14A - Halfway Reflection

When it comes to the habits I've made to keep up with this course, I've made a habit of checking what assignments are due Monday, to then plan my week around them. Currently, I'm in a very interesting situation with my GPA and semester plan, so I've been planning much more meticulously than in previous semesters, even spending the last three weeks using all my free time to study for other classes, something I'm not known for doing. Last term I had many moments in which I felt like giving up, but I never did. It has gotten to a point where this semester I don't even think about these kinds of moments, I sort of just focus my brain solely on the task I need to do. Granted, once I finish with said task I feel like death, but at least I know I got through what I needed to do. I've certainly developed a tenacious attitude, such to a point where I don't even consider the possibility of giving up, I simply think of what's to come in my future and work toward that. As mentioned before, my previous semesters in which I had exponentially more work motivated me to get to this point, a point where I not only have a firmer grasp on the work I am doing, but also simply enjoying the work I'm doing much more; I feel as though the work I'm doing really matters. The tips I'd offer to a student taking this class next semester would be as follows. First, focus on your health and family first, these are necessities that will not only come back to help you in the future, but will keep you sane and human. Second, focus on your university work, you're here for a reason; there are a lot of extra-curricular activities and clubs on campus, but they all take a backseat to your work. Lastly, never give up, you can change and try new things, but never give up. I went to a university I wasn't expecting to even consider and changed my major three semesters in, anything is possible so long as you put in the effort and find what you love.

13A - Reading Reflection No.1 (Grinding it Out)

Having already watched many documentaries about McDonald's, as well as frequently eating their food, I found it fun to read through Ray Kroc's autobiography. What surprised me the most about the autobiography is a mixture of Ray's roots as well as how McDonald's as a franchise, instead of as a restaurant, was mainly his doing. Having worked with the original two founders of McDonald's, his job was more the logistics and infrastructure side, which in a way pushed Maurice and Richard MacDonald into a role of simply signing yes or no to Ray's changes. In Ray, I most admired his persistence, similar to Steve Jobs, he knew that he struck gold with the restaurant and wanted to mine as much of it as he could. Whenever he encountered resistance, whether it be in the forms of financial struggles or from the brothers who he was working with, he always pushed through. In the end, this persistence ended up creating a multi-billion dollar franchise that in known throughout the world. I least admired the greed Kroc had when it came to the original founding of McDonald's: going against the brothers wishes, looking for more lucrative deals outside of the brothers, and buying out the brothers' business and never even paying them the royalties they were promised. Although McDonald's is such a large corporation, it is clear that its intentions were greedy from the beginning. Although Kroc is a devoted, hard-working entrepreneur, the way he faced adversities is nearly unforgivable.
Kroc exhibited many competencies through the book, first and foremost is the competency to seek out more than what one is given. Although Kroc had his life set out as a travelling salesman with enough money to support himself and his wife, he sought out more, knowing there were opportunities around the corner. Kroc is a man who didn't wait for opportunities to come to him, he went to them.
One part of the reading that was confusing to me, was why the brothers even began working with him in the first place. Kroc was a man they knew very little about to begin with, yet they allowed him to spearhead an effort to franchise their restaurant despite having failed at doing so before. Persistence can only go so far on matters like this, so I wonder why the brothers gave in to Ray.
The first question I'd ask is about the 1% royalty he promised to the brothers, it's clear how he got around giving it to them, but I'm curious as to why he went through the effort to not give it to them. For as small as McDonald's was at the time, the royalty would have been relatively small anyway. I want to hear the reason from him, especially if it was simply because of greed. Secondly, I'd want to ask him why he was compelled to pursue this opportunity so strongly. At the time, he was living a comfortable life with his, at the time, wife Ethel. Why did he go so far as to abandon all that for the opportunity?
I imagine Kroc's idea of hard work is different from mine, I think his idea would revolve much more around the people aspect, changing people's minds and heart toward your benefits and goals. In this sense, I believe he took a lot of joy in his hard work, getting around people, maximizing his own profits, and filling his pockets with as much money as he could swindle out of people.

12A – Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 1

Segment: My first segment will be university students who go away from home, instead of anyone who frequently moves.

