14A - Halfway Reflection

1.    Some behaviors I have developed to keep up with the requirements of this course are planning ahead to decide when I am going to complete assignments. I have always been a planner, but this class requires extra effort since there are often interviews to conduct, books to read, or other activities that are important to set time aside for before the due date.

2.    I think most college students can relate to having those moments where all you want to do is give up. However, I always remind myself of the value of the education that we are getting. UF is an incredible university, and our experiences here are shaping us into the competent adults that we all hope to be. I don’t think that tenacity is something that can be learned in two months. It is a skill that must be developed and practiced until it becomes a habit. The experience that has most shown me this at UF is the calculus class I had to take for my economics major. Math has never been my strong suit, so I struggled in this class, and I hated it in the moment. But looking back, I can now see how this class taught me to just keep working at it until I feel confident.

3.    The first tip I would offer is to plan ahead. Use a planner, keep to-do lists, and make sure you look at your assignments ahead of time. I personally like to write daily to-do lists every morning so that I have a clear idea of what I want to accomplish that day. The second tip is to hold yourself accountable. This is easier to do if you know other people in the class. If you tell yourself that you are going to do an assignment or a part of it on a certain day then you end up not completing it, make a point to wake up early the next morning and do it. Accountability develops tenacity. The last tip is to have confidence in your abilities and not let yourself make excuses for yourself. This one is more specific to developing a tenacious mindset. If you hold yourself to a higher standard, you will be less likely to waste time procrastinating on assignments.

13A - Reading Reflection No. 1

For this assignment, I read a biography of Gabrielle Chanel, the fashion designer and icon. It is titled Coco Chanel: An Intimate Life.

1.    The most surprising aspect of Coco Chanel’s life was her almost chronic loneliness. It seems logical that someone as dynamic and talented as Chanel was would find a compatible partner who would challenge and better her. Instead, she bounced from man to man, serving as everything from a mistress to a muse to a collaborator. On a related note, I was also surprised by the array of renowned artists Chanel with which was involved in some way. The list includes some of the most well-known artists of all time, including Picasso and Dalí. I most admired Chanel’s ability to create an “image” or “brand” of her style before the age of social media. She is truly one of the original icons who managed to capture the world’s attention. I also admired her determination not to allow a man to indefinitely support her financially. The second she found out her lover, Arthur Capel, was making payments and phone calls to the bank on her behalf, she immediately found ways for her business to become profitable so that she could rely on herself instead. I respect her desire for independence. I least admired Chanel’s pattern of being a mistress to married men. It is not a respectable pattern of behavior in my opinion. Chanel faced adversity virtually her entire life. She lived in an orphanage for years and had a troubled family life. She also struggled in terms of business later on. At 71 years of age, she decided to reopen her couture house, now facing a younger generation with different tastes. Although it took her some time, she eventually overcame these challenges to create timeless pieces of fashion.

2.    Coco Chanel exhibited various competencies that led her to success. Most importantly, her creativity and sense of fashion allowed her to create classic garments and accessories. Her creative mind truly gave her an essence of who she was. Similarly, her innovation and adaptability kept her relevant even through old age when many fashion icons fade away from the spotlight.

3.    One part of the reading that I found confusing was related to the great love of Chanel’s life. Supposedly, Arthur Capel was the greatest love of Chanel’s life. Her other affairs and engagements paled in comparison to this. However, Capel chose to marry a different woman. It is confusing to me how these two facts can coexist with each other.

4.    The first question I would ask Chanel is if she regrets prioritizing her work over everything – even love. In the book, she is quoted saying, “I liked work. I sacrificed everything to it, even love. Work has consumed my life.” I wonder if she regrets this take on her life or if she would say that it was worth it. The second question I would ask her is if she ever imagined that she would become the icon that she is. It seems difficult to imagine such lofty goals as anything more than a dream, but I wonder if Chanel knew she was always destined for something big.

5.    I think Chanel’s opinion of hard work is rooted in passion for what you do – whatever that may be. For her, her passion lied in bringing her creative urges to life through every channel she could find. I agree that passion takes a lot of the hard part out of hard work.

12A - Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 1

Segment: college students who are interested in volunteering their time for food pickup and drop-off

1.    My first interviewee is a junior at UF who is interested in working in the nonprofit sector once she graduates. She said that she is passionate about serving the needy because of past experiences in her personal life. She pointed out that it would be difficult to make a profit in this business, but that it’s still important to have services like these. She occasionally volunteers at a soup kitchen with her roommate.

