Assignment 14A - Halfway Reflection

1. Initially, I had a great deal of trouble keeping up with this course. In the beginning, I missed an assignment or peer review or two, and generally just felt rushed for time when completing things. I learned to start looking at the assignments early in the week, around Monday, and then by Wednesday I would start the assignments, so by Friday, I would have an easy time completing and turning them in.

2. I certainly felt like giving up a few times but when I got to that point I knew that the assignments I was working on would end up having an impact on the future assignments. I knew that each assignment would teach me valuable skills that would help me with each of the assignments to come, as well as in life and my career. I’ve become a lot more tenacious during this course, and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that this class focuses around the real world, so I know that putting in the work here while having guidance will only help me when the time comes to do these things for real.

3. The first tip I would give is to try and complete every assignment a day early, that way when you need more time to work on it or think about, you have it. The second tip I would give is to try and put as much effort as you can into each assignment, even if it’s not required so that when you get to the next assignment you’ve already been thinking about the next step. The final tip I would give is to leave time for breaks between work and make sure you have time to enjoy yourself while still getting your work done.

Assignment 13A - Reading Reflection 1

1. The book I read was Wright Brothers by David McCullough. What surprised me the most was how well the brothers worked together. Going into the reading I knew that they accomplished a lot together but I did not realize how well they worked as a pair, with each having their own strengths to draw upon. The thing about the Wright Brothers that I most admired was their dedication to achieving their goals in their own way. Throughout it all, they kept their standards and ideals, even when the competition was starting to replicate their work, and quickly. One thing that I least admired about the Wright Brother was their secrecy during their work and testing. I understand that they were worried about people taking their ideas or copying them, but they had very little recognition when they started and rarely invited anyone besides friends and family to witness the miracle of flight. The Wright Brothers repeatedly encountered adversity and failure with their designs. The book quotes a period of three months where the brothers weren’t able to accomplish anything, due to repeated issues with their plane. They never gave up and continued to fix each issue and try again, even if only to be met with a bigger problem.

2. The Wright brothers had a background in bicycles which provided them with some prior knowledge about how to get moving in the right direction with their designs for their airplane and frame. They used this competency along with their ability to methodically solve problems and create inventive solutions to issues, such as using a catapult-like system to get a better launch than with a motor by itself.

3. One part of the reading I found confusing was the technical descriptions. The book describes certain parts of their designs or plans in great detail, which can be hard to follow. Their designs are very different from the planes we know today, so when they are described in the book it can be hard to imagine. It important to understand the designs they’re working with and testing so that their feats can be appreciated and properly understood.

4. The first question I would like to ask the Wright Brothers would be for their total cost to achieve flight, meaning what was the R&D investment to invent flight? The second question I would ask the Wright Brothers is if our current air travel technology is where they saw the future of flight headed? Meaning did they foresee us being able to take hundreds of people into the air at a time, and transport them across the globe?

5. The Wright Brothers were never afraid to get their hands dirty and do the work themselves. I think to them, hard work means not only a lot of work but putting in the work even if you don’t entirely want to. Many times the brothers headed into a test knowing something would break and have to be fixed again, but it was the hard work they needed to do if they wanted to learn and make progress. I think this is a great way to look at hard work, because if you’re working on something really hard but it’s not helping the end cause, what’s the point?

Assignment 12A

I interviewed three college students around campus because college students seem to be the most prevalent segment to my product. In my interviews I found that college students are most aware of the issue when they are preparing for a long trip, only to realize that they don’t have a large enough bag. Most college students live in small spaces so having stored a huge bag for long trips really isn’t an option. The typical solution is to borrow a bag from a friend or go out and buy another small bag that they can keep in their small homes. Not much research goes into it, as people are generally are of their options are far as bags go. Most of the discussion goes on within close friends and family because these are the people who would be willing to lend a bag when needed.

This segment has the need for a specific moment where they are going on a longer trip which is abnormal for most college students. The need is for a bag that can be small when stored but could be expanded to accommodate a longer trip.

Assignment 11A

1. My name is Joe Sanders and I am a fourth-year food and resource economics major here at UF. I think I am pretty good at interacting with people. I like to think I’m someone people are comfortable talking to and somebody who can talk to anyone about anything with ease. This helps me during interviews when I am trying to gather information about the needs and situations of those who might be interested in my product. With my experience in both customer service and as a supervisor, I know that not always are people aware of the true nature of their needs. One day I would really like to own and operate my own business, but that’s not something that absolutely has to happen. If this business were to take off and become something real, I could see myself spending the time to develop this into a full-blown business. I think the bag is something that could really benefit a lot of people and a business based on that would be interesting.
2. The unmet need I am looking to solve is the need for a bag that can double as both a small overnight bag and a large out-of-the-country bag. The bag I have come up with has zippers along the edges so that it can be unzipped and expanded. This allows the bag to be either small or large, depending on the needs of the consumer. The adaptability provides ease of storage and space if somebody buys items on a vacation and are coming home with more than they started.
3. Many people have small homes or apartments and don’t have the space to store two bags, or even just a large one. This will allow people with not much storage space to own just one bag for all their traveling needs. This bag would also be very helpful to people who travel a lot and bring back souvenirs. The bag would be small enough on the flight there that it could be carried on, and on the way home when it’s full of souvenirs (and been expanded) it could be checked. These potential customers all have a common need of being unable to have multiple bags for a trip, with different restrictions as to why.
4. In my interviews, I have found that people like the bag because it gives them an option for having just one bag and not needing to worry about trying to store two of them or finding the right bag to cater to each trip. Being a college student I know that many of us live in small living spaces, and personally, I don’t have a large bag because I have nowhere to keep it and because I am normally traveling for a weekend maximum. This bag would allow college students to use the same bag that they use to go home a visit parents, to take a trip abroad with their friends over spring break.
5. What sets me apart from others is my ability to communicate and gather information. I was able to refine my understanding of the target market because the people I interviewed gave me good answers to the questions I was asking, but if I wasn’t able to ask the right questions I wouldn’t be getting helpful information.

