Feed your Focus-14A

Assignment 14A

1.     One thing I have done to keep up with this course is to plan out my week correctly and not at the last minute. It is important to be organized instead of being all over the place. In addition, you have to be specific in what the opportunity is that you are trying to solve. During this course I have learned every week to narrow down exactly what I am selling and who I am selling too.

2.     Professor Pryor mentioned that in today’s world everyone wants to make money off an app. For my business idea I wanted to create an app as part of the business. Instead of an app I realized this is something I can install into cars. At first, I did not know how this business would work without the app, but I found loopholes in my own business idea. Needless to say, I have grown tenaciously the more I think about my business plan. Every week I definitely felt like I have grown into my business idea and can make it come to life.

3.      

      Tip 1: Do not put this class last on your list because your idea will not be as narrowed.

      Tip 2: Listen to Pryor’s instructions on the weekly assignments in the live lectures to gain a more detailed perspective.

      Tip 3: Do not use the first idea that comes to mind. Write out all of the opportunities you see and narrow down the best one. Take time to do this.

Steve Jobs

Assignment 13A

Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson

1.     

-       Two things that surprised me the most were occurrences that happened early in his life. The first was that I had no idea that Steve was adopted. I was also surprised to hear that he was caught with LSD and marijuana during his teenage years. We all know the business side of Steve’s life but not many study his early life.

-       One thing that I admired about Steve the most was his drive to get in the computer and engineering business early, specifically at Atari’s. From working in the garage, learning from his dad, and knowledge gained in the work force over a short period of time eventually helped him and Steve Wozniak create Apple.

-       I least admired that Steve only saw things and people as really great or down right terrible. I believe as an entrepreneur you have to be able to see the in-between. This is important in seeing the opportunity in situations through your customers. He also was very cheap when it came to paying his first employees and crediting their ideas even after the company exploded in revenue.

-       Early in his career Steve had to drop out and try to step foot into a business. He had to constantly move around and eventually work his way into Atari’s gaming company. This is basically where he got his start and ideas to storm for the company.

2.    The first thing I noticed about Steve was he was a very persuasive man. From the start he was able to convince his employees and people higher ranked about any of his ideas were possible to capture. Another ability I saw in him was his visual learning and patience. While he was offered the CEO position many times during his early career, he sat back and maintained his advisor position mainly to watch the successes and failures of past owners.

3.    I was sort of confused with Jobs time at Pixar. He worked partly as a CEO at Pixar but also was very involved in Apple. When I was reading this, it caught me off guard because it almost seemed like at one-point Jobs was going to put all his time and commitment into Pixar and the relationship with Disney.

4.    – Was there any point at which you wish you focused more on Pixar than Apple?

-Did your relationship with Steve Wozniak fall apart after you ran off with Apple?

5.    I think Steve had a very narrow-minded opinion towards hard work. As I mentioned before, Steve only thought ideas and products were really bad or amazing, so it is easy to say that he strived for everything in his company to be perfect. While on some occasions I agree with Jobs, I however see the in-between in things.

Buyer Behavior -12A

Assignment 12A

Segment: People who have the daily struggle of finding a parking space in a crowded area.

Interviewee: I conducted interviews with three people. Two of them are current UF students and the third is a manager for the University Athletic Association.

Need awareness: The first interview was with Kasey a senior at UF. In this interview, she says she has this problem when she has to go to work (on campus) or goes to take a night exam. Although parking is lifted after 4:30, she mentioned that she still has issues finding a parking space because of the lack of parking available on campus. While Kasey prefers a scooter sometimes the weather is not good enough to where she has to drive. Kasey also has an issue finding parking by the Florida gymnasium which is where one of her classes is. My second interview was with Nico, a sophomore at UF. Like Kasey, he also has issues find parking in the case of an exam. Nico also mentioned that he is on the UF water polo team and often finds himself forced to scoot or Uber to practice because he is late due to not being able to find a parking spot. My last interview was with Brian from the UAA. Most of his time on campus is during the week/season of football, basketball, and baseball. On gamedays he gets a parking pass, but he says that during the week it is a mess trying to find somewhere to park before going into the office. It is either overcrowded or filled with people illegally parking. Most of the time when he has an issue finding a space is by the main ticket office on stadium road.

Information search: Kasey’s first thing she does is keep driving around or goes to frat row to find a spot and ends up having to walk to her destination. She says she always has conversations with friends and family about how every college campus she has been to always has limited parking. Nico and Kasey both said they have Google searched multiple times parking maps on UF’s campus and still have trouble. They realize that the situation is faulted by the school and needs to be considered. Brian on the other hand usually just talks about it with coworkers and does not make a big deal of it but understands the need for opportunity.

Conclusions: Based on the interviews I have learned that many people who have this issue often have it during similar situations. I also have learned that this issue is impacting people harmfully in their own professions! The lack of parking has become a big situation on campus.