20A – Growing Your Social Capital

It's Who You Know, Not What You Know

BeyondKash

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

1) A domain expert within my industry that I found is a man named Arthur young, who is a risk management expert and professional in publicly traded securities. 

2) The slot that I am filling with Arthur is that he is a domain expert who has years of experience as a securities lawyer and has been a risk manager for a multitude of years. 

3) Arthur Young happens to be a family friend and mentor of mine who helped explain and walk me through the process of creating a company and eventually being able to make it publicly traded. 

4) I spoke with Arthur in a thread of emails and he provided me help with structuring my company to accept outside investors and in return, he expects me to be establish him as a lead underwriter should the company end up going public.

5) Including Arthur into BeyondKash can help enhance my ability to exploit my opportunity in that he can help me navigate the regulatory requirements for becoming a publicly traded company. 

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

1) Robert Freed is an expert on my market and targets the same audience with similar products and services as he is the Senior Vice President and financial advisor of Wells Fargo.  

2) Robert covers the slot of being a market expert as he has 30+ years of experience analyzing companies to determine if they are worthy investments and is skilled at determining if it's viable as a going concern.

3) I was able to find Robert Freed as he is my families financial advisor and reached out in order to set up a time to speak over the phone. 

4) On our time over the phone, Robert explained to me how I can use his company for any number of financial services such as investment management, credit, insurance and any other advisory services. His return expectation was for me to use his company to help create order and set up BeyondKash and it's employees with services such as employee benefit plans and retirement savings programs.

5) Robert will help enhance my ability to exploit an opportunity as he will help analyze whether or not investments are viable and sound to my company, BeyondKash. Since Robert works for a large diversified financial institution, he can introduce me to people who work and have expertise in money exchange platforms. 

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

1) After tons of researching, I found a person who's part of my industry that's an expert in analyzing companies, their cash flow, as well as financial viability. Tracey Silverman works for Bank of America and is in charge of determining if a company can borrow money or credit in order to help fund their company. 

2) Tracey fills the spot of being part of an important supplier to my industry as she provides the capital to my company so that I can provide my service and offer it to my customers through their mobile devices app store.

3) I found this person because she is a family friend who actually set up my parents to meet for the first time. I reached out to her by calling to discuss more about my business idea and listening to the advice and critique she provided me. 

4) Within my exchange with Tracey, she helped me structure my business model for me to increase my profits and ultimately make money. She also offered funding for my company in order for me to advertise and promote my business onto application stores on big mobile devices companies such as iPhone and Android. The return expectation is that my company will use hers, Bank Of America, to fund the initial start-up of BeyondKash.

5) Tracey will enhance my ability to exploit an opportunity as she can provide my company with the financial resources needed to exploit an opportunity and introduce me to people within the financial services industry. 

Finally: Reflect. 

This experience helps shape how I participate in future networking events by showing me that not all fields have easily accessible experts, especially pertaining to the creation of an application. It also helped me form my communication and grow my confidence in learning how to interact and ask for things when talking to such large companies and people. This experience has definitely differed from my networking experiences in the past as I had to research deeply in order to find out which companies are within the same market, have a similar supplier or employ experts within a similar field that could help answer some of the questions I had. It was also extremely challenging to get prompt responses from such busy individuals as they have companies and clients they need to attend to everyday. 

19A – Idea Napkin No. 2

Second Shot at Idea Napkin No. 2

1) You. Who you are. What your talents are. What your skills and experiences are. Also: what are your aspirations? Specifically regarding your business concept, how do you see this business (if you were to start it) playing a role in your life?

Hello, my name is Cade Tolchinsky and I am currently a freshman student studying towards my business marketing degree at the University of Florida. Some of my strongest talents include being able to influence others, utilizing my time efficiently and the willingness to meet and learn from new people. Due to my previous work experience within a law firm, some skills that I've acquired are how to properly create a website using HTML and CSS code, how to create a digital advertisement or logo, and how to properly communicate with others at a professional level. I also have contributed to designing, creating and advertising websites for products and services that are still available today. My aspirations for my business concept are to throughly research my design so that I'm comfortable investing my personal money into something that I believe has potential to be successful. If I were to start this business, I would dedicate my time, money and effort to learn what it takes to start my own business. Although the business might fail, I would, at least, be walking away with new knowledge and other business skills that would help guide me to successfully starting a business. 

