7A – Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1

An opportunity I would like to pursue is creating an item that can act as an ice cube, but not melt into the drink that it is in to change the taste of the drink.

The who: People who want cold drinks without having a fridge

The what: They are unable to lower the temperature of their drinks without changing the flavor of their drink

The why: Ice melts into the drink to cool it off, changing the taste in the process

 

Hypothesis: People who want to have a drink that is not at a cool temperature will find alternatives to ice cubes to prevent their drink from being watered down.

 

Testing the who: I believe that everyone has this need as everyone in a point in their lives will have a warm drink that they will want colder. The specific group that will be targeted is Floridians.

 

Testing the what: This device is not going to be limited to any drink but it will be limited to temperature, this will only be useful to make a drink colder.

 

Testing the why: I can see two possible views people will give me with this idea, one being that this device is useless as ice can do the job and the second view will be someone with excitement as they do not have to deal with watered down drinks any more. The why I have identified does not hold for everyone, but I believe it would be a big portion of the population that would agree with the why I gave.

 

Interviews:

1.     My mother thought it was an interesting idea to have a device that will cool off a drink, but not water it down at the same time. She said that she would use this whenever she went picnicking and outside in the heat. She definitely would use this with drinks that taste good to not make it taste bad.

2.     My sister thinks that she would just use ice cubes as she would forget to prepare the device. My sister thinks it’s a good idea, but she thinks it can get annoying as the device will then need to be taken care of after drinking, while ice can just melt. She would use this device on any drink though if she didn’t have to worry about any of the problems.

3.     My aunt said similar thing to my mom as she would also use this device in the outside heat. She says that she can see herself also going with several friends and children to the beach using this device. As the device can be useful in cooling of the drink and may be better than ice, she said that it can be useful in places ice cannot even stay cold for that long.

4.     My friend said that he thinks it would be great to go to games with this device. He thinks that it would be a useful device that can help students go throughout the day without worrying about how to cool their drinks. According to him he also thinks that athletes could use this as well, if the athlete is by themselves.

5.     My friend believes that this can be used well at work, as it would allow people to keep their drinks at proper temperature for a long time. My friend also thinks that it could help several people from children to adults that do not want to affect their drink choice. He believes that it would also be helpful in drinks that are room temperature to be served and people have the chance to use the device.

 

Summary: Some of things that I did not know about before, were the possible locations that this device could be used. I never completely thought of people using it in locations like the beach or at work, which may be helpful as people may not want to leave those locations just for ice. I think something else I learned is how vast the group of people that would benefit from this idea. I did not think of athletes to be part of this idea even though they could benefit as this would be one less thing that they would have to worry about. Furthermore, there are several other groups of people and places that this device could be used and therefore benefit.

6A – Identifying Opportunities in Economic & Regulatory Trends

The four opportunities I found:

1.    The first opportunity I found was the need for more technology specific items that can help people distract themselves throughout this pandemic. I was able to think of this opportunity because of the rise of technology stocks recently, which can be seen specifically in this news article: https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/27/investing/faang-stocks-market-amazon-tech/index.html. I believe that this information is an amazing way to tell that this opportunity exists because for the past few months technology stock markets have been going down until recently, when the pandemic occurred. I believe that the people that most likely to be the customer with the opportunity would be anybody stuck at home, therefore stuck at home parents and children who have nothing else to do. I believe that this opportunity is relatively difficult to exploit, because the technology field is not the easiest field to get into. I believe that I found this opportunity and not others, because I was keeping an eye out for an opportunity and also am facing similar issues of always being home. Another reason I believe I noticed this is because I am a computer engineer and I am constantly dealing with technology ideas and problems, therefore putting me to be more inclined in figuring out when technology can be used.

