20A- Growing Your Social Capital

1) Domain Expert in my Industry: For my expert I found my roommates uncle named Johnny who used to design websites and apps for multiple business he started with his brother. One of them included one called Hub Industrial Supply that was started in Lake City, FL. He is my expert because he is knowledgable in the app and tech field and made them for some very successful companies. I met hm through my roommate, who gave me his contact and allowed me to show him my idea napkin. While he was very pleased with the idea/ concept and could be very successful, he did explain how it could also be pretty complex to make and may cost a bit to full develop. He would enhance my ability to exploit an opportunity by advising me with the necessary tools to develop and make the app, as well as improve its functions and make it as easy and efficient as possible for the users.

2) Expert on my Market: The expert of my market was a high school friend of my other roommate named Rishi Ral who is a coder and web designer who actually developed a website for UF that would help students optimize their class scheduling. He never ended up officially launching the website yet as he is still trying to improve it but it was targeted at freshman and sophomore students and would perform services such as sending them texts if seats for classes they needed opened up. He is my market expert because he is going after the 17-23 year old demographic area and more specifically freshman and sophomore college students. My roommate gave me his contact and after I showed him my idea napkin, he said he really liked the approach that I had to the market and that even though there is a lot in one platform, it covers all the bases so if it is done properly, it can be potentially be very effective in satisfying those needs. Having him would enhance my ability to exploit an opportunity by helping me better target and reach my market and give me more feedback on their needs since he is hitting it from a different but also effective angle. He could also help me develop a website or strategies to reach out to my market more. 

3) Important Supplier to my Industry: As far as a supplier in my industry, I could not exactly think of a supplier for an app other than maybe the companies who supply the tech and software to create and develop these apps. I spoke to one of my father's old friends who used to be involved in supplying computer chips and software to certain small startup tech companies. He didn't have much to say about the idea besides it was pretty creative but only because he is more involved with supplying for the industry and not marketing or running it. He would still be beneficial, however, because he could help obtain certain software and tech to develop the proper app and could also help find the right costs and save money but still get good quality.

Reflect: As far as future networking events, this experience has taught me that not only does knowing people and having connections help you have more opportunities, it also gives you the chance to bounce off ideas with someone who is in the same area as you which can help improve your own company. Having no connections while trying to start a successful business is very difficult because you have no solid starting point and in today's world, it can be very hard to find good chances and opportunities for your company to blossom from unless you know some people. Usually whenever I have had networking experiences in the past, I was not very serious yet into the idea of starting a business and never really thought of the benefits I could have short term and mostly long term. Now that I am actually putting more seriousness and effort into this idea, getting feedback and advice from other people also in the field was very informative and beneficial.