I interviewed five university student who have moved at least twice since they've moved to Gainesville, however only three have moved into spaces that have either been unfurnished or did not have adequate furnishings. When it came to these three students, they had two common complaints; first, the obvious, "I needed more furniture to put stuff in, what was provided isn't enough for all my stuff." The second complaint they had was in regards to their roommates, particularly who would bring furnishings for common areas. Oftentimes there was only a couch, desk, and table in the common area with nothing else. While this is average for a rental apartment, it is still nice to bring along extra chairs, tables, maybe even a desk. They've been aware of this problem for a while and have decided to simply live with the situation, having each person living in the space bring separate objects. Generally, they bring items that are replaceable, never their large furnishings. One of the interviewees actually rents furniture from a local vendor. The issue isn't necessarily one that is unsolvable, it is just a hassle to solve when it comes time, usually requiring a lot of moving and sometimes heavy lifting. When it comes to information search (if they do search for anything,) they usually don't seek out new furnishings, instead they either use UHaul to rent a truck large enough to move their belongings or look to rent furnishings for their time here. This segment of people certainly could use my product, however not many are willing to seek it out, instead looking for the alternatives of renting or moving their own furniture. In this regard, it would be rather difficult to sell my product to college students. Instead, I should market these products to both the real estate market that owns the apartments near campus as well as the furniture stores that rent out furniture. The latter would be an extremely lucrative market, as these companies are looking for cheap, expendable furniture that students are willing to pay good money for. This could be just the product furniture rental companies need.

11A – Idea Napkin No. 1

I'm a UF student who is both good at coming up with and executing concepts over long periods of time, as well as executing ideas in setting where I need to improvise in a short period of time. My aspirations for my project are to grow this project into something feasible so that I can either have something I can reference when applying for internships or a project I can execute later down my line in life. I offer easily moved furniture to my customers, my project is a line of furniture that is easily compacted and folded so that is can be moved from room to room or house to house. This will meet the need of bulky furniture being extremely hard to move from place to place. The customers I'm appealing to will be anyone who either moves from house to house frequently or redecorates their home frequently. These kinds of people are constantly dealing with the hassle of moving heavy and bulky furniture one load at a time and would much rather have an easier alternative. They care because of how time consuming it is to move furniture all around the room, as well as how costly is can be to move one's furniture from one home to a new one. As of February 2019, there are not large brand furniture companies marketing a product like this, mainly because most furniture companies prefer quality over ease. With a cheaper alternative to home furnitures that is also easy to move, I'm sure that a line of furniture like this can take off and potentially become mainstream.

Over the weeks I've been thinking about this project, I can only think of two major issues. The first being, I'd have to partner with a known furniture company. While this isn't a major drawback as I'd still make a lot of money, I am well aware that I wouldn't have as much freedom as I'd like with my furniture. In theory I could make my own line, but I'd have little chance of housing my units, let alone finding a place and compensating the money to make them. If I can partner with someone or get financial backing, then this one major problem will go away. The only other issue being the design. While I have the design sketched out and hard-coded in my head, it will still take designers who know what they're doing to come in and fully flesh out the product.

9A - Testing the Hypothesis, Part 2

For my interviews, I interviewed four University of Florida students who have lived in different apartments each term they've been here as well as a father who has had to move several times because of business. I expected each of these people to come back with resounding confidence in my idea, however only the father had this reaction. In his case, he's become accustomed to moving around and has begun living with minimal furniture; he explained he'd like furniture but knows he'll have to move it and may not even have space for some of it. However, all the university students explained that they really wouldn't need this product, they'd much prefer to go through the hassle of moving furniture themselves. I asked why this was, and they explained one of two reasons why they wouldn't want it. The first was that the furniture they've had since they were children is the furniture they'd like to keep, not necessarily the beds, but the dressers, desks, nightstands, etc. are all still usable. The other reason is that they wouldn't want to compromise quality and comfortability for price and ease of movement. They'd rather buy a bulky piece of furniture that would last them twenty years, than the same pieces of furniture every five years to replace old and broken ones. While I would like to chalk this up to the fact that all of them have moved into already furnished apartments unlike the father has, they raise good points and will be noted for the future. While they were all expected, I appreciated the feedback.

10A - Elevator Pitch No.1