2) What are you offering to customers? Describe the product or service (in other words, how you'll solve customers' unmet needs). 

My company is offering to customers the ability to access their own universal mobile payment application that allows for spending, budgeting and saving all at the accessibility of your fingertips. BeyondKash allows users to send, receive and withdraw money for no fee, add unlimited money to a personal credit card associated with the app, and avoid waiting multiple business days to have access to your money. The best part? Completely customize and manage your mobile spending and saving with the all-in-one hub feature that allows for notifications, easy contact access, payments by Face ID recognition, video notes as payment messages, and many other features. 

3) Who are you offering it to? Describe, in as much detail as possible, the demographic and psychographic characteristics of your customers. Think especially of this question: what do your customers all have in common?

BeyondKash's target consumers are those who are interested in downloading a universal mobile payment app that removes transaction and withdraw fees when you receive a money transfer. Our goal is to establish an application that charges a one time fee on the app store and eliminates any other fees applicable when sending money to contacts or companies. All of our customers interested are looking for an easy to navigate, all-in-one money saving and management app to help make purchasing goods and services much easier on the go. The app also targets customers in search of the ability to transfer money instantly to their contacts and also allows them to instantly transfer their app balance to a connected bank account. 

4) Why do they care? Your solution is only valuable insofar as customers believe its valuable to them. Here, explain why customers will actually pay you money to use your product or service. 

Our customers care because of how current competitor apps operate their mobile payment and banking applications. There are many apps available that perform similar actions to BeyondKash, but none offer the ability to pay a one time fee that eliminates all charges and additional fees from their money transfers and account withdraws. BeyondKash also offers customers the ability to transfer money from their account balance directly to and from their bank accounts, while not having to pay an extra fee or wait any time at all. 

5) What are your core competencies? What sets you apart from everyone else? Also: what do you have that nobody else has? 

Our company is diverse from competing companies as we're the only service to offer a one time fee instead of deducting a percentage off money withdraws or transfers on the app. To continue, our service offers customers the ability to transfer money instantly, confirm payments with facial recognition, send large and unlimited amounts of money, and also allows companies to set up a reoccurring payment plan with their customers. We also offer a separate account service which offers users the ability to set up a free "bank account" in order to invest and save money directly within the app.

In addition to these five elements, please spend a paragraph evaluating whether you believe these elements fit together or whether there are aspects of your business concept that are weaker / out-of-joint with the others.

I believe that each of these business elements fit together to ultimately compete with opposing applications and successfully control the mobile payment industry. Although having a few aspects that can be improved, BeyondKash's main business concept to add a one time fee versus deducting a percentage of withdraws will help advertise to current mobile payment users a more affordable and convenient way to send and receive money to contacts and businesses. Adding components such as a separate savings account, a free credit card and customizable ways to pay helps attract customers to switch from their current platforms to utilize the benefits from BeyondKash.com. There are no elements out-of-joint with the others as I designed the concept to utilize tools that work in conjunction with one another.

For the "feedback memo" -- please summarize at least two main points that you took away from the feedback you received. Also, please describe how you incorporated the feedback into this idea napkin. 

My feedback was extremely positive from my peers and I only made very minimal modifications because so. It was good to be reassured that the work I am putting in to this service is being acknowledged by my peers, but I would like any weak points to be pointed out this time so that I have a chance to review and strengthen each area. I took into account the each of the comments my peers left and felt that my content was strong suited and explained well with who I am, and what my proposed company's goals are. 

17A – Elevator Pitch No. 2

1) Here is the link to my second elevator pitch for BeyondKash: https://youtu.be/pfye101Eo_I

2) While reviewing the comments from my first elevator pitch for BeyondKash, both students only critiqued my pitch in a positive way. I received good feedback about my rhetorical techniques, which I used to draw in the listener and relating a familiar issue to them. Another area where I received positive feedback was how I came across with my communication and how I was very enthusiastic when trying to convince the viewer. Although reassuring, I had very little insight into what areas of my pitch or script could be improved, even if minimal.

