14A – Halfway Reflection

1) One of the most important aspects of success in this course that I learned was working ahead. By the time I had submitted the assignment Thursday night or Friday morning, parts of it had been worked on starting from the previous Monday. As often as it's repeated for different courses, this course particularly can lead to a swift crash and burn if procrastination gets the best of you.

2) On the week that had 3 assignments due instead of the usual 2, I wasn't able to get the headstart that I usually have and much of the work for those assignments were held up until the day before the assignment was due. Although it was grueling to do all of that work in a short time, I reminded myself that success in this class will be both a learning opportunity for my degree program and a boost to my GPA, so failure was not an option.

3) -Treat the assigned date as the due date
    -Unless you have a clear cut conflict, attend every lecture. Watching the videos is less interactive          and thus gives you less of a learning experience
    -Be single-minded in your goal for this course. Even if it's just something as simple as getting an A, or having a thought out business plan, it's harder to complain about the work when you have a clear picture of the end result.

13A – Reading Reflection No. 1

1) Andrew Carnegie- David Nasaw
-What surprised me the most was: His gain of wealth through the now illegal process of insider trading
-The thing I admired most was: Carnegie's advocacy for world peace
-The thing I least admired was: his use of unethical methods like manipulating deals and shares by printing false certificates
-Carnegie encountered adversity and failure when he bought two British patents on new railway making methods that proved to be useless. He lost a great deal of money from this but learned from the mistake and continued with his steel business.

2) Carnegie's Competencies were: a high aptitude for math and an impeccable memory

3) Confusing part: The concept of insider trading was foreign to me at first and took a bit of personal research to wrap my head around.

4) Two questions:
-When did you feel closest to giving up and why didn't you?

-Once you rose to prominence as a tycoon what drove you towards philanthropy?

I chose these questions mostly out of curiosity for some of the personal fuel behind Carnegie's public decisions

5) Carnegie's pinion of hard work: I believe Carnegie believes in the idea of well-positioned hard work. as a former accountant and railroad manager, he likely experienced a lot of tough work without particularly large yields but by channeling his talents into the right areas he saw great success. I share this idea, recognizing the need for hard work to get anywhere significant but also working smarter and not harder so your efforts aren't wasted in areas they're not needed

12A- Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 1

1) Segment: Restaurant owners

2) Vale Manager: Garrett Raiff
    Tzatziki's Manager: Don Athan
    Reggae Shack Manager: Eddie Hurtado

3) Need Awareness: The most common thread between all of these managers was the times in which their need is most apparent. When food products are out of season is when their need is most apparent, not only because of cost differences, but also the dwindling supply of the food product itself.

4) Information Search: The interviewees often did not have a clear exact action as to how they respond to this need. Som instruct employees to be more sparing with scarce foods, others continue business as usual and try to suggest other items to customers if they run out.

5) Report:
What I learned from these interviews is that there is a particular need for businesses when food is out of season. My business can capitalize on this need since hydroponic growing with temperature control can allow me to put out the same number of crops year long. In response to this need for restaurants, we can ramp up production of out of season crops to ensure that there is a high demand for whatever is coming out of the vertical farm.

6) Conclude:
Restaurant owners won't make up the entirety of my clientele but by specifically targeting this need by focusing production on out-of-season crops, I can acutely increase the profits of my business.

11A – Idea Napkin No. 1

1) Me: Brandon McKay, skilled with organizing large amounts of information, and delegating workloads based on assessed individual talents. My related experiences include working as a shift leader at two food-oriented jobs during my time in college and creating an automatic watering system for plants in a class project

2) Service: My service is going to provide green, local, sustainable food crops to processors, grocery stores and independent businesses by hydroponically growing foods like corn and soy in temperature-controlled skyscrapers.

3) Who: My service will be similar in clientele to a farm, servicing markets that will sell the product raw and food processing plants that will use it as an ingredient.

4) Why Care: The value of my service is sustainability and propriety. We don't wear out the soil by growing horizontally, nor do we outsource the transportation of crops since it will be sold locally

5) What the others don't have: Other vertical agribusinesses don't have proprietary transportation that will allow for a quicker and easier process to get food from the building to the consumer.

