My Unfair Advantage

1. People skills/ability to read people
• Valuable: Being able to connect to people is how I can maintain excellent customer service. 
• Rare: Many business owners are too logical, and usually not good with talking to people and being social.
• Inimitable: Having good people skills and being able to truly read and understand people is not something you can really learn. If you want to learn this, it's very difficult, more more commonly you're just born with this skill; it's all in the way your mind thinks.
• Non-substitutable: It's almost impossible to create good customer service if you can't read people. How can you give your customers the best experience possible if you don't understand them and know what they want?
2. Familial background
• Valuable: Because of my personal connection to certain dietary restrictions, I have passion and determination to create a place where no matter what you can and cannot eat, you can come together to eat and bond together.
• Rare: Not everyone has a personal connection to such issues.
• Inimitable: You either have such a connection and drive to a mission or don't, those that don't have a personal relation to such an issue won't be willing to work as hard at fixing it. 
• Non-substitutable: The more passionate you are about a topic, the more willing you are to work towards a solution, the closer the issue is to you personally, the more passionate you feel about it. This sense of connection and passion are traits only I posses.
3. Network/connections
• Valuable: Knowing people in the industry will give me an endless supply of tips and possible connections to other people I may need to know. This also shows that there is already a market that exists for my type of business.
• Rare: The people I know may differ from the people that someone who is trying to open a similar shop knows. My unique group of people that I know may give me an upper hand.
• Inimitable: Knowing more people means I have a broad understanding of what already exits, which means I know what not to copy because it won't make my business different.
• Non-substitutable: Knowing a certain person is irreplaceable. There's no telling what a certain person I may know could do for me and my business. They could surprise me and help me in more ways than I even originally thought.
4. Passion
• Valuable: A passionate person means a hard-working owner. The more passion someone has, the more they're going to want to and work towards the success of their business.
• Rare: In a growing corporate world, the factors of passion and care are becoming less and less common, but people like these traits and react positively to those businesses that can show they have these characteristics.
• Inimitable: You cannot imitate passion. You either care or you don't. Fake passion is more easy to see through than water. 
• Non-substitutable: Passion creates an outcome for success of a business like no other. 
5. Knowledge
• Valuable: Recipes I may know, the people skills I may have, the imagination I may have or the people I may know,  this is all my knowledge of an industry and what will work.  
• Rare: Only you hold the specific mixture of things you know. Many people may know the same things as you, but you may know a better way to apply these thoughts all together.
• Inimitable: There's a famous saying that the only thing that no one can take away from you is your education, well this is true and exactly what makes you exact education and background unique from any other. 
• Non-substitutable: There's nothing that can be more important than the knowledge you may know to help build the success for your business.
6. Creativity
• Valuable: Creativity and knowledge go hand in hand, you can be very smart, but without anything interesting pertaining to your business, it can be dry and unpopular. But with too much creativity and not enough knowledge, customers may be drawn in, but ultimately left disappointed. I believe the key to a successful business and a balance of both of these resources.
• Rare: Creativity is a rarity because even if two people both consider themselves "creative," these actions can play out in different ways. One could say blue walls, the other could say yellow walls, it's all different and unique.
• Inimitable: Something that is truly unique and original cannot be imitated. Even if another were to copy and idea, once an idea is out there, it usually can be recognized when being copied. Especially with things like social media now, word can get around fast.
• Non-substitutable: The popularity of a business can be based on the creativity of its owner(s) alone. The more different a business is, the more likely customers are to be drawn to it.
7. Logical
• Valuable: Logical is similar to knowledge, because without this trait, your business may suffer due to lack of awareness.  
• Rare: Many people that have a passion and drive for a topic can usually get lost in the heart-ache of it all and start going against their logical thinking. I tend to truly listen to my logical voice over any other.
• Inimitable: Logic isn't a skill to imitate, you either are aware of things or aren't, and listen to this thinking or don't.
• Non-substitutable: Without thinking of the logistics to your business, there's very little possibility for its success. You need to be able to be passionate about an idea without entering into the dream world.
8. Organization
• Valuable: The more organized you are, the more prepared you can be and the more space there is for you business to grow.
• Rare: I think that this isn't exactly "rare," but it's not common. I think about 50% of people are organized and the other 50% is disarrayed.
• Inimitable: Organization is imitable, many people follow the same organizational methods.
• Non-substitutable: Though organization is nothing new or rare, it still allows for the growth and success of a business.
9. Hard-working
• Valuable: A hard-working person is necessary in the start of a business, especially a business that may be different from others that already exist as they will have to really work to stand out and draw a crowd to the unfamiliar.
• Rare: Many people may be hard-working, but what that means vary and it is important to not just work hard, but to see the results of those actions.
• Inimitable: It's hard to just say you're going to be hard-working. Most people either have what it takes to work hard or don't and those that don't but want to usually find it is very hard to change that about themselves.
• Non-substitutable: This is so important for a new business because you have no following yet so you have to work for that following. But once you have this, the job doesn't all of a sudden become a lot easier, you must still work hard to keep the following and grow.
10. Save money
• Valuable: Saving money can be very beneficial for a business because of any money I've already saved to open this business as well as once my business is open saving money at all possible ends can leave space for my company to grow.
• Rare: I think that many people, especially in today's society, don't know how to save money and struggle with the self-restraint to do so.
• Inimitable: Many people will try to imitate this, but the ways in which every person decides to save money are different. 
• Non-substitutable: This is essential for a new business to be able to know where to cut ends or tricks you already know on how to save money.

