Growing your social capital

1. Domain Expert: François Chollet

Chollet is the creator of Wysp, an art community that focuses on practice improvement. She is my domain expert since I also want to create an art website with strong community features, albeit with a different focus. I found Wysp via a blog post, and found Chollet's contact info on Wysp's FAQ page. Since Chollet appears to be a normal young person just like you and me, in my email I basically asked about things I was worried about concerning my own project- getting the word out, unexpected challenges, and how she created the website. Additionally, I noticed there are no ads on Wysp, and there doesn't seem to be a paid membership system, so I was curious about where Wysp created revenue. Having her in my network will add a nice sense of camaraderie as well as a possible mentor- small website moderators have to stick together!

2. Market Expert: Silvia Barnett

Silvia is a digital artist who's been in the artist roleplaying community for over five years, so she's representative of my market. Since I'm in the same community, we met through there and have been friends for a few years now. I chose to contact her through a freeware application, Discord, since that's where we usually chat to keep things casual.

In my message to Silvia, I asked her mostly about her views on how big my market is and what kind of features should be free versus premium on my website. Having her in my network will be helpful since she is deeply rooted within it and has a large reach of her own. She could help me spread the word about my website.

3. Important Supplier: Allison Zhao

Zhao is a freelance coder who works with clients in building websites and small video games. When your service is a website, coding and technical help are the most important supplies. I found Zhao through a tweet advertising her coding commission services. When I contacted her through Twitter, I basically described my website idea to her in hopes of getting suggestions and a quote. The more you know! Having this person in my network is vital for my website's creation due to her expertise.

Reflection

I can see that networking is super vital, as I've been told since I was a freshman at UF. They give you the info and boosts that classes and money can't buy, and I wouldn't doubt if they were the gap between some businesses succeeding and failing.

napone naptwo napred napblue

1) You. 

I am a 3rd year marketing student. Since I'm not too experienced in that field, most of my wisdom in life thus far has come from communicating with large groups of artists online. Despite these not being in person, I've actually gained a surprising amount of people and leadership skills from this.

As for aspirations, I would love to tie my business major into an art-related industry. Video games need marketers, too! I'd like to get some experience with a large firm before starting my own projects and ideas, such as this one!

2) What are you offering to customers? 

I am offering a new, modern, socially acceptable website for artists to gather on and use as a form of social media as well as a platform for their creative endeavors. All in one place that was meant for them. (Some social media websites such as Twitter and Tumblr can be difficult to post artwork on due to quality, size, and file restrictions.)

3) Who are you offering it to? 

Young, tech-savvy artists who carefully craft their online image as a way of personal branding.

4) Why do they care?

Again, personal branding. My only competitor is considered outdated, corrupt, and known for being home to niche, socially unacceptable artwork. A good chunk of my market use their art as a source of income and get work through the internet, so having pretty profile pages on shiny new websites matters to them.

5) What are your core competencies?

To reflect on last week's assignment, I'm really good at relating to people, as well as possessing leadership skills and innovative tendencies. Thus, being a part of my own market gives me maximum relatability. #likeliterally #canteven

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Basically, I think I can make something people want due to my own insight. Due to this product being for a niche audience, I believe that gives this product strength, as the whole 'one size fits all' marketing scheme went out of fashion a while ago. As for the pieces fitting together, I feel that I could still make my market stronger. It consists of both hobbyist artists as well as professionals, but I'm not sure which one there is more of. This could potentially matter, as hobbyists tend to be much more casual.

Feedback

One of the main pieces of feedback that I got stated that catering to the digital artist community is a smart idea. Honestly, since so few people do, I can't help but agree! It's part of the reason that drove me to do this business idea for this class. I mentioned the niche audience thing earlier.

In my first idea napkin, I stated that switching costs would be my greatest challenge. However, after interviewing several people and learning that many are already pretty fed up with my main competitor, DeviantArt, I think people would be more than willing to switch to a new website, especially if it's pretty and easy to use. To get there, I'm gonna need some more coding knowledge beyond HTML and Java, though.

Custom avatar

When I picture my prototypical customer, I immediately imagine a college student who spends their weekends drawing and being on the internet. They're probably more meme-savvy than most of their peers and extremely liberal. In their spare time, they like to watch anime, read webcomics and manga, and visit cute cafes (especially ones with boba tea!) Racially diverse as this is an international crowd, with especially strong presence among the Asian-American and Asian communities. Very artsy people who would probably pick Gravity Falls over Riverdale. They are probably well-versed with the [toxic] fan culture of Tumblr that they regrettably spent years of their early teens on, and have written or read fanfiction. Dungeons and Dragons are a familiar topic, though not all have tried it before.

Through this assignment, it's especially evident that I fit right into this demographic. Since I'm also an artist who can be kind of a shut-in compared to most people my age, there is no coincidence here.

and the krabby patty secret formula is

Five ways that make my human capital unique:

1. My sense of humor. It's always been a useful way to make friends, diffuse situations, and add entertainment value to my life.
2. Ability to relate. Empathy? I attempt to be open-minded and understand everyone's viewpoint in attempt to be humble. People behave a certain way for a reason, and usually it isn't because they're crazy.
3. Creativity. Even if some people find me weird because of my ideas, I choose to embrace them anyway and just go to town with my passions or ideas. Being a normie won't get you anywhere in entrepreneurship, where you're supposed to not be like everyone else.
4. Genuineness. I honestly don't have much of a filter and am pretty transparent, which makes it hard to feign excitement or affection for someone. I've learned to mend this by thinking more positive thoughts in general, but my passion for something always shines through because of this. I definitely try to come off as someone with no ulterior motives.
5.  Optimism. I've come to realize that focusing on the negatives hurts my productivity, so I try to focus on the best in people and my situation (while taking note of anything problematic so it doesn't harm me in the future) to keep a genuine persona.