3) Based on my feedback, I tried to improve any video quality, pronunciations, eye contact or hand gestures to intrigue the viewer to clearly listen to what I'm saying and also to get them to invest. Also, I updated a few areas of my script to include a more aspects in why my company differs from the current competitors applications available right now, and why to invest in me.

18A – Create a Customer Avatar

18A – Create a Customer Avatar

My 'customer avatar':

There are many customers in different professions who I believe would be interested in investing in BeyondKash, but my prototypical customer would have to be a business owner who manages the investments, profits and other monetary aspects within the company. My app strives to make transferring money within each company more efficient and custom to the user. This means that the customer is in charge of paying and receiving money to or from distributors, supplies, customers and employees. Besides business, my customer enjoys spending their money wisely, spending time with their family and children and ultimately being able to enjoy any life event without having to worry or question if they're financially well or can afford these things. Most people utilizing the app for transferring large amounts of money would be experienced and older and, most likely, have a beautiful and loving wife/husband who they've had a family with and more than one kid. The prototypical customer is someone who is slightly flashy with their purchases, so I would say they drive a sports car most of the time while also having a larger car to drive their family around with. The suburban car would be black and not as flashy as the sports car, which would be matte black with red interior and red calipers. This customer would also be someone who loves to indulge on a business insider article or read books on how to expand their specific expertise and grow their company to be more successful. Being a big business owner, my prototypical customer would most likely be in favor or having President Trump re-elected and would support most of his political views. While the customer most likely will own their own business, they will feel very successful with where there at, but also be driven and motivated to continue to expand their company and ultimately bring in more profit, while spending the most time they can with their family and children. 

I would say that I have a lot in common with the customer avatar I made because my prototypical customer is shaped after someone that I look up to and would want to be. I believe that everything in common between me and my avatar was not a coincidence and that some goals that I want to achieve, most big and successful business owners have or are on their way to doing so. These aspects that my avatar and I have in common are shared by almost any aspiring entrepreneur who wants to be their own boss of their own successful company and have a loving family to come home to everyday. I would say that although my avatar and I have lots of similarities, ultimately for me, money is not the greatest aspect in deciding what professional path I want to go down. This is unlike the striving business owners and my prototypical customer mentioned, who would most likely be the people who want to invest in BeyondKash. 

16A –What’s Your Secret Sauce?

1) Describe five ways in which you think you have human capital that is truly unique. What is it about you, exactly, that makes you different? Write this up in a detailed list. 

I believe that I have many unique traits that make me who I am, but I had to choose five ways that I believe I have human capital that is unique I would say:

I am very determined, motivated and will continue to fight knowing I'm wrong, losing, or have the urge to give up. In any argument, game or task, I will not let up until it's over or we reach a consensus. 

I have a unique style in communicating my points to others and how I come off to people in a conversation in order to make them want to help me. 

My self-confidence is very high and no matter how negative people are, I always respond in a positive manner trying to help others.

I'm always interested in learning more, asking questions to better understand something or simply researching a topic that I think is interesting and want to know more about. 

I know how to time manage very well and can separate having fun and being serious.  I always enjoy hanging out with my friends but also know when its time to focus on school work or business. 

2) Interview the five people who know you the best. Ask them what they think makes you different -- remember, focus on your knowledge, skills, abilities, emotions -- in other words, your human capital. Try to stay away from discussing your other types of capital (such as who you know). Record each interview. In your post, please post each interview, as well as a two-three sentence summary of each interview, explaining what your key takeaways are. There is no time limit on these recordings. As long as you cover the information asked for above, that's all you need to do. (Audio recordings are fine. You'll need to use a platform like Soundcloud to host your files.)

Interview 1 with my Mom: https://soundcloud.com/user-463969155/mom-interview-1/s-E1jJT

The first interview I conducted was with my Mom who talked about my empathy and emotions when I pay attention to how other people are feeling. She goes on to say that I'm a good listener and have a common sense skill set, which helps me connect with others around me. Lastly, she discusses how I'm very determined and unwilling to give up and quit.

