10A – Elevator Pitch No. 1

https://youtu.be/cw73Rw2MMk4

9A – Testing the Hypothesis, Part 2

In assignment 7 and 8, I have identified how some elderlies have unwanted items in their household that they are willing to sell, but, cannot do so due to technological illiteracy. I then interviewed five different individuals who I believed should have this need, but either does not have this need or does not feel this need is necessarily true. A common point among some of the interviewees was that some believe that making transactions in-person is a much safer option than transacting through online platforms. I brought up the case of how transactions online are very secure, and websites will always incorporate a platform to prevent information leak. However, one brought up the rare occasion that it will happen, and thus he avoids performing online transactions. Another interviewee also told me the possible hassle that online trading may potentially have, emphasizing customer satisfaction. She believes that it is best for a person to see the item in-person, examines if he/she is willing to purchase and decide. By posting online, there may be aspects that the customer did not consider which may lead to return demand- thus the main hassle. An interesting point I’ve learned is that my potential customers may not be looking to sell, but rather trying to get rid of their unwanted items. Whether it be storing in third-party storage or simply donating it, as long they are rid of, it meets their need.

8A – Solving The Problem

1. In the previous exercise, I proposed that an opportunity exists from how technological illiterate individuals cannot effectively sell their unwanted belongings through the internet, especially among older aged people. Because they cannot navigate through e-commerce, their market audience is extremely limited.

2. In my current state, providing service is a realistic solution to my mentioned opportunity. I believe that an in-person teaching session is a good way to solve this problem. In-person is emphasized as it is a much more efficient learning experience than online videos or calls. It would be a great start to first introduce the concept using a browser and how files exist. Although my opportunity ultimately results with learning how to sell online, this teaching service can be more than that and expand to other useful skills that the specific desires to learn.

7A – Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1

1. An opportunity I would like to pursue is facilitating transactions among elderly who have things to sell but do not own the technology literacy to do so.

2.
a. Who: Technology illiterate elderlies who desire to sell their possessions.
b. What: They are unable to market their goods due to inability to work with technology to reach potential buyers.
c. Why: Some elderly people have not learned how to use technology and are not up to date on how to operate one for the purpose of selling.

3.
a. Testing Who: Although my opportunity emphasizes technological illiteracy among older people, this opportunity can expand to anyone at any age who wish to sell online, but, are limited by this constraint.
b. Testing What: My opportunity is limited by the fact that you can learn how to operate and use technologies to sell through online resources such as videos. However, there is still a market for people who want an in-person session, just like how students demand to learn with a live tutor.
c. Testing Why: Some may have this need due to the lack of people willing to spend the time to teach this skill. Others may have this need to due to initially finding no reason to learn and become well versed in technology. I do not think there is a universal reason for why someone would be technologically illiterate as this is a decision someone makes if they want to develop this certain skill.

4. I’ve interviewed with five different people to get a better understand of how my opportunity stands currently. I interviewed two grandfathers, one grandmother is also the wife of one of the mentioned grandfathers, a grandson who visits his grandparents occasionally, and a granddaughter who lives with her grandmother. As mentioned in my hypothesis above, one of my interviewees finds little reason to delve into learning about technology in his/her current lifestyle. Thus, because of low motivation, he/she only learns the basics of using them, such as making calls or searching up recipes. There is also a high variance of technical difficulties that one can run into when using technology. Because such a high variety of technology exists, encountering a technological difficulty can be much easier to solve if there were a live person to teach. One of the grandparents was once a doll collector but now needs to remove some of them due to the amount of space it is taking in their house. However, they cannot find someone who would buy them yet. They have yet to try to use the internet to reach a larger audience. Again, this ties back to my opportunity of facilitating transactions among people who lack these skills. One of the most important things I’ve learned from this interview that I forgot to account for is the language barrier. Some of the grandparents that I interviewed or was mentioned in my interviews are immigrants from a foreign language speaking country. Due to the English being a common language to communicate in the United States, it can dissuade people from making personal transactions with English speakers. Likewise, it also dissuades these people from also learning how to use English e-commerce websites. This also brings into a potential expansion of my opportunity by having bilingual tutors teach technology to foreign speakers. I do recognize that there are language options within computers and phones, however, it still is not enough for someone to effectively learn how to use it by themselves.