I recorded these interviews using the voice memo app or another recording website, so I had to upload these as audio posts onto my ancient Tumblr account.

Erica Audio

I'm a good listener with an "otherworldly" sense of humor. When she comes to me to talk about something, she ends up laughing about her problems and always feels better. Erica also said I'm a strong, empathetic person who can pick herself up from rejection and throw herself at the next hurdle in life. Also, she thinks I have good time management (I'm so flattered my god

Chase Audio

I'm a good, empathetic leader that he thinks of as a role model (awww!!!!). I'm a quick learner, people-oriented, and pleasant to be around. I am articulate and good at relating to others, creating a positive atmosphere. This boy called me the life of the party!!

Dipa Audio

I find unique, innovative ways to connect with people online. I have artistic talent and am very good at finding opportunities and making them my own, putting my own twist on things. I am also very good at reading people and understanding them at a quick rate, and good at maintaining my emotions and mental health.

Mom Audio

I am a perfectionist with a passion for the arts. I'm a good listener and helpful friend. I enjoy doing difficult things for the sake of a challenge, and will not relent or give up.

Dad Audio

I love my family and am a good worker who will finish the job. I am also determined and passionate, but to a fault; if I'm not excited about something, my motivation and productivity are zilch.

Conclusion

I was so flattered by all of these interviews! I personally don't see myself as someone with a strong will or heavy determination since I'm not personally satisfied with my productivity, but it appears that others don't share that viewpoint at all. In my teens, I used to be very shy and quiet, so I'm happy to hear that people now think of me as more of a leader and someone who can thrive in center stage. I can't say all of these are completely correct, but I'm okay with that, since I know I can't stop hustling. Reflecting back on my first list, based off my interviews I'd maybe make things sound more strong-willed. Apparently.

the SECOND elevator pitch

I just can't catch a break with these video thumbnails.

Anyway! The thing I'm most concerned about regarding my pitches are making them comprehensible for everyone to be able to understand, so I updated some of my content to reflect my frustrations in a more humorous, relatable way. I updated my hook and closing to make them less clunky, and generally just tried to present this in a more natural manner. My feedback from my first elevator pitch was mostly positive, I was surprised that the pitch came through to people at all.

Reading reflection I

The book I chose to read was The Wright Brothers by David McCullough.

1) You read about an entrepreneur:

• What surprised you the most?

I didn't realize that Orville and Wilbur Wright were in their 40s when they had their breakthrough flight and lived at home until they were in their 30s! That's usually what we call manchildren.

• What about the entrepreneur did you most admire?

Their teamwork. As someone who had a project fail due to my partner falling through, I deeply admire the bond of the brothers.

• What about the entrepreneur did you least admire?

While firm believers in their own product, it led to some arrogance. After their success, one of their plane models was malfunctioning and resulted in the death of several soldiers, but the brothers blamed it on pilot incompetency. Tt took multiple deaths for them to admit it was a mistake on their part.

• Did the entrepreneur encounter adversity and failure? If so, what did they do about it?

Yes. After the success at Kitty Hawk, the brothers attempted to sell their idea to the US government, but they weren't interested. Thus, the Wright brothers took their idea to France, where it was much better received and the US finally took interest after that.

2) What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited? 

The two had already run a successful newspaper, print shop, and bike shop. They'd already demonstrated competency in entrepreneurship by the time they were making flying machines.

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

I wish the McCullough had included more in the reading about the brothers' childhood. They evidently had a strong bond with their father and their sister, and I would've liked to learn more about the roots. How a family was alright with letting their children live with them well into their 30s demands an explanation!!

4) If you were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur, what would you ask? Why?

Why did the deadly aspect of flight motivate you to to work on your own dangerous machines? Have you always been thrill seekers? Maybe I'm just lame, but you can't capitalize on your success if you're dead.
How did you stay motivated when even your own country wasn't interested in your success? Did you imagine there to be a market for flying machines? I imagine paying the bills was an important priority.

5) For fun: what do you think the entrepreneur's opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion?

Neither of them married and they were constantly stressed, so I imagine that their opinion of hard work was simply being a good, old-fashioned workaholic. While I strive to better my work ethic and I don't mind my projects infringing on relationships, I draw the line at risking my health. You only get one body!

Figuring out buyer behavior II

For my project, a website, the way I'd be making money is with premium memberships that charge a small monthly fee. The current largest website for artists, DeviantArt, also offers premium memberships, so I interviewed people who decided to purchase those.

Interview Summary

These purchases have all done online with a credit card, through DeviantArt's website. Of the different packages available, two of my interviewees went for a 3 month premium membership vs. the 1, 6, or 12 month options available (the third did one month). Their primary reasoning is that longer memberships were offered at a cheaper rate, like buying groceries in bulk. 

Besides buying their own domain for a website, there really aren't any other art-sharing websites that offer premium features, and none that are social.

The interviewee that bought the one month membership was only interested in the premium feature of changing their username, but did not buy again since they didn't think it was worth it. One interviewee was a professional artist, and valued the premium coding options to make their profile page more visually attractive and inviting. The last interviewee valued the additional organizing functions they could use for their group.

Conclusion

Once again, everything is about the aesthetics! While DeviantArt is extremely outdated, I think they use it in their favor. Taking advantage that they're the only major art website, they know people will pay in order to use modern coding, so why go ahead and update the website for everyone?