Interview 2 with my Dad: https://soundcloud.com/user-463969155/dad-recording/s-ejriE

The second interview was with my father who exclaimed most of my traits when it comes to seeing a situation and knowing whats going on beneath the surface. Furthermore, he discusses how I'm willing to take chances and be a leader and take charge in something that I believe in. 

Interview 3 with my friend Gabe: https://soundcloud.com/user-463969155/gabe-r-recording/s-vx6ho

The next interview was conducted with one of my closest friends who discusses my confidence and how I'm not scared of what other people think of me. He goes on to say  how I am determined and vigilant when it comes to completing my work on time. Lastly, he explains how I am good negotiator and if I want something, I wont be willing to let the deal walk away. 

Interview 4 with family friend Sofia: https://soundcloud.com/user-463969155/sofia-rey/s-hUtR0

My fourth interview was with my close friend and neighbor who explains that I'm very outgoing and willing to help others without expecting anything in return. She also explains how I am confident with the work that I do and if I'm lacking confidence, that I will always find a way to persevere. Last, Sofia explains how I'm a good team leader and that I am always looking out for others to make sure their performing to the best of their abilities. 

Interview 5 with my friend Nadia: https://soundcloud.com/user-463969155/nadia/s-eHDkB

The last interview was with my close friend Nadia who went on to say how I'm a very genuine person and that I try not to lie to others, especially friends. She continues to say how I'm funny and a positive person, who has a great outlook on life and is strong minded. Furthermore, she explains how I'm good at communicating and overall a good friend. 

3) Reflect on the differences. How do you see yourself, and how do others see you? Are there differences in how you assess yourself compared to others? What do you think causes these differences? Do you think your interviewees are correct about you? Finally, going back to your list from part 1, would you make any corrections to the list? How? 

After conducting interviews with some of my closet friends and family, I would say that me and the people I interviewed agree on a lot of character traits that make me different. One aspect in particular that a majority of the interviewers discussed was how I am a genuine person and am always looking out for the well-being of others. A few characteristics that we agreed on were that I am very confident in any situation and even when I'm not, I find a way to be confident as a person or in the work I'm doing. Also, my friends and family discussed my motivation and determination to finish something when it comes to completing any work or task that I start. Some differences that were not mentioned were my time management and my interest in learning more about a particular subject. The reason why the interviewees did not mention these traits are because they're personal and not many people know about how I manage my time and what I do with my free time. I agree with a majority of the compliments that the interviewees discussed but there is definitely room for improvement for how I am as a person. If I were to go back to my original list, I wouldn't change anything because those traits I wrote I feel describe me the best and even though the people I interviewed didn't discuss all of them, each one still holds value to me.

15A – Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 2

15A – Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 2

Segment- Business owners

Construction Company- Max

The first person I conducted an interview with in order to determine buyer behavior for my service, BeyondKash, was a construction company owner named Max. I questioned Max about what types of payment methods he accepts for his work, and if any of the ones he used had any flaring problems. He explained to me that a majority of his work is calculated extremely accurately to incorporate wages, materials and labor. Furthermore, he explained that PayPal and other middle-man payment apps take a percentage of the transfer, as well as charge a fee to withdrawal the money. I asked Max if price was the most important part of deciding between a money transferring app and he exclaimed that the amount and percentage of fees is the main component he looks at when deciding which money transferring app to use. He also explained that he looks specifically for apps that offer the most inexpensive way to instantly transfer his money to his accounts. This is important for his business so that he can pay his workers their wages, as well as pay for the materials and machinery to conduct such projects. To continue, I asked Max how the majority of his customers pay for the work. He claims that a majority of the work he does is for large businesses that finance the project until its completely finished. Ultimately, Max explains how this hurts his business as he continually has to pay transfer and withdrawal fees for every money statement sent to him online. Max exclaimed to me that he and his lawyer are the one's who make the final purchasing decisions. To go on, Max's main interest in searching for a middle-man money transferring app is that he wants to know that if he's paying to use the app, he's finding the best way to send and receive money, and also the most inexpensive way to withdrawal and transfer money to his accounts. He claims that investing into one of these applications would be considered worth it if he knows there are no competitors out there that offer a faster, more reliable and inexpensive way to accept money for projects.

