19A – Idea Napkin No. 2

Me: My name is Fahad Qazi, I'm a second year Biology major at the University of Florida. My skills include being able to speak several languages, strong technical skills with computers, and one of my hobbies includes reading about history and politics. Over the last three years, I've volunteered hundreds working with large-scale statewide programs that foster civic engagement within communities, which in itself allowed me to identify this opportunity, which draws off my own hobby to tackle a problem I believe exists when it comes to giving voters unbiased and dual-sided information on certain legislative issues.

What I'm Offering to Customers: My product consists of an app that allows academics or people educated within certain topics to speak on either side regarding a legislative topic. Sites such as Quora Digest already provide a means to allow people to list their certifications within a certain topic, which allows for substantive debate and dual portrayals of a certain topic in order to give readers an unbiased viewpoint on a certain issue, but this product sets itself apart by providing a one-stop for political debate. This app will be called PoliPeer, and sets itself apart by focusing exclusively on legislative focused debate.

Who am I offering it to?: This product is wholly intended for people who have an interest regarding political issues, which going by recent trends, can either target young people aged 18-30 or senior citizens, both of whom are demographics which tend to vote most often and can benefit the most from this. This product additionally, has been narrowed into a prototypical "customer avatar" with the following traits, in that our customers met any of the following:

• • Either majored in political science or frequent political discussion forums online.
  • Maintains and cultivates an interest within civic engagement programs.
  • Tends to vote often within state/local/federal elections while also maintaining an interest in public policy falling under these spheres of influence.
  • Strives to educate themselves using sources that lack bias but also contain input from across the political spectrum.
  • Tries to educate those around them regarding local public policy changes and encourage political activism within their communities.
  • Engages in debate, either in person or online over public policy issues.
  • Tend to have little money when it comes to purchasing multiple subscriptions to different websites that have paywalls in order to obtain political information, as multiple sites tend to have.
  • Identify with multiple sides of the political spectrum, yet show the need for an unbiased source for legislative information.

  
  

Any one of these traits can be applied to a potential customer, showing how broad and applicable this product is to the market.

Why do they care?: Oftentimes people can find themselves uneducated about a certain topic, or either might realize the pros and miss out on the cons of an argument or vice-versa. This app will lead to open debate regarding an issue that is unbiased and issue-focused, enabling a more educated electorate. I believe the need for a solution to this problem is large enough that my consumers will be inspired to commit to a small monthly subscription fee to pay for quality content from this app. This app addresses a huge social need that exists today, as sites such as Facebook and Twitter have been under intense scrutiny due to their refusal to fact check or moderate political debate, showing that this need exists.

What is my core competency?: I feel that my core competency that sets me apart is the apps verification system. There are a series of online forums that require commentators to post about their certification or experience regarding a certain issue before posting, but this forum will be exclusively limited to those who know about a specific topic (legislation and legislative issues) and can make an educated comment about an issue, something that doesn't already exist for legislative issues.

Having spent some time thinking about these issues, I feel that these elements fit together. I feel that in recent years, there has been a drive for news sources that are unbiased, and this app meets that demand by allowing commentators to list their certifications before making a comment, with moderators that double check these comments.  I feel that the main issue with this app is revenue generation, but also believe that one way to tackle this might be to include ad-revenue by partnering with other organizations, making a small compromise in order to benefit our users through using those same ads to pay moderators to moderate comments and ensure that the app's quality stays consistent. These moderators, again, could ensure that contributors clearly identify which side of an argument they lie on, while also ensuring that feedback and discussion remains courteous and consistent. Ad revenue, additionally, could act as a subsidy, decreasing costs of the app for users and enticing more to sign up to use it.

Another issue I do think I might need to spend time on might be how to make this app appeal to older users who might not be as used to working with technology. I feel that a more fleshed out interface might be the key to this, but might focus on this aspect later down the line, both of these being elements that might be tackled through creative problem solving, and by also contracting developers who might have experience with this issue in order to help streamline app development.

Feedback:

• While I didn't receive any feedback on my first iteration of my idea napkin, I went back and revised every section, making the following changes based off of feedback others received:
• Adding more information about my background, and how it relates to my opportunity
• Adding what I plan to name my product to make it more concrete
• Identifying what my demographic is, as I felt that was definitely an area I could expand upon. I took the list of traits that I identified applied to my target demographic and applied it to that section as well.
• I added more relevant info to justify why my consumers care. One specific difference is that I added how tech giants have recently come under intense scrutiny for not fact checking political ads and debate, which in turn have actually spurred real life pushes by consumers to find unbiased and reliable sources.
• Revising the language across the post, which I felt was confusing, especially towards the conclusion of the initial post.