6A – Identifying Opportunities in Economic & Regulatory Trends

Economic Trend- The environmental effects of fast fashion, specifically the rate of which items are purchased and disposed of by the consumer.
a) This issue was mentioned to me during an environmental class I am taking.
b) An opportunity exists because the issue lies in how the purchased goods are disposed of rather than resold or recycled.
c) Customers of this opportunity could be people looking for cheaper alternatives to sourcing clothes and accessories.
d) I believe this opportunity is difficult to exploit as some aspects of fashion are single use and usually becomes obsolete once a new trend appears.
e) I think there is an opportunity to reuse or resell some goods of “fast fashion”. The rate of which consumers throw away clothes when fashion renders it “old” is high regardless of its condition. I think that there may be a way to dissuade consumers from disposing and instead resell in a convenient method.

Economic trend- Marijuana use among high school students are falling in legalized states.
a) This opportunity was identified through an online article I have found.
b) The fall in marijuana use among high school students indicates that they are beginning to use other products for recreation (not necessarily drugs) or have personal reasons to avoid using marijuana.
c) Prototypical customers would include high school students who have or have considered using marijuana for recreation.
d) I believe this opportunity is relatively difficult to exploit as it is unclear as to why there is a downward trend in marijuana usage.
e) I see this as an opportunity because the downward trend indicates that these teenagers have found or are looking for new recreational activities. I believe that there perhaps are unmet needs for recreations among these high school students as less students are opting to use marijuana.

Regulatory change- A potential law to be passed regarding an increase in percent alcohol in alcoholic beverages.
a) I found an opportunity from this regulatory change from an online article.
b) The change in the alcohol limit may lead to a formation of a new product for consumers.
c) Prototypical customers are most likely consumer who like drinking beer and enjoy the effects under alcohol.
d) I believe the opportunity may be moderately exploited as this opportunity is about forming a new unique version of a beer.
e) I see this as an opportunity because many current beer producing firms will most likely keep their recipe to maintain the taste and quality that the consumers currently buy them for. However, the increase in alcohol can perhaps be a way for a rising firm to form a unique beer from this increase in alcohol limit. I see this opportunity because my relatives are the type of people who have strong preferences for the beer they drink.

Regulatory Change- Water war between Florida and Georgia - specifically Georgia’s water harvest from the Apalachicola Bay.
a) I discovered this trend from environmental economics class I am taking this semester.
b) Florida is fighting for a cap on Georgia’s water draw; thus an opportunity exists if such cap is implemented.
c) If the cap be established, then the people of Georgia will be in shortage of water, thus most likely the customers of this opportunity.
d) The customers may be relatively easy to exploit as water is an essential need and a shortage of such need perhaps makes an easy exploit.
e) I see this as an opportunity because the war is currently undergoing. Although Georgia is currently not in a huge water shortage, it may be the case in the future should Florida win against Georgia, and not many are focused on the future. Especially since Georgia contains a very large population, an opportunity to provide water service will most likely be in demand if a shortage does occur. 

5A – Identifying Local Opportunities

1. Popeyes introduces BYOB solution for sold out chicken sandwich: Bring your own bun
2. https://www.thedrum.com/creative-works/project/gsdm-popeyes-byob-bring-your-own-bun
3. The well-known Popeyes brand has humorously announced that they are sold out of chicken sandwiches. As the title implies, a customer must bring his/her own buns and buy chicken tenders to make a chicken sandwich if they still want a chicken sandwich.
4. The problem presented in the article states that the high demand for the chicken sandwich resulted in a shortage of a chicken sandwich. Despite the sandwich being comprised of just three chicken tenders and buns, they were still sold-out due to popularity.
5. Popeyes as the organization has the problem as they were not able to predict such a high demand for the returning product. This results in a missed opportunity for profit for the time they are in shortage.


1. Homeless in California—what the data reveals
2. https://calmatters.org/housing/2018/06/homeless-in-california-what-the-data-reveals/
3. The article describes the increasing presence of homeless people in California. California as a state experiences the largest increase of homeless when compared to other states in the US.
4. The problem presented in the story is the fight to reduce homelessness by increasing shelters. However, it is relatively difficult to do so as these people are also suffering from physical or mental illnesses.  Thus, the issue is much more complex and cannot be simply resolved by funding money towards building a shelter.
5. The people who have this problem are the homeless who are suffering from illnesses. Society as a whole also has the problem as they need to figure out how to tackle this problem effectively.


