Assignment 15A

I again stuck with the segment of people who bring their lunch to work. This time, I interviewed another family member, my aunt, and two of my friends that work for different companies.

When asking them questions in their interviews, a few things were constant. They all picked alternatives based on price and quality. Two of them mentioned looking at other customer reviews while choosing a product and they want a relatively low price tag. One of my friends said that style is usually something that he chooses products based on but when I brought it into context of my idea he said that it wouldn’t matter. Overall, the buying factors were mostly based on price and quality.

When talking about where they buy things, my friends were different than my aunt. My aunt said that she likes going in the store and actually seeing a product there in person where both of my friends, which are my age, shop online mostly and have stuff delivered by amazon. All three of them said that they either pay with cash or with a credit card that they pay off on time. Neither of my friends I interviewed had personally financed any purchase but my aunt has and said that she only finances large purchases, like a car.

All three interviewees stressed the importance of expectations and reality. When they receive the product or get it home, they want it to work as described and in the case of online shopping, be representative of what they saw online. They all agreed that bad purchases are those that are not what you expected or don’t work as described.

Summary/Conclusion: My segment generally chooses alternatives based on price and quality. They also expect that their purchase works as it was advertised and also is a quality product. I think this segment represents most peoples’ purchasing decisions and post purchase evaluation.

Assignment 14A

Taking this course over summer has been really fast paced and I have other stuff going on (ie. internship) so I have had to manage my time will to complete all of the assignments so far. Also a lot of the assignments make you prepare beforehand because you have to interview people so you cannot wait until the last minute. An example of when I didn’t prepare was the first reading reflection. I didn’t realize tht I had to read an entire book for the weeks assignments until two days before it was due. I ended up cancelling my plans to go to a concert and stayed in to read the book. I felt like ignoring this assignment but decided not to and finished it. Three tips I would give would be to check what your assignments are before you start them, so you don’t end up like me reading a whole book in two nights, also you should try to use things that you are passionate about in your assignment so you are motivated to do them, and third I would so to just keep the endgame in mind while you are doing the grunt work in the middle.

Assignment 12A

The segment I chose is people who bring their lunch to work most days. The first person I interviewed was my mom, the second was one of my coworkers, and the third was one of my friends that works in Sarasota right now.

All three of these people said that they don’t really like having to microwave their food because of various reasons including altering the taste and coming out too hot or not hot enough. Their need for a different way to heat their lunch really only happens at lunch time and it doesn’t happen every day because sometimes the microwave works just fine. After they realized their need and I asked them what they think would be a possible solution, two of them thought of toaster ovens and one didn’t really have an answer. Coming to the conclusion of a toaster is what I wanted because that acts more like what my idea is. Since they weren’t next to a computer at the time to look for answers, they asked me what I thought and I told them my idea. Then they asked what it would cost and other details which I didn’t have concrete answers for. My mom is older fashioned and was the only interviewee to shoot my idea down in a way.

Through these interviews, I found that it does bother people as much as it bothers me to have food that is too hot or doesn’t taste like it should after coming out of the microwave. I also found out that people are open to a solution to this problem but their willingness to buy it is heavily determined by cost and ease of use. Overall, I think that this segment would be a target segment because they all experience the need and two out of the three interviewees were receptive of my idea. The problem doesn’t bother them enough to actively search for a solution though, so advertising and marketing would be a huge aspect of how sellable my product really is.

Assignment 11A

1) I’m a finance student who is hard working and I am determined to achieve my goals no matter what it takes. My career aspirations are to break into investment banking and then go to the buy side at a private equity firm or hedge fund. Regarding my aspirations, experiences and skills that I have which will help me are my current internship at a mezzanine fund and I have learned how to build financial models and analyze data. If I were to start a business around my idea, I would have to really be interested in doing it and have those interests outweigh my current ones because I would have to give it my all.

2) I am offering a mobile heating and cooling system that could be sold to the customer in the form of cups, bowls, plates, and other containers. This would allow you to immediately heat or cool your drinks and food.

3) All of my customers have the need for food and drinks in common. On the drinks side, they all have to drink hot drinks and want them to cool down a little bit because they are too hot, or warm up if they are too close to room temperature. On the food side, I think the customer is anyone that might bring lunch to work and could use a container that keeps the food warm like a crock pot without the bulk and weight of one.

4) My product is completely mobile so there is no need for a microwave or to go find ice to cool something down. It also wouldn’t change the flavor of the food or drink like ice and microwaves do. So they care because it allows for easy, on the go, and quality heating and cooling of their food and drinks.

5) I don’t think this has been done before so it is a new-ish idea. I don’t necessarily think that I am some entrepreneur wiz that has a leg up on everyone else but I think if I really wanted to pursue this that I would work hard enough to make it work and if it didn’t I would cut my losses.

I think that all of this comes together pretty nicely. Honestly, my original idea of just a cup that cools a drink a little bit was thrown out because I realized I wouldn’t even buy that. My current idea is more of a mobile toaster/refrigerator of sorts that could be used by everyone who is on the go a lot.