2.    The second opportunity I found was the need for coffee machines as there has been a large increase in sales for this specific market. There has been a decreasing economic trend towards coffee shops, therefore showing that people are more inclined in looking to make their own coffee for their own safety. I found this opportunity with the assistance of two sources which consisted of https://www.newsdistinct.com/the-economic-impact-of-coronavirus-on-espresso-coffee-machines-market-with-current-trends-analysis-2019-2027/ and later on  https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/kitchen/121652407/cafes-take-another-hit-as-coffee-machine-and-pod-sales-boom as they both are showing how coronavirus is impacting the coffee industry. This information is showing me that not only is Café’s taking a huge hit, but it is also showing me that people are interested in making their own coffee for their safety and need coffee makers. I think this is noticeable because of personal experience with seeing not as many people being inside the local cafes. I believe the most typical customer for this specific opportunity would be people who were addicted to coffee beforehand and are now trying to stay safe in this pandemic. As my previous idea, this would need a lot of technological knowledge therefore this opportunity would be hard to exploit. I believe I noticed this opportunity because of personal experience within this event. I have had a coffee machine for over 3 years and barely used it, until the pandemic started and I started using it more often. I believe that because I cannot go to the coffee place anymore, I just have to make it on my own now which is what I believe most people are doing.

3.    The third opportunity I found was related to traveling and how there is an opportunity in investing in transportation other than air travel. I found this opportunity as there is a recent government regulation that may be affecting people’s air travel with not allowing them to take their emotional support dog’s on planes in this link: https://beta.regulations.gov/document/DOT-OST-2018-0068-12959. I believe that this information suggests that the opportunity to invest in other transportation besides air travel because a huge portion of people are going to be unable to travel without their emotional support. With this in mind many people are going to be looking for alternative travel methods such as cars, buses, trains, and boats. I believe that the person most likely to be the customer for this opportunity would be anybody that needs an emotional support type animal and cannot travel anymore on planes. This opportunity is very difficult to exploit as you would need a lot of money to afford using other transportations such as a train or bus to be able to help people get to where they need to be.

4.    The fourth opportunity I found was looking into providing more electric bikes. I found this opportunity as there is a recent regulation change that will allow people to use electric bikes in several new places. I found this opportunity from this link: https://beta.regulations.gov/document/BLM-2020-0001-0001. This shows that the regulation is in place and I believe through the comments and explanations that this would therefore push people into getting electric bikes to roam around more freely. For this reason, I would invest in these electric bikes so people can do what they want as the regulation now allows them to. I believe the people that would most likely to be the customer of this opportunity would be outdoor people who like to roam natural habitats. I believe that this opportunity can be more easily exploitable than a few of my previous opportunity ideas, but it would still be difficult as it can still be expensive to buy these bikes and maintain them. I think I found this opportunity because as I was looking for opportunities, I noticed that this opportunity could actually help myself in areas I have wanted to visit. I believe that because of my personal dream of just going everywhere, this opportunity was an easy one for me to find.

5A – Identifying Local Opportunities

The five opportunities I was able to find consisted of several different small organizations, large organization, and the daily people having problems.

 

1.     The title of the article is  “16 puppies stolen from the East Orlando Petland store” and the link to this article is: https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/crime/os-ne-puppies-stolen-from-troubled-petland-waterford-lakes-20200522-to23g2ebqjcbtbr2kih7kmjl4q-story.html. The story talks about a break-in at the Petland in Waterford Lakes and how it costed the company $100,000. From personal experience I know this is not the first time that this has happened to one of the local pet stores, as it is a constant problem that these companies face all the time. The problem that is presented in the story is dog’s being stolen, making the company lose a large amount of money. The problem is mainly to all local pet stores as this is common throughout the entire city.

2.     The title of the article is “Orlando International Airport Traffic Down 96%”and the link to the article is: https://westorlandonews.com/orlando-international-airport-traffic-down-96/. The story talks about how the Orlando international airport used to be one of the busiest airport’s ever and now its air travel has cut down to 96% of what it was beforehand. This is affecting several of their plans and cutting most of their finances, causing problems to things like their plan to expand the airport.  The problem currently is that because of the current pandemic we are facing at the moment, the airport is facing a financial instability because of the low air travel. The certain organization that has this problem is the Orlando airport or more importantly all the airports in the United States.

