19A-idea napkin 2

1)    My name is Ben Katz, and I believe that one of my talents is that when it comes to sales, I am naturally adept at convincing people that they need a service or product in their life when the reality is that they do not. Although, I have not spent enough time in business related endeavors to really know what my talents are in this specific area. I am curious to find out as I proceed in this course. However, one thing I do know is that my aspirations are to build a business from scratch that is highly successful and benefits the lives of people in some way shape or form. The first idea I had, and the one I have been writing about in this course, is smart light technology for traffic light. I see it as something that is able to let you get to your destination faster, leaving you one less thing to worry about.

2)    What I am offering to customers is new technology that decreases waiting time at red lights and improves the overall flow of traffic on busy roads where multiple traffic lights are present. Often times, cars sit waiting at red lights when there are no cars coming in the other direction. The smart light uses sensors to detect that, and as a result changes your light to green and the one to red where no cars are coming. This is different than conventional traffic lights, which run on timers.

3)    I am offering this product/service to anyone who drives a motor vehicle and is looking to reduce the time it takes to get to their destination, as well as avoid sitting at red lights. I would focus first on big cities and college towns where areas are heavily populated with more cars than average and more lights.

4)    Customers would care about my product because it would save them time on a daily basis, whether they were conscious of it or not. No person I have ever met enjoys sitting in traffic, and if there was a way to reduce the amount of time(s) you sit in traffic, people would jump all over it.

5)    In terms of a company, we would install the lights the fastest and in the most strategic locations to improve traffic flow. I can’t comment too much on the technology because it already exists. That company would have to license it to me.

I believe all of these elements fit together. I think this is a great product that would be very helpful to many people. The only thing I would have to work out is how my company would be profitable. I see a few various routes that It could go in, but I would have to hash out the details with the companies with the existing technology.

From the feedback, one main point I took away was that it might be a little complicated on how I would make money as I mentioned previously. I continue to think about this, but one idea I have is that the government/technology companies could pay my company to install their lights and essentially “advertise” the technology so more cities want it. Another point I took out of the feedback was how the customers would pay for it. While I am also still thinking about this, I believe that a slight tax increase would be required since something like city improvements usually come from tax dollars, but I think most people would be willing to pay it.

18A-Avatar

The type of customer that I see in my head for my product/service could literally be anyone. Although, certain pictures do come to mind. I imagine the mom who needs to drop off her 3 kids to school while also being late for work. After she drops the kids off, she sits at a red light for no reason freaking out that she will be late for her meeting.

Another type of customer I see is the man in his mid-twenties who just landed the big job but overslept on one of his first days. Now he is frantically driving to work trying to make it in time but the same red light at that one intersection always holds him up for at least 4 minutes. He thinks to himself, “couldn’t there be a solution to this problem? There are no cars coming from the other direction.”

Finally, the third, and by far the broadest, group of people I see as customers is anyone who is impatient, which is 95 percent of the world’s population. Imagine a long traffic jam, cars honking, and all you want to do is get to your destination and stretch your legs since you have been in the car for way too long.

I have to say that I fall into the last category of customer. I am very impatient when it comes to driving and like to get to where I need to go quickly. I absolutely despise traffic. I am from New York, so that might have something to do with it. But, more than anything, I dislike sitting at red lights when there are no cars coming in the other direction for hundreds of feet, and there’s a long line of cars waiting to go at the red light. Smart light technology should be implemented everywhere!

16A-Whats your secret sauce

The five characteristics that I have that I believe makes me different, or what makes me, me, are as follows:

1.     If I am doing something I don’t like, even if I have to do it, I usually complain about it and put forth minimal effort. Whereas if it is something I am interested in or passionate about, I put 110 percent effort in. There is no in between for me.

2.     My social skills with someone I have never met before and my ability to stay off my phone/electronics.

3.     My time managing skills. I can plan my day down to the minute if I need to, and usually I am very good with sticking to that schedule and accomplishing all that I need to get done.

4.     My self-confidence.  Whether it is something that I have don’t 100 times or something I have never tried before, I am usually quite confident that I will be able to achieve, or figure out how to achieve the task at hand and succeed to reach my goal.

5.     My eagerness to learn as much as I can about a subject I am interested in. If something interests me, I want to learn much more than what is on the surface. I want to absorb as much info as possible. I am never satisfied with just what is on the outside.

Comparison:

The majority of the people that I interviewed highlighted my work ethic and passion. I think those are the two factors that stand out to people when they get to know me. People know that I am also quite a time-focused person and that I am never just sitting around doing nothing. Overall, my friends pretty much said what I expected them to say.

https://soundcloud.com/user-65778670/interview-1

https://soundcloud.com/user-65778670/interview-2

https://soundcloud.com/user-65778670/interview-3

https://soundcloud.com/user-65778670/interview-4

https://soundcloud.com/user-65778670/interview-5

Elevator pitch 2-17A

Last elevator pitch, I was not looking at the camera directly enough, and not engaging enough. I also took too long to get to my main point. In this pitch, I tried to keep everything concise while relating to people who are watching and offering a solution to the problem. Overall, I think all of the feedback I got was good and can definitely keep improving on these in the future.

15A- Figuring out buyer behavior 2

Summarized Findings:

So, when I interviewed these three people, I presented them a simple alternative: Would you rather pay more in your taxes, or sit in traffic longer when driving in Gainesville. I was very surprised to learn that two of my three participants said that they would rather sit in traffic than pay more in taxes, as they were already burdened enough financially with their taxes. In this case, the price outweighed the benefit for these individuals. I then proceeded to ask them what exactly justifies a “good” purchase for them. All three had the same response, as long as it was something that worked as indented. Even though traffic lights aren’t something you can buy as a consumer, I was still curious to see what they thought. They stated that if the product worked as it is supposed to, but they had no need for it, then that was their fault and they still considered a good purchase. For all types of products, cost was the number one factor. One person I interviewed was actually an extreme couponer!

Conclusion:

From these interviews, I learned that some people just don’t want to pay the extra tax money for the city of Gainesville to install better traffic lights to help traffic flow. The main reason was cost, of course. This seemed to be the trend for all types of products. It would be interesting to interview a larger sample size of people to see what the overall consensus is. In addition, I wonder if the answers would change in a rich area vs a poor area. I think these are all factors that businesses and entrepreneurs need to think about when creating a business/product, as many factors can affect the success of an item. I thought it would be a no brainer for everyone to want to pay a little extra to save some time on the road, but I guess I was wrong. This taught me that as a potential entrepreneur, I need to consider all possible points of view.