I believe these elements will work together well most specifically my organization skills with what makes the business stand out, since it will require an efficient organized system to assure that transportation of crops is both accurate and prompt. Also, the clientele will contribute to success since its a constant and well-established group of people who will require my services.

10A – Elevator Pitch No. 1

https://youtu.be/oe76YIkeufA

9A – Testing the Hypothesis, Part 2

Interview 1: Logan Russell (Business Major)
Interview 2: Diana Wildes (Marketing Major)
Interview 3: Richard German (Business Admin Major)
Interview 4: Roxana Gerardo (Advertising Major)
Interview 5: Nathan Heastie (Business Major)

For this round of interviews, I wanted to reach out to those who might not be working on exact ideas like mine but would be in similar or related fields. This included business majors who would oversee the facilitation of ideas like mine and advertising majors who will be integral in spreading the idea as it is still getting off the ground.


Who?
You would expect a food-related idea like mine to affect most people but this isn't necessarily true. Those who would be excluded from this would be people who grow their own food, or already purchase from sustainable agricultural sources, and wouldn't be seeking out products like mine.

What?
The boundary of this need is largely a self-concept of the environmental impact of any given person's food consumption. Those who feel like they're already helping the environment, or aren't concerned with those impacts will likely fall outside the boundary

Why?
There isn't necessarily a big discrepancy between the needs of those inside and outside the boundary. This leaves room for those outside the boundary to be turned into customers

	Inside the boundary	Outside the boundary
Who?	Retail businesses, Food processing, wholesale clubs	Other types of businesses, farmers
What	Space efficient food production and transportation	Livestock raising or long-distance transportation (for now)
Why	Limited space for agricultural services	Lack of combination of vertical agriculture and local transportation

Summary: Because those inside and outside the boundary mostly differ in mindset, there are even more opportunities to be capitalized on here. If a customer, for example, doesn't think they're food consumption carbon footprint is important, but can still get affordable, sustainable food from my company, they can still be a loyal customer just as those who are on the other side of the spectrum. This would, of course, require a great deal of focus on the advertising aspect. I'll consider that for my overall plan.

8A-Solving The Problem

Vertical Agriculture and Delivery Services:

My idea combines product and service into a hybrid that can take advantage of increasing food prices as a result of climate change. The two issues in this problem (transportation, and growing) are addressed by my solution

The modern-day developed country like the United States or Brazil has the vast majority of the population concentrated in heavily populated urban areas. The world is so concentrated this way that the entirety of the human race could fit shoulder-to-shoulder in the state of Connecticut. Things like waste disposal and food production often take place far outside these dense urban areas. My product/service, however, will make it so that some of the food we eat can join us in our tightly packed cities. How? In the same way, we fit people in cities: by building upwards instead of outwards. Hydroponics would allow for corn and soybean Production in indoor temperature-controlled buildings. These buildings would be in urban areas slashing transportation costs. The cost of hydroponic growth could be Balanced out by this and increasing prices due to global warming which reduces the current supply and increase the demand.

This product/service can produce primarily corn and soybeans but feasibly could produce other crops as well to sell to distributors and wholesale, while also providing cheap delivery services that can stay in the urban areas that need the products the most. This upward mobility could allow it to produce numerous crops in the future to fit whatever needs may exist.

7A-Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1

1) My opportunity is: The economic change of increasing food prices due to climate change.

2) Who: This opportunity affects really everyone who eats, but on a noticeable level greatly affects          restaurants and supermarkets since they purchase food in large quantities
    What: Climate changes like increasing global temperatures have resulted in an increased price for      the foods provided by common agricultural practices
    Why: Rising temperatures negatively affect the yield of important crops like corn and soybeans

3) Testing the who: Who do you think will share this need?

 Testing the What: Does this affect most products you buy or just some? Does it affect none at all?

 Testing the Why: Do they even believe in climate change? would they attribute this issue to                  something else?