18A – Create a Customer Avatar -

After much thought, I feel that I've identified my primary consumer segment as students or those with a vested interest in political information aged 18-30.

This demographic - 

• Either majored in political science or frequent political discussion forums online.
• Maintains and cultivates an interest within civic engagement programs.

• Tends to vote often within state/local/federal elections while also maintaining an interest in public policy falling under these spheres of influence.

• 
  
• Strives to educate themselves using sources that lack bias but also contain input from across the political spectrum.
• Tries to educate those around them regarding local public policy changes and encourage political activism within their communities.
• Engages in debate, either in person or online over public policy issues.
• Tend to have little money when it comes to purchasing multiple subscriptions to different websites that have paywalls in order to obtain political information, as multiple sites tend to have.
• Identify with multiple sides of the political spectrum, yet show the need for an unbiased source for legislative information.

Having spent time on UF's campus, as well as significant amounts of time on other college campuses, I can safely say that there are students who fit this demographic currently within college and outside of it, who also vote regularly and encourage others to do so. An analysis of voter turnouts for 2018 midterm elections showed that young voters turned out in historic numbers, showing how this demographic I've selected may have an interest in the product I've designed for them. 

I feel that I too have something in common with this demographic in the form of meeting all of these traits listed in some sort of fashion, which isn't entirely a coincidence. Having met other students like this, I've found that this group of consumers held all of these listed traits, something which shocked me as I shared many of them as well, leading me to try and isolate them into a list to refine my customer base in order to allow me to cater them more easily.

17A – Elevator Pitch No. 2 -

1.)  Link To My Pitch: https://youtu.be/727-vf2Zv68

2.) A reflection on the feedback you received from your last pitch. Describe what stood out to you as important, what feedback surprised you the most, what feedback you think was outright wrong or silly, what feedback you thought was most useful and insightful. 

Due to not being proactive, I was unable to upload my last pitch in time for my product. However, having asked others in person for their advice on this upload, I felt that one thing that was insightful was how far having confidence can go. I'm a very shy person, but rehearsing my lines, trying smiling, and adjusting the way I carried myself made a huge difference in the way I came off in my elevator pitch.

2.) What did you change, based on the feedback?

As I didn't have feedback due to not having an initial upload, the revision process was something I based off feedback I received from those I asked to watch my pitch in person. Throwing in a statistic, as recommended by someone who I had watch my pitch and review it, helped me refine my pitch to be a lot better than it was initially during the writing process of this pitch. Additionally, reflecting on the way I carried myself and trying to gauge the tone I was giving off allowed me to convey how I felt about this product, allowing for a finalized elevator pitch that was a marked improvement over my first run through the script. My original pitch was somewhere around 60 seconds long, which was too short to meet the requirements of the assignment, and having thought about it and rewritten it several times, I found that adjusting my wording to be slower and more understandable, as well as showing it to others allowed me to refine my final pitch in such a way that I had a better final product.

15A – Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 2 -

Segment in focus: Students aiming for generalized legislative research

Interviewee 1: My first interviewee discussed how while his need wasn't that great, he would generally rely on Google and WIkipedia to get him where he needed. When asked how that search normally went, he admitted that it was difficult to sort through sources of information that didn't hold some sort of bias that prevented him from obtaining the info he felt he needed in a clear and concise manner without any sort of spin. When asked to do assignments that focused on research from both sides of an argument, he felt that this issue grew much worse. He conceded that there was no other way to find all of the results he needed just by browsing a source other than Google.

Interviewee 2: My second interviewee also said the same as my first. After being presented with a series of alternatives, this interviewee was not aware of sites like Quora Digest and others. They felt that half the time, when it came to political research, they were drawn to issue specific websites that while focused on the issues, also ended up being biased, and it would take additional research to find a site that could portray the opposite end of a debate on a certain issue.

Interviewee 3: This interviewee admitted that it was rather difficult to find a search engine or a single site that allowed for dual-sided portrayals of arguments. For them, additionally, when it came to researching legislation that aimed to solve a specific issue, there were not many sites that listed out where a specific piece of legislation had already been passed and how/if that specific solution helped a particular community, which is an important suggestion that I hadn't really thought about up until this point.