2.    My second interview was with an 18-year-old girl who believes that serving one’s local community is extremely important. She wants to run for public office in the future. She said that she tries to find a new cause to help every month. 

3.    The last person I interviewed said that he needs to get volunteer hours for a class, so he would be interested in helping a new foundation get on its feet. Although his class is the reason that he wants to volunteer in the first place, he said it’s important to him that he find a cause he thinks is worthwhile. 

I learned that I will need to target people with an innate passion for helping others and serving underprivileged communities. Many people do not generally make a habit of volunteering their time, so my business would likely have to rely on charity donations for funding rather than the traditional model. While I will also charge a service fee for picking up and delivering the food, most nonprofits cannot afford to pay a lot for this. However, I think that with the help of volunteers this could still be successful and help many people.

11A - Idea Napkin No. 1

1.    Me: My name is Beatriz Galdona and I am a junior at UF studying economics and political science with a minor in Spanish. I am a diligent, disciplined student, and I am hoping to attend law school after graduating from UF. I have experience working in business operations, specifically in the health care field. As a lawyer, I am interested in working with contractual law in the realm of nonprofit organizations, health care, or public policy. I see this business concept playing a role in my life because it would combine my work ethic and drive to improve others’ lives while also allowing me to utilize my analytical skills through the law.

2.    What I’m offering: I am proposing a middle-man business operation to connect restaurants with food kitchens, homeless shelters, and other places that provide services to underserved communities. The concept is to set up a business that would take leftover, uneaten food from restaurants and deliver it to nonprofit organizations that feed our homeless or underprivileged populations. The final customers are the people who would eat the food, but my direct customers would be the restaurants and nonprofits that I would be connecting. My idea helps restaurants meet their social responsibility goals and obviously benefits the nonprofits by providing them food to ease their burden. Additionally, this idea limits waste because restaurants will be producing less garbage overall.

3.    Who I’m offering it to: My business idea is directed toward restaurants looking to better serve their communities as well as nonprofits in need of extra assistance with locating food supplies. The restaurants share a social responsibility to help underprivileged communities as well as produce as little waste as possible. The nonprofits share a constant need for greater resources. 

4.    Why they care: Nonprofit organizations inherently care about the communities they serve. They will utilize any resource available to them to make it easier to get quality food to their customers. The restaurant aspect is a bit more difficult to achieve, but social responsibility has become an increasingly salient topic in today’s sociopolitical climate. 

5.    Core competencies: I have a knack for thinking of various solutions to the same problem and deciding which would be most effective and why. I am also a planner; I love to plan ahead and get tasks done ahead of time so that if (and when) something goes wrong, there is still a chance to fix it.

I believe that these elements fit together well. I previously had a different business idea, and I already think this one is both more viable and more meaningful. I believe this business has the potential to be successful and make true positive change in the communities it serves. However, there are obvious challenges such as finding restaurants willing to donate food and nonprofits willing to pay a decent price for the service. Even so, I think this would benefit everyone involved.

9A - Testing the Hypothesis, Part 2

·     Who: Through these five additional interviews, I learned a few important things. The main one that came up in three of the interviews is that students with a car (i.e. the ones who would have a problem finding parking at this Publix) also have the option of going to one of the various other Publix supermarkets within driving distance. They could also go to Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Lucky’s, or a different supermarket to buy their groceries. The presence of so many substitutes for this Publix may present a problem for my valet service idea. One interviewee put it well when she said, “If someone is willing to pay to park their car at this Publix, they are also probably willing to drive a few extra minutes to go to a grocery store that has ample parking.” This limits the “who” of my opportunity by a lot more than I initially realized. One of the other people I interviewed is an employee of this Publix, so he does not have the option of going somewhere else. However, he said that he would consider using valet on a temporary basis, but he would likely bring up the parking problem to his manager and hope for a more permanent solution that did not cost him additional money each time he went to work. The fifth person I interviewed is the parent of a UF student. Her daughter has a car, but she is very busy with school and other commitments so this Publix’s location is much more convenient than any of the other supermarkets in Gainesville since she lives close to it. The parent said that she would give her daughter a few extra dollars for a valet service if her daughter thought it would be helpful. Overall, exploring the “who” on a deeper level has made me reconsider this idea. People with cars who shop at this Publix or frequent this Starbucks are also the ones who have the most substitutes available to them, and they are the only ones who would be in my market.

