bit about them. I completely agree and I think that transparency will give the company a much-needed dose of personal touch. 

My final interview was with an older man by the name of Oscar Genaro. He was dumbfounded by the idea and he thought that there should be an easy user interface for people of his age to easily navigate the steps. I completely agree with this given the fact that older crowds who are already in retirement are traveling very often. 

Idea Napkin No. 1

1) My name is Gabriel Peña and I believe that I have a large variety of business experience to be able to apply my knowledge to my business idea. This is mainly due to the skills I have in portraying a message out to my targeted clients (specifically people who travel). I believe that the number one talent I will be able to translate into this endeavor is the ability to communicate myself well and effectively with a client base. My product is a new way for travelers to make an extra buck while they are out of town for a vacation of some sort. This will be provided by a car rental service where people drop their cars off and other people rent them out. I am offering it because I think people are always looking for ways to leverage their assets and find a new way to make an income. I am offering this service to any travel enthusiast or businesses that constantly have employees traveling.

Solving the Problem

The solution to the problem I have created has already been stated in my previous blog posts.
I believe that there can be a service in airports where people drop their cars off while they are gone for a long period of time. During this time there will be an inflow of people who need a car to travel to the city. Thus, there is the creation of those two consumers satisfying their need through a marketplace that I have created. When people leave their cars in the airport then they are able to receive a passive form of income from the car when people rent it out.

Testing a Hypothesis

The Who: Travelers that park at Airports and Tourists that need cars
The What: 1. They are overpaying for parking 2. They are overpaying for rental cars
The Why: The combination of both outbound travelers and inbound tourists, make it an ideal marketplace for an exchange of a person's car, to an affordable rental car for a tourist

Testing the Hypothesis:

First off, all of the people in my 'who', do not share this problem because they may be dropped off by a family member who will need the car while they are gone. Also, this would be a competition for Uber, which typically drives people to the airport. This fact means that people won't need to pay for parking from the beginning.

One of the boundaries for this solution is the current infrastructure for the car rental business. There is a huge industry already in place for this type of solution. In addition to this, there is a large number of legal fees and insurance papers behind this type of business. I am sure that there will be an insurance policy that will need to be in place in order to account for accidents with other people's cars.

One of the reasons that the "why" statement might be weak, is because some people won't trust other strangers using their cars and perhaps crashing it. Also, my why doesn't exactly apply for everyone since not everyone who goes to the airport will need a rental car.

4)
In my first interview, I was able to interview my father who is a frequent traveler to the airport. In his case, he gets the majority of his stay paid for and all of the transit fees are taken care of by the company. In this case, there will be a large chunk of my "target market" taken out since they won't be able to provide the company with a car.

I learned that I would have to overcome this hurdle by possibly creating a partnership with corporations so that all of their employees go directly through us for all of their travel. This would lead to all of those corporations to pay our company for their employees' travel.

My second interview was with my uncle who is an avid traveler. He saw a lot of utility in the hypothesis I proposed. He thought that there could be a collaboration with specific airlines so that there could be a predictable flow of cars into our airport office. For example, he thought that there could be an option to register their car at the end of purchasing their airline tickets. By doing that, they could know more about the service and our company could learn more about the availability of rental cars.

My last interview was with a fellow student of mine. When I first explained the concept to him, he sounded very confused and not quite sure what I was trying to do... At first, I thought he was just incompetent and not "business savvy" since he couldn't put 2 and 2 together. But after thinking about it further, I just realized that this type of concept might be hard to sell for the average American since some parts of the business model might be confusing.

I learned that this problem might be a roadblock from getting a sufficient amount of funding since investors will be confused or unsure of my intentions. However, most importnatnly, this service might be hard for the average consumer to understand so then they wont bother with it.