20A – Growing Your Social Capital

1) One person must be a domain expert in your industry. 

Christopher Juajor, 4th year Computer Science major

"This app is definitely possible, the only hardest thing personally would be finding the right experienced undergraduates but I'm sure you'll be able to find them! You have a handful of computer science majors just waiting to use their coding skills to do projects like these, I'll help!"

2) One person must be an expert on your market.

Justin Kellen, 3rd year Software Engineering major

"I've worked for LinkedIn last summer and they have nowhere in mind to have such a service like this. I think this is really cool. LinkedIn works in networking with employers but for students who ALREADY know what they want to do. What about those who don't know? Really leaves them out of the loop."

3) One person must be an important supplier to your industry. 

Helena Rodriguez, Willow Tree representative

"I think your idea is very splendid and a wonderful opportunity for students who are in need of this. It is possible to develop this on a mobile device. We focus heavily on design and the appeal to the customer's eyes to make it more engaging. Please let us know if you're interested to continue talking about prices." 

What constitutes 'contact'? 

Social capital exists in the "potential goodwill" that exists between two people. For you to establish "potential goodwill" for this exercise, you need to have obtained feedback from each of these people on your business idea so far. For instance, this could include meeting with them to show your elevator pitch or your idea napkin. 

One last catch: The three people you add to your social capital cannot have participated in any other exercise you have completed as part of this course. 

How to write up this post. Break up your post into three parts, one for each person. For each person, describe:

1) Domain Expert, Christopher Juajor is a 4th year Computer Science major at UF. I reached out to Christopher as he has interned with incredible companies such as Adobe and Twitter where he know how mobile development and software possibility. 

2) Domain Expert, Christopher Juajor is a 4th year Computer Science major at UF. I reached out to Christopher as he has interned with incredible companies such as Adobe and Twitter where he know how mobile development and software possibility. 

Market Expert, Justin Kellen is a 3rd year Computer Science major who actually interned with LinkedIn and Intel with a minor in Marketing. His work heavily focuses on marketing the right information to the right ear at the right time. 

Supplier, Helena Rodriguez is a representative at Willow Tree, a mobile app development agency where their focus is heavily on delivering the app's content through appearance. Based on their amazing feedback, I believe this is a start in knowing whethere this opportunity is a possibility. 

3) I found both computer science students from a common freshman friend who is tutored often by then in his C++ and Java course. I contacted Helena through the Willow Tree customer service. 

4) With each of the experts, I learned that this app is a possibility with the right tools offered. The main challenge is finding the right "networking" mentors in the respective majors offered in the app. 

5) Including Helena from Willow Tree can incorporate an exploit from the company stealing my idea and being able to develop and sell this app for all universities across the country.  

Finally: Reflect.

I think this experience showed me that I can't just pull an app out of no where. It requires heavily brainstorming and idea development from worst case scenerios to successful scenerios. This experience was a lot more informational compared to the other networking experiences, however I like my previous ones due to them being real life experiences compared to "possibility" scenerios like the ones my experts focused on.