Real Estate Realtor- Barbra

The second person I interviewed was a real estate agent named Barbra, who mostly sells property down in South Florida. Barbra exclaimed to me that, since her job requires large transfers of money from buyer to seller, each cent is crucial to breaking a deal and ultimately making both parties happy. She goes on to tell me that most clients purchase property through a mortgage and finance it over time. Her clients pay through bank transfers, checks or direct deposits in which she is payed separately for her work through other forms of payment such as cash, checks or credit. Barbra goes on to say that she doesn't look at the price when determining whether to use a specific money transferring service, and more so one that she can recommend to clients to help them continually finance their payments. In this case, she looks for the best quality and most comprehensive way to help her customers pay for the property, and also the seller to receive their money timely and in whole. When I questioned her about the 'rightness' of the purchase, Barbra explains that she will invest however much in order to make sure her clients are receiving/paying their money in full and efficiently. She likes the idea of a one time fee in order to help reduce the amount taken from each individual transfer as property sales cannot afford to lose any money when the two parties agree on a deal. Barbra claims she would recommend this application to her clients to help them finance their properties, to not worry about expensive fees and ultimately to help her receive her money for her labor in a timely manner. Although, if the app were to delay the money transfer or charge her extended fees, she would be disappointed in purchasing the application. 

Bathing Suit Company - Cameron

The last person I interviewed was a college student who created and manages her own bathing suit company. Cameron is a junior at Appalachian State University and sells custom made female bathing suits right out of her apartment. She has her own online retail store and receives payments from customers through money transferring apps such as Venmo and Cashapp. One thing that deters her from using these apps are the constant fees and time it takes for her to deposit the money she receives, so that she can go out and continue to buy and create more bathing suits. The main component of these apps that she looks for is the most inexpensive way for her to efficiently receive payments from customers and ship out her products to her clients. When hearing about the opportunities that BeyondKash offers, Cameron immediately claimed that she would invest into a one time fee in order to help manage her sales, profits and ultimately allow her to expand her company without worrying financially. She told me that most of her sales are through online purchases and that she rarely receives cash for her products. Cameron is looking for a new and improved app to help her efficiently move money and would be considered happy after investing into a middle-man app if it offers the features she is looking for. If Cameron were to invest into an application that still charged fees and took time to transfer her money, she would be disappointed with her purchase and would regret it. When questioned about the 'rightness' of her purchase, Cameron claims that she would be comfortable if she knew that there was no alternative to being able to transfer money fee-less from her online retail store to her bank accounts. 

Summary and Conclusions:

Throughout these three interviews, a reoccurring theme of time and price were mentioned by Max, Barbra and Cameron. This helps me to understand how to efficiently advertise to companies who are already utilizing current applications that could be considered competitors to BeyondKash. Offering a new way to "pay the fees" would ultimately bring an abundance of customers from current competitors, as some businesses need to manage their sales, profits, expenses, and withdrawal fees in order to understand the well-being of their company. Adding additional fees throws off their numbers and can hurt the companies status. To continue, another main issue with current applications available are the time it takes to transfer the money from the app to the user's physical bank accounts. In these apps such as Venmo, Cashapp and PayPal, it cost more money to instantly transfer from the app and so a one time fee would be more appealing to user's transferring money frequently or running a business. In all, these interviews helped me to understand how small businesses or corporate businesses accept payments for their work and products, and ultimately how I can advertise BeyondKash to each specific business owner. The segment of business owners is in need of a new and effective way to transfer money inexpensively and timely, and ultimately to help their clients with purchasing decisions and evaluations. Using an app that is accustomed to the user and client will assist in satisfying business owners as they can effectively close deals, expand their companies and not have to worry financially about when their next payment will be cleared. To go on, user's will be more content knowing that no other competitors offer a better way to pay for such a service or product and this will increase post-purchasing evaluations on the application and the parties using it.