3.     The title of the article is “Red tide problem escalates off Florida’s west coast”  and the link to the article is: https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/florida/os-ne-red-tide-update-florida-coast-bloom-20191107-4eiwivghqvgrpkdipszo3qtr24-story.html. The story talks about how the concentration of the red tide has increased with time and how it is spreading to other counties throughout the state of Florida. The problem is currently the spread of the red tide and how it can cause respiratory irritations and marine life death. The group that has the problem would consist of the people who live near the specific beaches that are contaminated and scientists who have research with the marine life science at that beach.

4.     The title of the article is “Movie theatre’s struggle to draw crowds as COVID-19 stay at home orders ease” and the link to the article is: https://www.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment/ct-ent-movie-theaters-open-small-crowds-20200527-kqcudiado5fktgpev5q7gwhw5y-story.html. The story talks about how movie theatres are having trouble finding customers as they are scared of getting sick from the virus, but the movie theatres still have to pay bills that they may not be able to afford soon. These movie theatres are then forced to run out of money while opened or closed and most have decided to therefore stay open. The problem that is presented is that people are too scared to come to the movie theatre, after the stay at home order has been lifted. This will then cause the movie theatres to run out of money and most likely go out of business. Currently the group of people that have this problem can be split into two groups the theatre companies that are losing money every day and the daily person who is too scared to go to the movie theatre because they might get sick.

5.     The title of the article is “Families of more than 2 million Florida children to get extra food stamp benefits” and the link to the article is: https://www.orlandosentinel.com/coronavirus/os-ne-coronavirus-florida-kids-to-get-pandemic-food-stamp-benefits-20200528-hkpve2lmqffkbgicyntoqbnkyy-story.html. This article talks about how 2 million people are in need of food and therefore getting food stamps. Do to the pandemic, a significant amount of people are now unemployed and therefore in need of help with food stamps. The current problem is that a huge amount of people are facing a constant problem of hunger as the new pandemic has displaced many people and therefore cause many people to struggle with finding a way to afford things necessary for them to survive. The group of people that would be facing this problem would be people that are displaced because of this pandemic and therefore have no funds to keep themselves afloat.

 

 

 

Forming an Opportunity Belief: A Twist on Opportunity Identification

1) Your beginning point. Do you have a belief, supposition, or feeling that an opportunity exists? This belief may have come from your completion of prior exercises. Only select one belief. 

I definitely believe that there is always an opportunity that exists. A specific belief that I have where an opportunity exists is a blanket that can have a maximum temperature. 

2) Describe your belief. Be sure to include a few things. First, what is the unmet need? Second, who has the need? Third, where did the need come from (is it new, or has it always existed)? Four, what are people doing to meet this need now? (These four elements are important -- we'll come back to these.) At this point, how sure are you (say, in percent terms) that this opportunity exists?

The belief I have is that there is a need for blankets that have a controlled temperature. I believe that blankets can get too hot and overheat people at some moments, therefore having a controlled blanket would solve an unmet problem many people face. The unmet need currently is being at a comfortable temperature for an extended amount of time. Any person that is taking a break in their house. The need has always existed, but there are many people who have just gotten used to this problem. People are constantly adjusting themselves and other devices to ensure that they can be at a comfortable temperature. This opportunity exists in my opinion, as personal experience and interaction with others has shown that this is a common problem. I would say that I am 60% confident that this unmet need exists. 

3) Identify the prototypical customer. 

My prototypical customers consist of: a person who works at home, a person who works in an environment where they cannot control the temperature, and a person who is taking a nap.

4&5&6) Iteration & Reflect. What did you learn about your opportunity? What was the most surprising thing you learned about your opportunity? (You may reflect after each iteration or you may simply include a single reflection that captures all three iterations.)