I think my people skills is my top resource, which can be seen in my secret sauce interviews as many of my friends and family highlight this trait as what makes me unique. In today's society, people value customer service and a person's social skills above almost all else. My ability to read people can only help my business gain a following and the support it needs.

Growing My Social Capital

1. Domain Expert- UF Nutrition Major
• I contacted a nutrition major as my domain expert since she definitely would know more about nutritional facts for different foods than I would. In the domain of dietary restrictions, I believed that someone that was learning all about nutrition must give them a decent understanding of what these different diets/lifestyles often do to peoples bodies. I also thought this would be a good contact because when they graduate they could possibly refer clients to my business (if I were to open this bakery). I thought this would be a good future contact to have as we both went on to develop in our own fields. I've mentioned in previous posts that my bakery is more than just for people that have dietary restrictions, but for people that care about what they're putting into their bodies (including those people with dietary restrictions since they obviously are forced to care about what they're putting in their products). I just asked some basic questions about what the differences were between the three diets that I was focusing on was (gluten-free, sugar-free and vegan) and asked a little bit about any recommendations she might have for achieving these three dietary foods while also using the best quality ingredients. The student that I spoke to was very helpful and gladly told me some ways that I could make such different dietary foods without forgoing the quality of the food. In fact, it seemed like most of these diets force you to use only high-quality ingredients.
2. Market Expert- Chef Brookes
• I emailed a local chef from my hometown who owns a vegan restaurant and teaches vegan cooking classes. I deemed her a "market expert" as she already owns a shop somewhat similar to the one I've described. I emailed her and asked her how if she had any tips from being in the same industry that I told her my potential business was in. She replied very vaguely and didn't really give any insight. She asked me to be more specific but I honestly had no idea how to be more specific as I just wanted to know if there were any random tips that she had never thought of but had learned over the course of owning her business.
3. Supplier- Publix/Happy Healthy Treats
• For this one I wasn't really sure who I should contact, so I first called Publix to see if they had different ingredients that my type of bakery would need. I asked if they had key ingredients such as gluten flour and bananas (which often act as eggs in bakery goods for vegan food). They had a lot of products that I would need that I wasn't even aware that they had. I also decided to email a woman who has a tent in my hometowns winter-farmers market. Her tent sells vegan baked goods and I was lucky enough to meet her because my mom is a very frequent client (my mom is vegan). I'm still waiting for her response (and I'll update this when she replies), but if I remember correctly this past winter when I was talking to her she told me it's not very complicated and she uses simple ingredients that you can get from any grocery store. She said that this isn't a hard lifestyle like many people think it is.

Reflection: I was very happy to learn how possible opening this kind of bakery could be. All these different types of diets seem so foreign and mystical and as though they'd be hard to keep track of, but in reality all the ingredients are right under our noses and in fact require very little differentiation from our "normal" diets. Especially with these diets becoming more and more popular in today's society, the knowledge is really endless in lists of recipes online, as well as facts to attain these diets. 