I felt that this session of interviews was very enlightening. While I had interviewed another segment last week, I hadn't ever really gotten into the discussion of what my interviewees would consider as an alternate resource besides the one I'm offering them through this product. I feel that this set of interviews was additionally beneficial in that it showed that my product idea can still be refined even more so than it already has been, and that there is a constant need of improvement on multiple fronts in order to create something people might actually buy. Many of my "buyers" felt as if their happiness with their purchase lay in the accessibility and wealth of the information they were looking for, hinting that a paid option might have some success. Having conducted previous interviews, I can safely say that price is an important factor in determining whether a purchase might be made, and that if further interviews are conducted, analyzing whether other solutions exist out there with a paid option have met any success might be key towards designing a perfect product. 

14A – Halfway Reflection -

1) Tenaciousness is a competency. What are the behaviors that you have used (or developed) to keep up with the requirements of this course? 
One behavior I've begun to use more effectively in the last two months is working forward. After I missed one or two deadlines due to not being aware or cognizant of how much time it would take to get a certain assignment done, I started working a lot earlier in order to ensure that I could meet deadlines in time by checking assignments beforehand to estimate how much time it would take to do them.

2) Tenaciousness is also about attitude. Talk about a moment or two when you felt like "giving up." What pulled you through? Do you feel like you've developed a tenacious attitude during the past two months? What experience or experiences most contributed to this?
One of the moment where I felt like giving up was when I was asked to conduct a series of interviews for one or two assignments a few weeks prior. At a certain point, it became extremely difficult to track down people I could interview, and I very much contemplated giving up. The one reason I pulled through was realizing how doable the assignments were, and developing an "I can do it" attitude, as well as treating the assignments as a break from other classes I'm taking this semester really helped me get through these two months. Finishing those few assignments really showed me that I could face any challenge that this class brought to me, and helped get me through my lowest point.

3) Three tips. What are three tips you would offer next semester's student about (1) fostering the skills that support tenacity and (2) developing the 'tenacious mindset' ?
For my three tips, I would say the following:

1. ) Don't ever give up, a lot of things depend on the attitude you have when going to face them, and that same attitude can be what gets you through.
2. You don't have to be perfect. Again, perfection is something that's entirely up to perception. Believing your own work standards should improve is definitely a good trait to have, however.
3. Find creative solutions to problems. I've found that the most fun ideas to work with are the ones that seem the most far-flung, as there will almost always be someone who invariably appreciates it.

13A – Reading Reflection No. 1 -

1.) What surprised you the most?

What surprised me the most, if anything, was how down-to-earth and relatable Jobs seemed at times. He didn't seem to be some creative genius during his entire life, like what you might hear about figures such as Albert Einstein or other scientists, and even found himself to dislike classes and at one point, even would leave classes he was in to take other ones where he could meet more girls, something that one wouldn't really expect from one touted as a genius or a tech leader.

2.) What about the entrepreneur did you really admire?

I really admired Jobs' openness to explore new opportunities and try out new things. I read about how he at one point travelled to India and essentially backpacked across the subcontinent. I feel like his tenacity to live and learn new things, as well as live a lifestyle filled with variance is what allowed him so much success.

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

One key example of adversity that Jobs faced was when he forced Microsoft to agree to not create graphical software for any other company besides Apple. However, when the Macintosh itself was delayed, Gates himself capitalized upon that and released his own graphical software, winning the rivalry between the two companies. Jobs could not do anything about that, but instead resolved to work harder and not let his company fade into obscurity as a result.

4.) What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited?

I felt that Jobs' tenacity and open-mindedness were two key traits that contributed towards his success. There were many points at which he found himself struggling with his mental health, whether it came to fitting in at school or finding his place in the world spiritually, but his drive to deal with both of those struggles by taking risks is what contributed to his success.

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

Again, this has to be how normal Jobs seemed. There were sections of the text that described him playing the guitar and doing art projects, alongside struggling with classes he was in, all of which show a sharp contrast to the image of the innovative and brilliant graduate tech leader that we see depicted today.

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

I would ask him what religions his pursuit of spiritual satisfactions ever led him to and what aspects about Hinduism led him to identify with that faith, as his travels across India led him to be exposed to a lot, and I'd love to hear more about that. Another question I'd ask would be whether he felt as if being adopted would have had any affect on his creativity and entrepreneurship. It's shown that Jobs had a natural apt for finding creative solutions to problems, and I'm really curious as to whether he felt that this was a natural part of himself, or something nurtured within him.