·     What: Despite the many other options available, the problem remains that there is not enough parking at this Publix location. For whatever reason, people continue to go to this Publix even though finding car parking can take time. 

·     Why: The “why” could just be that there is no employee parking lot, and that would solve the issue. However, that would be difficult for an outsider to capitalize on since Publix management would be in charge of finding or building a separate employee parking lot. People inside the market go to this Publix out of convenience while people outside the market go to other supermarkets because they do not want to deal with parking there.

Click the picture to see it more clearly :)

Solving the Problem

The problem that I identified in the previous exercise is the lack of parking at the Publix and Starbucks on 13^thStreet and University Ave. I came up with two ideas for potential solutions. The first one is to incorporate parking spots with time limits on them. If there was someone actually enforcing the time limits, people would be less likely to hog parking spots for hours at a time and it would alleviate the problem a bit. However, this idea is not really profitable which led me to my second idea. The other idea is to start a valet service in or near this parking lot. Customers would have to pay a fee to use the service, and they could leave their cars for as long as they want. The valet lot would have to be near Publix so that customers would not have to wait a long time to pick up their cars once they are done shopping.

Testing the Hypothesis

Improved parking at Publix on 13^thStreet and University Ave

·     Opportunity: The parking lot at this Publix location is constantly at capacity because there is no separate employee parking lot.

o  Who: Publix employees and customers

o  What: They are unable to find a parking spot quickly upon arrival

o  Why: No employee parking lot

·     Testing the who: Employees and customers of the adjacent Starbucks also have this problem. The who does not include people who take their scooter to either of these locations.

·     Testing the what: Scooter parking is excluded from this problem. The problem may also be more prominent at certain times of the day or certain days of the week, whenever Publix is busier than usual.

·     Testing the why: It could be that the lack of separate parking for employees causes the problem. It could also be that the Publix attracts more customers than project managers had initially planned so there just is not enough parking now. Maybe there is something else going on with people hogging spots for a different reason.

·     Interview #1: Frequent customer of this Publix and Starbucks

o  In this interview, I found out that this customer actually plans ahead for her trips to Publix or Starbucks because of the parking. She said that she will usually take her scooter if she is only getting coffee or just picking up a few items from Publix because she does not want to deal with finding a parking spot for her car for such a short amount of time. She said that she usually goes grocery shopping once a week, so she has to take her car then. She said it really depends on the day and time, but more often than not she does not find a vacant spot when she pulls into the Publix parking lot.

·     Interview #2: Employee of Publix

o  This interviewee has worked at this Publix since it opened last year. He does not have a scooter so he drives his car to work every time. He said that there used to be an employee parking lot across the street but employees were instructed not to park there anymore as of a few months ago. He said that he usually relies on getting lucky to find a parking spot in the Publix parking lot. He did not know why the old employee parking lot is not used since the lot sits empty now.

·     Interview #3: Starbucks regular

o  In this interview, I talked to a young woman who says she goes to this Starbucks almost every day because she lives just across the street. She said that she started noticing the parking shortage a few months ago but she expected it to be a short-term issue. However, she was surprised to see that week after week the parking situation never improved. She said that she usually walks to Starbucks because she knows that it is not worth the hassle to try and park, especially when she lives so close. She said that when she does drive, she tries to convince one of her roommates to go with her so that someone can wait in the car while the other goes inside to get their coffees.

·     Interview #4: Parent of a student who shops at this Publix

o  This interview was interesting because it offered a very different perspective than the others. The parent first noticed the parking problem when he was dropping off his daughter after winter break. He said that he wanted to help her get re-settled and ready for the beginning of a new semester by running errands with her. He said that they circled around the parking lot for a few minutes before he sent her inside to start shopping while he continued to search for a parking spot. He expressed frustration at the fact that he pays for his daughter to have a car so that she will use it, but it is clearly an unrealistic or more inconvenient option. He said that a remedy must be found.

·     Interview #5: Starbucks employee

o  This employee said that she had given up trying to plan ahead to find a spot and still make it on time for her shift. She said that she either has her husband drop her off, takes public transportation, or takes an Uber to work. She said that the parking lot is just too crowded and she does not think it’s worth her time to search for a parking spot every time she goes to work. She said that it is frustrating that no one has offered a solution to this problem yet because it has been an issue for at least three or four months.

·     Given these interviews, I have realized that many people are already finding alternatives to dealing with the lack of parking at this location. I also learned that it is a relatively recent problem but seemingly nothing has been done since it first arose.