1. Local vape shop owners react to proposed flavored e-cigarette banned
2. https://www.13newsnow.com/article/news/local/local-vape-shop-owners-react-to-proposed-flavored-e-cigarette-banned/291-a9da67b0-a7aa-4eab-8d66-ee1f767eff30
3. The recently proposed ban on all e-cigarettes except tobacco has led to a local shop in Virginia Beach to voice their opinion of the ban.
4. The problem presented in the story is that many vapers choose to do so because of the different flavor other than tobacco.  The ban on these flavors will cause e-cigarette vendors to potentially go out of business.
5. People who have this problem are the sellers of flavored e-cigarettes as well as those who purchase them.


1. Local Cantina owner brings sushi shop to German Village
2. https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2019/09/12/local-cantina-owner-brings-sushi-shop-to-german.html
3. This news describes the opening of a sushi vendor in German Village, Columbus.
4. The problem presented in the news was the lack of sushi vendors in the area. The restaurant operator recognized this and decided to begin introducing sushi to the area.
5. The problem was the local not having access to buying sushi. This could infer other sorts of food that the local does not have but may want.


1. Unused 'hurricane food' crowding your shelves? Local food banks have room for it
2. https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2019/09/05/unused-hurricane-food-filling-your-shelves-local-food-banks-need/2212826001/
3. The article describes how may have overstocked on food in preparation for the hurricane. The Brevard Food Bank offers these people to take these foods away from them.
4. In the newspaper, the problem is that a high amount of food requests exists and not enough food to serve these requests. They hope that after the hurricane, those who still hold excess food will be able to donate to those who are in need.
5. The people who have this problem are those who overstocked in food and do not know where to rid of it.

4A – Forming An Opportunity Belief

1. I have a feeling that an opportunity exists in the current problem of ground coffee losing its potency after being ground and packaged for retail.

2. The unmet need is the retention of ground coffee bean quality. People who have this need are people who like to drink quality coffee but do not want to spend the time to grind whole coffee beans before every brew. This need has always been around and people who buy ground coffee beans deals with this by hoping that the batch is relatively fresh. I’m 80% confident that this opportunity exists.

3.     The three prototypical customers I have identified are my father, my mother, and a roommate.

4. Reflect-- I talked to three potential customers who purchase ground coffee regarding my belief of this opportunity. The customers feel that this problem exists only when they purchase ground coffee instead of whole beans. Their solution currently is to purchase in small batches and avoid holding ground coffee for too long. I learned that they all recognize that buying ground coffee is like being in the middle ground between quality and convenience. One customer says that that grinding coffee before every drink is very bothersome in the morning. Another asserts that ground coffee is a much better alternative to buying instant coffee. One of the most surprising things I learned from talking to these three customers is that one of them prefers pre-ground coffee over freshly ground coffee for brewing. The reason for this preference is because a fresh ground coffee brew has too much of an aroma and intensity and she preferred a rather subtle taste to her drink.

5. Summary-- After reflecting, I find that my confidence in this opportunity has fallen. Although it is a problem to the three customers that pre-ground coffee loses its potency quickly, it does not pose enough of a nuisance to motivate them to seek change. They all recognize that by buying ground coffee, you give up quality for accessibility. After this exercise, I believe it is important for entrepreneurs to adapt opportunities based on consumer feedback. This helps entrepreneurs better identify problems that consumers want to fix than problems that they really do not have.

3A – Your Entrepreneurship Story

I remember being exposed to entrepreneurship back when I was still in elementary school living in the state of Oregon. My father decided to begin raising canary birds for recreation. However, the canaries began laying fertilized eggs and we started holding a large number of canaries. My father decided to sell canaries. For better appeal, he would use a special type of food that turns the feather of the canaries to a light orange color. Although I did not understand it at the time, now I think about it, it demonstrates my father’s recognition of an opportunity to differentiate his birds in the fair. The image below closely resembles one of the birds that my father raised in Oregon.

I enrolled in this class because I believe that I can take something valuable from this course as an economics undergraduate student. I hope I can better understand how individuals take advantage of opportunities in the real-world and start their own businesses. It would also be interesting to see the personal background of different enterprises that remain today.