20A – Growing Your Social Capital

1. Mr. Santino Mills

2. Domain Expert – Mr. Mills has a lot of experience in the stock trading industry as he has been trading for over 15 years now.

3. I found Mr. Mills by talking to a family friend and asking if they knew anyone who had experience in stock trading. The family friend suggested that I talk to Mr. Mills as he is a close friend of his and has been convincing my family friend to get into stock trading as well. I then proceeded to note the phone number of Mr. Mills and talked to him about my stock app idea.

4. Mr. Mills gave me a lot of feedback about the app and told me some interesting features that I should add such as training videos to show users how trading works and how to navigate the app. He really liked the idea of a stock simulation game and suggested that it is a great starting point for young investors.

5. I plan to talk to Mr. Mills more to ensure that I am coming up with valid features that will help the userbase and use his suggestions as he is an expert in this area.

 

1. Mr. Randall Espinosa

2. Market Expert – Mr. Espinosa conducts business in my local area and he is quite aware of the demographics and their needs.

3. Mr. Espinosa is one of my neighbors. I had met him while I was going for a run a couple of months ago. We had a casual conversation and he brought up the fact that he was a local businessman and has been conducting business in the area since the 1980s. I decided to give him a call and see if this idea had the right audience.

4. This was a great interaction as Mr. Espinosa gave a lot of helpful information. He mentioned that I should always narrow my audience the best as I can to ensure that the product I am creating is actually desirable to the audience. He liked that I chose young adults as my primary customer because they are more inclined to use an online platform rather than someone who is older.

5. I plan to discuss scaling and audience feedback plans with Mr. Espinosa as he might guide me in the right path to ensure the app is beneficial.

 

1. Mrs. Mira Joyner

2. Industry Supplier – Mrs. Joyner has her own tech business and knows how to manage and make use of online platforms for having a successful business.

3. I met Mrs. Joyner a long time ago back when I used to live in Wisconsin. She was very nice and knew my family very well. She used to talk to us about the latest products and how her business would help large corporations sell in local communities. I contacted her and we talked about my stock app.

4. The meeting went really well and Mrs. Joyner was thrilled to her that I was trying to come up with this innovative idea. Her biggest suggestion was to focus on the revenue model and make sure I set the right prices for my service and have a lot of options for payments to ensure I fulfill all the customers’ needs. She said that in her experience, she’s seen too many products fail because they priced it too high, but would have otherwise flourished if the price was right.

5. I want to continue talking to Mrs. Joyner after I have finished the major features of the app and when I am at the stage of releasing it to the public. I want to consult with her to ensure that I am able to make a good revenue while still retaining all my customers.

Reflect: Overall, I enjoyed talking to all these professionals as I got a lot of feedback about my app and steps I can take to ensure that I am successful in my venture. This also allowed me to come up with more critical questions to ask as these people are specialized in certain areas. This was a different experience from the past and I had previously only interviewed potential customers and did not receive feedback on how to grow my project.