4) Interviews

Dorrian Bridges (age 24)
-Who: I believe this issue affects almost everyone considering the widespread use of crops like corn and soy which aren't just used in foods, but as sweeteners with things like corn syrup, and substitutes for vegetarians and vegans
-What: I believe this would affect me since I am vegetarian, and my diet consists of a lot of those crops mentioned in this article.
-Why: I consider climate change to be a serious issue, and it is not surprising to me that it is coming up in big ways like this. The why here is clearly due to the lack of care we've taken in ensuring our activities don't have adverse effects on the environment

Payal Majmundar (age 21)
-Who: This problem would be big for things like supermarkets since they're the middleman between the farmer and the people
-What: This affects some of the products I buy, but it might not make a big enough difference for people like me to notice
-Why: Climate change is at fault here for sure, if we want to reduce the effect of the problem, some mitigatory action is necessary

Christopher Torres (age 22)
-Who: This issue affects all of the people who consume corn crops in any form
-What: This affects most of the products I buy since I use a lot of substitutes
-Why: I don't necessarily know if climate change is all the way to blame for this one. It might be a natural famine by the fluctuation of temperatures

Caitlyn Shay (age 19)
-Who: This problem would affect restaurants like the one I work in since corn is a big part of many of our dishes and soybeans are in things like our butter substitutes
-What: It doesn't affect very much of what I buy personally but I still think these changes will have a profound effect.
-Why: This seems to be a result of climate change based on what I know about it, hopefully, the measures we take in reducing our carbon footprint can reduce some of these effects

Paulina Alzate (age 21)
-Who: Everyone will share this need together and it is our responsibility as a whole to tackle it together
-What: This affects most things from the food I regularly purchase to family dishes I know from home
-Why: I think this is because of global warming and should be addressed as a crisis caused by it

Write-Up: I think this assignment helped me gain perspective on some of the people in my community, particularly people like Caitlyn who work in a restaurant that uses these crops often, and people like Paulina who use these crops for homemade dishes. Although it won't affect everyone the same way, I think this opportunity has a far enough reach for a solution to be desirable to potential customers.

6A – Identifying Opportunities in Economic & Regulatory Trends

1. (economic change) Food price inflation, as a result of climate change
Global temperatures have spurred higher food prices since much of modern agriculture is dependent on corn and soybean crops, which have substantially smaller yields when temperatures rise above  84° Fahrenheit.
a) NY Times
b) This increase in food prices will naturally raise the demand for the corresponding foods
c) This will affect a majority of consumers but will acutely affect large purchasers of food e.g. supermarkets and restaurants.
d) This is a relatively easy opportunity to exploit do to the range of who it affects

As a Biotechnology major, this opportunity became apparent to me based on what I know about the food market and how this industry is highly dependent on corn and soybeans for a majority of its products

2. (economic trend) Leveling Interest rates
The Federal Reserve has kept inflation at its 2% target and has elected not to raise rates until 2021
a) The federal reserve
b) Lower interest rates mean more loans can be taken out and repaid
c) Entrepreneurs and small business owners benefit most from this
d) loans are a constant need for the economic world and thus this would ve an easy opportunity to exploit

As a student with debt to the federal government myself, my college experience allowed me to have a personal connection to this opportunity.

3. (Regulatory Trend) Recreational Marijuana
a) Ballotpedia
b) The possibility of recreational marijuana showing up on the 2020 referendum could greatly affect the opportunity for businesses like dispensaries to begin growing in Florida
c) Those who currently use medicinal marijuana along with potential recreational users (most likely older college students and young adults aged 21-28) would be prototypical customers

I likely found this opportunity due to the research I've done on this and similar topics for debates throughout high school.

4. (Regulatory Trend) Small business organization act of 2019
a) congress.gov
b) Re-organizing small businesses, making it easier to repay their debt will allow for current small businesses to thrive and more small businesses to be created
c) Entrepreneurs and small-business owners are the prototypical customers
d) This would likely be easy to exploit since most small businesses are in debt

I often hear much of how small businesses stimulate the economy, so the limited economics knowledge I have brought me to believe in this opportunity.