Week 2 Reflection

Hello everyone,

Week 2 is in the books. Instead of having our standard two classes for our marketing class this week, we had three classes due to our groundbreaking Honors program collaboration with the Freshman engineers. I quickly came to the realization that business students are not like engineers. An immediate observation was that our interpretation of ideas and the implementation of those ideas are completely different. This was apparent from a design versus marketing aspect. Us business student thought about the people using the product, whereas the engineers thought about how it would be made efficiently. This collaboration involved identifying potential pain points for consumers across all areas of everyday life. I personally am fond of my group, called "Prorsum" which has entertained the concept idea of building a stapler which displays how many staples remain in the cartridge. We will see if our group chooses this as our final idea or not, but I am hoping for it!

This class particularly sparked the inner entrepreneur in me. I have decided to identify my own pain points as well. I am an avid Shark Tank viewer myself, and I have always entertained the idea of creating my own product. I love shoes and cleats, and I have identified getting the soles of footwear scuffed or dirty as a potential pain point. Therefore, recently I have started brainstorming potential footwear sole covers that are adhesive, yet durable, as a potential solution. Obviously the product is still in its fledgling stage, but I am actively entertaining my possibilities. To be continued...

On Thursday, we watched a clip from Shark Tank about a social media site called "Cheek'd." The entrepreneur was a former designer for Christian Dior and decided to quit in order to pursue her dream of a new take on dating. Instead of business cards or an online dating profile, her special business cards contained only a unique pick-up line and a special code for her subscription-based website. Her pitch did not win over any sharks due to a complete lack of revenue... Although, her passion for her brand was quite apparent. Connecting this clip to class, "Cheek'd" was non-demographic specific which was problematic. It could have reached a wider audience. Yet, its pitfall was that it was a subscription based service, and people do not want to pay $9.95 a month for a glorified Tinder profile. There was no specific market for her brand; everything seems to come back to "creating a customer!" The service also lacked being in a specific market. Social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook are free. Some online dating sites are subscription-based, yet they offer specific, detailed matches based on a plethora of capabilities. Her brand was trying to fit somewhere in-between, and it unfortunately failed. People use social media as a form of anonymity, a different persona, and a way of tastefully bragging. All in all if she had scanned her environment to see that other services have dominated in that sector, she could have adapted her site to be free or completely app-based.

Best,
Christopher