Week 10 Reading Reflection

In the section on revenue, something the author stated surprised me. I had never even thought how revenue could be overstated; you sold this much at this cost, how could you have found a bigger number than what was true? But I had never even thought to take into accounts returned items or discounts. I especially always had thought of discounts as helping a company as it's advertising that draws clients that may not have normally been clients, but it completely makes sense how this could affect your true revenue amount.
Many parts of this chapter were a little confusing to me because I'm really bad at math and financial terms. Luckily the author did a decent job explaining many things, but it was almost an overload of information and by the end of the chapter I'm not sure if I really understood how to factor all of these different pieces together for a successful business. A lot of the parts that talked about taxes I didn't understand because I have very little experience in paying taxes so far in my life, so I didn't really understand what taxes were paid for (what things you had to pay taxes on/didn't have to pay taxes on).
Many parts of this chapter the author talked about how there were these different "projected costs." There were estimated taxes, projected sales, advertising costs, etc. How do you determine these numbers and how do you determine which things you should assume, or do you just make assumed costs for every single category? Another question that I was wondering throughout the chapter was how do you decide if advertising is worth it or how much advertising to use? It's hard to see the payoffs of advertisements, so are you just supposed to use surveys and hope customers will take the time do fill these out for you, or are there other methods to determine your best advertisement methods?
Being that this chapter was all about financials, I have no idea if the author was wrong about things or missed any part of the financial side of having a business since I've never had a business. It honestly seemed like he must've hit every single detail because of how many things the author kept listing off that I have no idea how one person (or a team of owners) could even maintain all of these actions. This chapter really made me realize how hard it must be to be a small business-owner where you don't really have the funds or space for a financial department and it falls on you.

Elevator Pitch No. 3

I was very happy to have very little negative feedback. The primary thing that many people commented to change was my use of filler work, like "um." I think I did a decent job on cutting back on these words this time. The only other consistent comment that I got on my last elevator pitch was to also discuss how I would pay for all of this. Obviously I couldn't go into too much detail in a one-minute video, but I did throw in a short little explanation on my thinking for this at the end. I really appreciated everyone's feedback on my last pitch and I definitely think it really improved this one (it definitely cut down on my time!), so thank you and I really hope to get even more great feedback on this one!

My Secret Sauce

1) I think I'm different in 5 key ways: 

1.  I think I am curious to learn. This makes me passionate and hard-working. 
2. I am social and interested in people; I'm compassionate. I care about people and am curious and pay attention to what makes people do what they do, why and what makes people different. 
3. I am creative. I thrive off of originality and uniqueness. I try my hardest to think of the same old things and thoughts in a new light.
4. I am a thinker. I like to analyze and question things. I often find myself "zoning out" to go over something that happened a week ago.
5. I problem solve. To be honest, I might not love problem-soling, but I am pretty good at it as a first child of three, I often noticed issues first and had to fix them (this came in time with much practice from babysitting).

2)

Shaina said that I'm caring and that my friend groups vary which is what makes me different (rather than how most people are friends with only one "group" of people).

Tori believes that what makes me different is my curiosity to understand people; she says that I like to learn every aspect of people and their personality and why they do things.

Sam thinks that what makes me different is my adaptability and how I can be very social but also very introverted and logical. She believes that this type of personality allows me to just go with the flow.

My mom said that I'm different because I'm mature and self-driven and embrace growth.

My dad thinks that what makes me different is my sense of people. My understanding of people's motivations and my ability to connect to people make me unique in the way I can act to them.

3) Reflecting back on these interviews, I'm very surprised that no one really discussed my creativity. I always thought that my artistic ability is what defined me and made me different, but it seems that my closest friends characterize me as unique primarily based off of my social skills and how I like to understand people. My mom's interview I think was the most different from mine. She touched on how I was mature, which I didn't really mention, and embrace growth, which no one else mentioned either. Besides that, I think that what all five of the people I interviewed said were along the same lines of what I said. I think the difference in how I viewed my creativity as being such a major key to what makes me unique and how the people that were closest to me viewed my social skills as what makes me unique is primarily due to the fact that that's how most people describe people today. I think that it's usual for a person to be summarized on how they act socially alone, and others don't really take into account the other characteristics people have to offer. I believe that this is because we live in a society that values social skills as the most important skill.

Week 9 Reading Reflection

What surprised me most in this reading was the paragraph about markets. The author described markets and then stated that a new product will only survive if a market exists for the product or service. This seems common knowledge, but I have read about new inventions that were meant as this and ended up being more successful by having a different use in new markets that may not have necessarily been described before.
The most confusing part of this reading was the section on marketing segmentation. I didn't really understand, specifically from the author's example, how people who are in the market can be divided. Sure, I understand you can say these people like chocolate and these like vanilla, but I don't really understand what good that does and if it's a waste of time. I kind of understand how the author was saying this was important for new ventures, but for well-established companies is this really that important?
I'm also surprised that the author discuss production-driven philosophy in which you focus on productivity and then sales later. Why would you do this? Shouldn't the first step in a new business venture be how could I sell this/would this be sellable? Because if your answer is no to this question, but you find out after having already produced your good, isn't that a waste of time, money and energy? I would also ask the author how conducting primary data research could cost money, as he said it could on page 287. Isn't conducting such market research as easy as what we've done in class and just going up to customers? That doesn't cost any money.
There wasn't really anything I disagreed with the author about because I'm sure he knows what he's talking about, or at least more than me who's new to the world of economics and entrepreneurship. But if I was to disagree with him on anything it would be these questions that I posed above and the things that confused me about this reading. But again, I'm sure he could explain it and I would have no disagreement then.

