Assignment 20-Growing Your Social Capital

1. The first person I interviewed is named Lainey Tarpon, and she is a student entrepreneur from my hometown. She has always been interested in natural products and a couple years ago started making her own products. Once people became interested in them she began to sell the products and fill even more orders online through Etsy and other mediums.
2. She is a domain expert because she is engaged in the same sort of business that I would like to be involved in, and she also is a technical expert because she has been researching these sorts of things for many years and only recently began to apply her knowledge to create her own products.
3. I found her because we went to the same high school, and after some text conversation we were able to FaceTime to further discuss my business idea.
4. She listened to my elevator pitch about the product offering and gave me feedback regarding refining the idea based on her experience in this market. In return, she expects me to help get more word out about her business and to keep her updated in the future.
5. Including her in my network would allow me to have advice from a young entrepreneur like myself who has already made some mistakes. She can give me advice about how to find customers and setting up an electronic platform that is user-friendly.

1. The next person is Jennifer Ryan, one of my mom's friends who manages a Lush store in our area. She has worked in this business for about a decade. She has previously sold other products as a representative and now manages the Lush store.
2. She is the market expert because she has been in this market for a long time, and after progressing in her job she knows a lot about what the customers are looking for and what their hesitations are with products like these.
3. I found her because she is friends with my mom, so I was able to give her a call and ask some questions.
4. She was able to give me plenty of advice about gaining customer support, promoting my product, and the like. Her expectation is that I keep in touch with her after this interaction to update her about the direction of my idea.
5. Including her in my network allows me to better understand what customers want and how I am able to satisfy those needs with my offering. She knows a lot about the changing needs, especially in the natural products arena.

1. Lastly, I talked to John Remy, who is in the business of handling logistics for online companies. He has worked in the logistics business for over 15 years.
2. He is the important supplier in this industry, because logistics companies supply technology and other things to help online orders be fulfilled.
3. He is an old friend of my dad's, so I was able to email him then give him a call about this.
4. He described to me how their company works and what services they're able to provide different businesses, so this insight would definitely help me if I pursued this business in the future. Knowing how to get these products to consumers is crucial. In return, he requested that I use his company if I ever pursue this lol.
5. By networking with him, he would be able to give me the ins and outs of how to get products from manufacturing to a consumer's door. He would also be able to tell me what he has seen work best for businesses and sort of become a consultant for me.

This experience differs greatly from past networking experiences I have had because it is so targeted and the interaction is already outlined for me in a way. In the past, I have been networking to look for a job or to get into an organization, but networking for my own business purposes is very different.