My opportunity seems like a common problem that continuously happens but people just get used to living with the annoyance. I learned that people have different solutions, whether it be to just give up and deal with the cold or hot temperature or just continuously be playing with the fan and their blanket. The work at home person can sometimes get cold in their house and therefore will go get a blanket, but then will be hot and have to be constantly moving around. This environment for the work at home person prevents them from optimizing their work flow and therefore is a problem. Something else I learned about this opportunity is that it could help those that have trouble sleeping. There are moments when people fall asleep with their blanket and end up waking up in a pool of sweat and all uncomfortable, having a blanket that will not go over a specific temperature can help prevent this. The most surprising thing I learned about the opportunity I found is that there are medical blankets that can cool people off.  I think this discovery is amazing information as it displays how it is possible to make a similar blanket geared towards the market I am interested in helping. 

7) Summarize. It's very likely that your opportunity belief changed between the outset and as a consequence of your customer interactions. Three questions:

How much of your original opportunity is still there?

I think the only reason my opportunity would decrease is because of people being used to the problem, but I believe a good portion of my original opportunity is still there. It may be hard to sell the blanket as people have gotten accustomed to this problem, but if a sense of need is created for these blankets to stop this small annoyance then there is a possibility the opportunity

Do you believe that your new opportunity is more accurate than when you started?

I believe that my new opportunity is more in depth, as I have knowledge of how the medical community uses blankets to get a colder body. With this knowledge, I believe that the new opportunity I have is more accurate than how I started as it has more research backing it up. 

How much do you think entrepreneurs should 'adapt' their opportunities based on customer feedback? (In other words, is there a trade-off between adapting and staying firm?)

I believe that entrepreneurs should adapt to what their customers want. If a large portion of customers support for you to adapt, then it would be wise to change your own product to be able to meet the customer's needs. There is a certain extent where adapting may hurt though, as it can make the product cost significantly more on the producer side and therefore making it unaffordable. Therefore, it would be wise to have a middle ground where you are willing to adapt, but know when to stand firm. 

Entrepreneurship Story

An entrepreneurship experience I had was actually a very recent experience in which I wanted to create an app to help plan things for people. I spent several weeks trying to make an application using a specific programming language I learned at the University of Florida. This language was not exactly the best language to use for the specific program I wanted to make though, therefore I paid for an extra online class to learn everything about the specific language I wanted to use. There was some time and risk taking as I was not completely sure I would be capable of learning all the things, but eventually I learned the language. Ever since then I have constantly been using the language I learned to try creating applications that may one day be useful for people and save them time. 

This is one of the screen's I made for the application I was working on.

I enrolled in ENT3003 because I have always been interested in taking a class where I could learn about entrepreneurship. I hear this big word being thrown around by many people and I want to be able to use this in my life. I love being an engineer, but I cannot wait to have this as an experience I can use. I hope I can learn when to take advantage of situations and how to take advantage. 

Bug List

Things that bug me

1. Never correctly being at the right temperature. When I am taking a break, I can get cold, so I’ll grab a blanket. But then, when I put my blanket on, I get hot and have to turn on the fan, which makes me cold again. So I end up in an endless loop.

• The bug exists because the fan I have has two extreme speeds of either being very slow or really fast and the blanket I have does not have a maximum temperature it will heat me up. 

2. While working with people, hearing their keyboards make noises as they are typing can be bothersome.

• This bug exists because the keyboards my friends use are not smooth when they are pressed. 

3. While I am rushing to class, slow walkers in the hallway or in large groups outside can make me late to class.

• This bug exists because sometimes the path I am on is the only path or too narrow of a path to be passing the people. 

4. When I'm frying food like empanadas and fish, there will be moments where the oil will start splattering and cause some burns. 

• This bug exists because sometimes the food I try to fry with has water on it and it will splatter. This can also be because the pot I am using is not big enough. 

5. In the early morning, it irritates me when I'm sleeping and the light passes through the blinds, causing the beaming sunlight to shine on my face.

• This exists because the blinds I have do not cover the light completely as they let sunlight pass through each wooden piece. 