Idea Napkin No. 2

1. Having had past experience in developing a business, I understand the importance of thinking through every aspect and asking for outside help to ensure you didn't miss anything. Since growing up with both of my parents, as well as grandfathers, have diabetes, I have experience in how dietary restrictions play a role in people's day-to-day lives and have constantly thought of new ideas that would help improve the hardships these restrictions have caused. I want my business to be a place for people to come and have worries about what's in their food, and to just be able to enjoy their food and their company. My bakery will allow people with dietary needs to be able to not constantly be cooking for themselves and to finally partake in group activities. Many cultures around the world consider meal time the fundamental time for familial and friendship bonding. With this in mind, I hope to open my bakery with this as our mission to make such bonding time possible for all people, no matter what they can or can't eat.
2. I imagine a sign above the register in plain sight among entering my store reading the menu. The menu will be split in the sections: gluten-free, sugar-free and vegan. Behind the scenes, the kitchen will be run similarly to kosher-style kitchens. This means separation; separating the bowls and utensils for the gluten-free from the sugar-free, etc. Kosher-kicthens have two sets of everything, one for meat and one for dairy. I'll be applying this idea to how my kitchen would be separated depending on the dietary restrictions I have listed above. As for bringing in regular dishes for those that want to eat with their friends that have dietary restrictions, but do not themselves have these restrictions, I hope to include this in the same way. So rather than three sections, I would have four; four-sets of this for sets of that and four sections on our menu. Finally, in the serving process we would tie in all aspects of this "splitting of the foods" and serve each dietary restriction on different colored plates as to not get the foods confused outside of the kitchen. So if a group of three friends came to eat at my bakery, the customer with the gluten-free restriction would receive her blueberry muffin on a blue plate, the customer that was vegan would be handed her chocolate cookie on a yellow plate, and the customer that was sugar-free would receive a banana-walnut bread on a red plate.
3. My primary customers are people with diabetes, gluten allergies, or vegan lifestyles, or friends/family of these people. Truly my demographic would be any person of any age or any gender, as long as they have a little bit of a sweet tooth! I expect that most of my customers will have some amount of concern or awareness of the food they put into their body, even those that might not have prior to their visit to my bakery should at least have the smallest sliver of recognition for this after leaving my shop because of the how evident it is all over the shop. 
4. With quality of food and nutrition becoming a bigger a bigger fad, my customers will be intrigued by how my shop offers these qualities, as well as focuses on a diverse group of people and is not restricting to only those without dietary needs. As these dietary restrictions slowly become more and more popular as more people choose to follow these diets to maintain happier lifestyles, more people will be looking for bakeries just like mine. And it won't just be those that have made the change to these diets themselves, but family of friends of these people, too, as they want to all eat out together.
5. What sets my business apart is the lack of solo-bakeries in Gainesville (or at least around the UF campus). And what I mean by that is that there are little to no shops in this area that just serve baked goods, or at least an assortment of baked goods. There are some shops that are specialty bakeries and only serve one or two baked goods, or there are restaurants with a wide-variety of baked goods, but also serve primarily meals. Secondly, my shop will also be different in the fact that it will be one of the only shops that not only serves to those with dietary restrictions, but with a rather wide-variety of dietary restrictions rather than just one.

I think that these elements all together will allow for an undoubtedly successful bakery as it's so unique that there will be little competition, while also being completely possible with no real use of new technology (just new ideas). With such a broad opportune clientele, so much room to grow and expand, and such consideration into current social movements, this bakery should be covered in all the right places and not have any problem becoming popular.

There was so little negative feedback that there was very little to change, fortunately. The five points that I took away from people's feedback was that: 1) Many people have one of the dietary restrictions I listed (which means I should have a big clientele). 2) Many people were friends with or had family that had these restrictions, which expands my clientele, as I mentioned above, into people that aren't even affected by these restrictions 3) People thought it be great to bring close to the UF campus because nothing even similar to my bakery exists in that area 4) Many comments noted that they liked how personal this issue was to me in growing up with parents that had diabetes and 5) How I was going to keep these foods separated (which I then took into consideration and laid out a solution to in paragraph 2).