Interviewing Customers No. 2

The Idea: Importing a variety of French wine to Florida. 

1) Fine tune your opportunity. You began with an idea of what an opportunity might be. After your first round of interviews, what do you think, now? 

After my last interviewees I have realized that my Targer Group needs to be older students. I found that the Juniors/Seniors I interviewed were more likely to drink wine. 

2) Fine tune the "who." Did you talk to the right customers last time? What did you do differently this time? How did you adjust your conceptualization of who your customers are?

This go around I am interviewing customers at a Super Bowl Party. This will give me a good mix of different age groups. My prior interviews were soley students in their 20's. 

3) Tweaking your interview questions. You might need to ask different kinds of questions to get at a fuller, richer idea of what your opportunity is. What kind of changes did you make?

I have added the question, "How old are you" to get a better idea of generational trends. 

5) Tell us what you learned about the opportunity. You now have 10 interviews under your belt. What do you think about your opportunity now that's different from where you started?  

I hope to get a fuller picture of everyones specific wine tastes and not just students. 

6) Tell us what you learned about interviewing customers. You're practically an expert on interviewing customers. Please write three tips that you'd like to offer students in this class next semester about interviewing customers.

I think the key is to catch people outside of events. This is how I did week one interviews. After the Super Bowl party is over I will edit the videos and add them to the post. Cheers!

Week 5 Reading Reflection

1)    What was the biggest surprise for you in the reading? In other words, what did you read that stood out the most as different from your expectations? 

I was surprised in the reading that they use such a large dollar amount for your average start up. They used 100,000 dollars as a normal startup cost and talked about how it could be much more. I felt that the average entrepreneur spends about 10,000 for their initial startup.

2)    Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.

I did not understand where they got their info for Internal and External Problems experienced by entrepreneurs. I would think that those very depending on the venture.

3)    If you were able to ask two questions to the author, what would you ask? Why?

How often does the start-up phase reach the post-startup phase? How often do ideas not pan out in the long-term.

4)    Was there anything you think the author was wrong about? Where do you disagree with what she or he said? How?

The author insists that the Target Market has to be large. It really depends on what kind of product you are selling. Many Luxury products have small target groups but are still cost effective. 

Elevator Pitch Number 1

Cloudvon Imports is born!

I have found that there is a growing need for new wine! As our economy is rebounding more students are consuming wine instead of cheap beer. Currently the market is saturated with California wines and it is hard to find European wines in the area. After visiting wineries in France I came to the realization that French wines can be sold at competitive prices here in America. Hope you like my pitch!