6. Every time I get off a bus, my glasses fog up because of the change in temperature outside.

• This occurs because we live in a pretty humid and hot state. When I get off the cold bus, my glasses that are cold allow for the humidity to condense on them. 

7. When my hair starts falling down in the middle of the day, since my gel only lasts a few hours, getting in face and having to forcefully push it away from my eyes.

• This happens because after some certain time external factors such as wind, water, and daily life occurences, my hair will start flattening down because the gel is being worn out. 

8. As I am studying and doing homework, the lightbulbs in all my rooms go out on the same day putting the whole house in darkness. With this situation, I am put in a situation in either driving to home depot or working in the loud living room.  

• This is a typical issue with light bulbs that are all put in at similar times. This problem starts with one light bulb flickering and then the rest just continues. 

9. Misplacing my wallet when I am in a rush to go somewhere and now cannot drive to the location I need to be. 

• This just happens because of human error or others moving the item without me knowing. 

10. During the winter days of Florida, I dislike wearing jackets when it is cold outside because later on in the day it will become hot. When it gets hot, I am stuck carrying a jacket and I start sweating. 

• This is again a problem because of Florida's weather being a little chaotic, as it is constantly changing to really hot or cold. 

11. During the night when I'm taking my dogs outside, they stay in the backyard not wanting to come back for several minutes even when I call them. 

• My dog's are usually stuck outside chasing animal's or their attention is temporarily is controlled by outside noise. 

12. When I buy greener bananas for them to last longer, they still go spoiled very quickly and I end up with rotten bananas. 

• Fruit just spoil really fast. Bananas are the fruit that spoil the quickest for me and I take a lot of time eating Bananas. 

13. Waking up every morning to find my white patio full of dead love bugs. 

• During a specific time in the year, love bugs hatch and infest a big portion of the state. The love bugs are everywhere during this time. 

14. Having a clock that I constantly have to fix to tell the correct time, after buying several other clocks with the same problem. 

• There can be several reasons for this, some being mechanical issues or battery issues. 

15. When I have to get on highways and people are in the way, so then I start stressing out.

• This is just do to people not moving out of the way when they have to, possibly because they do not realize they should be moving out of the way. 

16. Bacon not being cooked all the way in some parts, but being burnt in other parts. 

• There are several possible reason why this occurs including: the pan being used, the type of bacon, and the attentiveness of how it is being cooked. 

17. When I have to read a book, my arms usually get tired fast for keeping a book up and opened. I am then forced to lay down to relax and fall asleep without finishing my book.  

• Books are heavy and it can be boring to sit in one place at a certain time. Reading a book can cause stress as a person is constantly holding an object several hours concentrating on that book. 

18. Getting screamed at every night because every time I close a door in my house it makes a loud noise. 

•  The door is difficult to close as the alignment of the doorknob and hole is not correct, but there is also the squeaking noise that occurs when I am moving the door as well. 

19. My dog's chewing on my favorite headphone chords leaving them useless. 

• My dog's are just interested in everything they find, especially when it looks like a toy. 

20.  Ice melting in my drink and watering it down giving it a horrible taste.

• Ice melts because it is not cold any more and the water that comes off it will mix with the drink. 

After you have written the list of 20 "bugs," write your reflection on the challenges you had in coming up with the list. Did you find it difficult? How so?

Reflection

As I completed the bug list, the amount of problems I could think of did not bring me anywhere near the goal of 20 I was hoping for. I found listing all my problems quite difficult and therefore took up the approach that was suggested in just going about my life and paying attention to any little nuance that occurred in my life. With some time, I would find something that occurs all the time and annoys me. When these little annoyance occurred, I would type them down on my blog. It definitely can be difficult to think of little things in your life that give you problems, because of how often they occur and how used to them you can get. I realize now though, that if you are constantly looking out for problems then there may be moments where you can make solutions for them and make people's lives easier. 

Test Post for 1D

This is just a test. I cannot wait to post more!