I believe these elements all work well together because it allows me to understand who exactly might be interested in my product. It also works well because with a relatively simple concept for a product, understanding the need exactly is extremely important. My position as a college student helps me find other college students to interview and with that I am able to specifically identify what might make somebody interested in the bag, as well as what would turn them away.

Assignment 10A - Elevator Pitch 1

Link to Assignment 10A

Assignment 9A - Testing the Hypothesis

My product is a travel bag that has zippers and pockets to expand and carry more, depending on the situational need.

Who: Of the 5 people I interviewed, most were college students. They were not interested in the product because either they didn’t travel or had a home in which keeping a small bag and a large bag was not an issue. One of the people I interviewed as a businesswoman who told me she would not use the bag because she felt it was too silly for her traveling. She was worried about running into potential customers and having them look oddly on her for having an adjustable bag.

What: The need for an adjustable bag differs from the need for simply another travel bag because while they both do serve the same purpose of helping people easily get around and hold their things, the adjustable bag serves the need for minimizing the space bags are taking up as well. This specification is what defines the need for this bag.

Why: These outsiders need is different because they do not have the same space constrictions. These people see it simply as another bag, not as a bag to help them save the storage room in their homes. These people in the boundary are much more concerned about having a bag with multiple uses.

	Inside	Outside
Who	College students in small living spaces, business people with differing travel schedules, and travelers who would use the bag to bring home souvenirs	People with homes having enough space for two different bags. People who don’t travel or stay overnight.
What	The need for a small bag that can take up a small amount of space when being stored, but expands to be larger and carry more when needed	The need is not simply a need for another travel bag, but for a bag that can save space.
Why	The need exists because college students have small homes and have very little space to store things. Business people sometimes go on short trips and only need a small bag, but this bag expands and also allows for those larger trips, without having to own a second bag.	The bag isn’t anything that’s going to change peoples lives, but it could make travel easier and save space in homes.

8A Solving the Problem

The product I would sell to the people I have identified in my opportunity is an app that will slowly lock-up parts of your phone to prevent you from using it at night. Many phones have a minimal version of this built in, but without the option for customizing the controls specifically. The opportunity is that many people use screens before bed and that either causes issues with melatonin production and falling asleep or serves as a distraction and people forget to sleep. I would like to address this opportunity by locking people out of specific apps and functions of their phones late at night, so they have to get off and fall asleep. The app would allow people to create specific restrictions for each app, including when the effects take place, and the type restrictions (time allotment, or simply a lock-out). I would also include the option for lock-out that you can not get around. I know some phones will alert you when you’ve hit your bedtime time restriction, but you can still override and do what you want, but I would like an option in my app that you can’t override it. I think the main purpose of the app/product would be to have lots of customizability with how and when the restrictions take place. 

Assignment 7A Testing the Hypothesis

Many children in recent years have been having difficulties falling asleep, staying asleep, and focusing in school. Much of this is due to the use of electronic screens in children’s lives.

Who: Children in schools having trouble sleeping

What: They are having troubles in school because of the overuse of screens, causing issues with sleep and concentration.

Why: Screens have become commonplace in homes and lives, and children have grown up with them as a big part of their lives, and as such have difficulty separating themselves.

Testing the who: Not everyone in my ‘who’ has the need for assistance with better sleep and being away from screens, and I’m sure there are many outside the current ‘who’ that need the help. Lots of people besides kids have sleep issues and need to separate from screens.

Testing the what: Are all types of screen activities a problem? Are there certain groups who are more likely to have these issues with screens?

Testing the why: Some people have screen issues where they will get distracted and watch too much tv. Others have identified that their screen issues come from the blue light in modern screens, causing a decrease in production of melatonin, and causing issues sleep.

In my interviews, I focused on asking questions centered around who specifically has the issues and what was causing their issues with sleep. For the ‘who’s it seems that pretty much any type of person could have these issues, but not everyone in the group will. In this year, pretty much everyone has constant access to screens and is always connected, so it’s no surprise that these issues are common. For the ‘what’s it seems that the issue of screens causing melatonin production was more prevalent than the issue of people getting distracted by their screens. Everyone seemed to have their own way to explain how the screens were affecting their sleep, with one interviewer saying they had no problems, but mostly they all said they just couldn’t fall asleep at night, even though they’d felt tired all day. For the ‘why’s I identified, they seem to hold true. Most people either simply have trouble falling asleep because they’ve been using a screen too recently before bed, or that they get too invested in the screen activities and don’t think about sleeping.

I know that this opportunity stretches over more people than I had originally expected, with 4/5 people I interviewed told me that they’d had experience with this issue when I thought it would mostly be children affected. I learned that the reasons for this issue could be a variety of things, and maybe even more than one happening at a time. Many people simply are not aware of what they can do to help themselves or are not capable of changing their habits to that point.