7.) What do you think the entrepreneur's opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion?

I felt that Jobs really valued hard work. If he and his coworkers didn't work as hard to create their product and revolutionize the marketing for it, they would never have gotten off the ground. The reading discusses his adversity in great detail, and there were many points where I, were I in Jobs position, would have given up. I definitely share his opinion and feel as if it's entirely valid.

12A – Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 1 -

Segment in focus: STEM-majoring students that might want information regarding a certain cause or piece of legislation they might be interested in.

Interviewee 1: My first interviewee felt that his need wasn't super existent and constant. However, as a reader of the news and being involved with several organizations on campus, research regarding certain issues was needed and it was hard for him to obtain information without a lengthy and in-depth Google search. Sites he tended to browse ended up browsing would either be skewed to one partisan angle, or were limited to He felt that an option should be included for intermittent users to allow them to use the app without subscribing to a monthly fee.

Interviewee 2: Her need really did not present itself often as well. However, after speaking to her about it, she found that when it came to several elective classes that asked her to explore problems facing communities. She found that it was rather difficult to parse through several different websites in order to gather this sort of information, and after asking me more about my app, felt that it could definitely be a solution she might be interested in.

Interviewee 3: This student also felt that their needs on a daily basis did not require this app. However, as someone who is interested in politics, they did tend to use apps such as Reddit occasionally to read up on issues they personally held an interest in. They did feel that while they did need information on legislative issues occasionally, they would be turned off by having to pay a subscription fee in order to access such information.

I feel that this segment was very much aware of this issue that my solution aims to resolve, and did express a need for a solution like mine offers much like I expected. At the end of the day, I do empathize with their need, as none of my interviewees felt as if they would pay a monthly subscription fee in order to access the app for a one time use. They all agreed that there was no single location that they could use to access this kind of information, and that the need was prevalent, yet could not justify paying a subscription fee for it, especially as college students.

11A – Idea Napkin No. 1 -

Me: My name is Fahad Qazi, I'm a second year Biology major at the University of Florida. My skills include being able to speak several languages, strong technical skills with computers, and one of my hobbies includes reading about history and politics. This opportunity draws off my own hobby to tackle a problem I believe exists when it comes to giving voters unbiased and dual-sided information on certain legislative issues.

What I'm Offering to Customers: My product consists of an app that allows academics or people educated within certain topics to speak on either side regarding a legislative topic. Sites such as Quora Digest already provide a means to allow people to list their certifications within a certain topic, which allows for substantive debate and dual portrayals of a certain topic in order to give readers an unbiased viewpoint on a certain issue, but this product sets itself apart by providing a one-stop for political debate.

Who am I offering it to?: This product is wholly intended for people who have an interest regarding political issues, which going by recent trends, can either target young people aged 18-30 or senior citizens, both of whom are demographics which tend to vote most often and can benefit the most from this.

Why do they care?: Oftentimes people can find themselves uneducated about a certain topic, or either might realize the pros and miss out on the cons of an argument or vice-versa. This app will lead to open debate regarding an issue that is unbiased and issue-focused, enabling a more educated electorate. I believe the need for a solution to this problem is large enough that my consumers will be inspired to commit to a small monthly subscription fee to pay for quality content from this app.

What is my core competency?: I feel that my core competency that sets me apart is the apps verification system. There are a series of online forums that require commentators to post about their certification or experience regarding a certain issue before posting, but this forum will be exclusively limited to those who know about a topic and can make an educated comment about an issue, something that doesn't already exist for legislative issues.

Having spent some time thinking about these issues, I feel that these elements fit together. I feel that in recent years, there has been a drive for news sources that are unbiased, and this app meets that demand by allowing commentators to list their certifications before making a comment, with moderators that double check these comments. I feel that the main issue with this app is revenue generation, but also believe that one way to tackle this might be to include ad-revenue by partnering with other organizations, making a small compromise in order to benefit our users through using those same ads to pay moderators to moderate comments and ensure that the app's quality stays consistent. Another issue I do think I might need to spend time on might be how to make this app appeal to older users who might not be as used to working with technology. I feel that a more fleshed out interface might be the key to this, but might focus on this aspect later down the line, both of these being elements that might be tackled through creative problem solving.