Mitchell's Entrepreneurship blog

1. You: I am a student of both business and economics who has spent the last year and a half fascinated by blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. With two years of experience working as a digital marketing intern, I have learned a tremendous amount about what it takes to maintain a content schedule, develop creative solutions, and produce long-lasting relationships with clients. 2. What are you offering to customers: An organized way to break past the knowledge barrier to understanding how to invest in various cryptocurrencies as well as industry news updates aggregated from the most credible sources available. This information hub will be made available through a low monthly subscription fee that will provide constant online-access. 3. Who are you offering it to: University of Florida student who are interested in computer science and economics, but unsure of how to get started in this field and are not dismayed by the volatility of the cryptocurrency market. 4. Why do they ca...

Customer segment: University of Florida Students Prototypical customer: 20 year old student studying economics but with serious interest in computer science. The customer that I am choosing to imagine is focused on both the technical and conceptual aspects of society. He is fascinated by innovation and baffled by inefficiency. When looking at government, he questions the need for centralized authority and is interested in the idea of dividing up power into a free, decentralized system. He chose to study economics because he loves to see the big picture when it comes to analyzing complex situations for a suitable solution. However, he has always had an admiration for computer science. Yes, he plays videogames, but more importantly he is interested in finetuning the specifications to make the program run as smoothly as possible and one of his favorite challenges as a teenager was learning how to build his own gaming pc. In his spare time, he ha...

Feedback: I was very happy to see in the comments that my speech was being well-received and that I appeared as a confident professional. There were really only a few small changes that clearly needed to be made. In the first speech, I spent a lot of time explaining cryptocurrency and not enough time explaining my business. In revision, I have condensed the introductory information and expanded a little bit on my personal business model. I think that this will be a more effective elevator pitch for potential customers.

In my opinion, human capital is an invaluable asset. A person can be trained to do anything if they are open-minded and willing to learn, so it is important to maintain a well-rounded set of skills. I think that my greatest strongsuits come from my personality and work ethic. In terms of personality, I always feel that I can adapt to new situations quickly and I like to utilize creative thinking to imagine what solutions others might be ignoring. In terms of work ethic, I can be very stubborn when facing a challenge and will refuse to give up as long as it is within my power to complete. I also feel that maintaining strong time management skills are important for keeping me on track with my responsibilities. Due to an issue with the video embedding system, I am providing the URL for the video #4 below: https://youtu.be/4ekajxmVGMo One of my oldest friends was keen to point out that I highly value punctuality. I feel unhappy with myself if I make anyone else wait,...

Continuing with my target segment of University of Florida students aged 18-22, I conducted interviews aiming to determine which features would lead a customer to choose my service over a similar substitute. As I analyze specific aspects of the purchase below, I will include the findings from the interviews for comparison. To analyze this, I created an alternative pricing model to compare how the students felt about the a lump sum purchase rather than a continuous, monthly subscription. I offered a hypothetical option of the normal model of $10 a month for the information subscription and the new model of a $40 one-time purchase. After speaking with the students, I found that they were very open to a one-time purchase, but felt that $40 was too high. Back to the drawing board, I wanted to come up with a better alternative option that required less capital to enter without selling my service short. In a second round of interviews, I asked for opinions about paying a one-time fee for sp...

1. Some of the most important skills that I've sharpened so far are time-management and creative-thinking. It is important to stay on top of your course work and to never wait until the last minute to complete something. Many of these assignments will force you to look at a business as an extension of yourself, so to make myself stand out I have chosen a very unique venture that challenges my mind. 2. Tenacity is your saving grace for this class. With so many assignments to complete each week, and multiple parts to each assignment, it can sometimes feel overwhelming to keep up while maintaining outside responsibilities. After the first few assignments, I hit a point where I truly felt like giving up. Despite completing 3 of the assignments, I received a zero for each of them because of a Canvas error that did not record me declaring completion. Due to some wise words from the instructor, I realized that despite losing the points, I still benefited from the knowledge of that sect...

What surprised me most about Elon Musk was his unique, and sometimes seriously off-putting personality. His sometimes-blatant disregard for the emotions of others is without a doubt the characteristic that I admire least about him. His relationships both romantic and familial are strikingly strange, yet despite this unpleasant characteristic, I still admire him for his astonishing achievements. Elon Musk is unquestionably an innovator. Through Tesla, Musk has not only created a suitable alternative to gas-guzzling cars but has made it the far sexier choice. Musk exhibits extraordinary creativity as well as incomparable ambition to create goals that your most determined inventors would likely call over-reaching. The part of this reading that confused me most was Elon Musk’s baffoon-like paranoia. Some of his fears were so outlandish that I simply couldn’t believe that the creator of Space X and Tesla could be saying these things. If I knew nothing about his accomplishments, I woul...

The segment that I have chosen to target is University of Florida students aged 18-22. People of this age are much more interested in this newly developed market and are more willing to invest in a riskier asset than older generations. On top of that, University of Florida is a hub for open-minded and intelligent individuals who are researching into new technologies. Choosing 3 students at random, I began the stage of need awareness by questioning if these students had any prior experience with investing. Next, I inquired about whether or not these students have any background knowledge about cryptocurrency or blockchain technology. After identifying that, for the most part, these students had minimal investment experience and great interest in crypotcurrency, I sought to find why they have not yet entered the space. The first student was interested enough to reach out to a very experienced and knowledgeable friend. Unfortunately, after an hour-long discussion, the student felt c...

1. You: I am a student of both business and economics who has spent the last year and a half fascinated by blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. With two years of experience working as a digital marketing intern, I have learned a tremendous amount about what it takes to maintain a content schedule, develop creative solutions, and produce long-lasting relationships with clients. 2. What are you offering to customers: An organized way to break past the knowledge barrier to understanding how to invest in various cryptocurrencies as well as industry news updates aggregated from the most credible sources available. 3. Who are you offering it to: People who have the capital to invest, but are unsure of how to get started and are not dismayed by the volatility of the cryptocurrency market. 4. Why do they care: Starting with complex jargon and ending with highly complex mathematical & computer science comprenhension, understanding blockchain technology is a maze of information that ...

Interview #1: For this second round of interviews, I spoke to random students from a variety of different subjects so that I could build a diversified set of opinions from my target age group. I chose to begin with an Economics student, as they are likely to be individuals who are interested in currency markets. Despite explaining the potential for growth and several use cases, this student dismissed everything that I said due to the extreme volatility of the market. Interview #2: Next, I wanted to get the opinion of someone who likely knew nothing about the subject. I reached out to a student studying Greek History. After a long talk explaining the technology, the student had a decent grasp on understanding blockchain, but was confused by the subscription service. He claimed that he would have no interest in paying for a service unless it guaranteed positive returns. Interview #3: For my third interview, I reached out to a computer programming student. This offered me a uniq...

The problem that I have identified over the past few posts is the widespread lack of understanding of the rapidly growing field of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. I became interested in the field almost exactly one year ago, and it took me months of reading, listening to podcasts, and watching explanatory videos to wrap my head around the concept. Once I gained a grasp of the technology's foundation, I began investing & trading. This actual experience has been by far the greatest method of learning for me and I am sure to learn more as I continue. Unfortunately, not everyone in the world is going to be committed enough to spend all this time searching through sources to find the information. Here lies the business opportunity. Due to the vast amount of information that one must find to get started, I absoluetly believe that there is a market for a direct & organized hub of research that consumers sign up for by paying a subscription fee. Since this is such a new ...