Growing Your Social Capital

by Josh Korthuis

Mr. Awad:

1) Who they are and what their background is.

Mr. Awad is one of my friends Dads and owns a furniture store in Melbourne, Florida. He will fill my Domain expert spot because he also has a small toilet section in his store. 

2) Which 'slot' you are filling with each person (i.e., domain expert, market expert, supplier), and how the person fills the spot.

Domain expert because he owns a furniture and home appliance store. 

3) A description of how you found the person and contacted the person.

He is my friend and old basketball teammates Dad so I asked my friend for his phone number. 

4) The nature of the exchange you have with the person -- what favor did they do for you? What is the return expectation? 

Mr Awad thought my idea of custom toilet seats was hilarious and said if I were ever to bring them to market that he would have a place for them in his store. He said I could sell them their and we would split the profits of it without a slotting fee. 

5) How will including this person in your network enhance your ability to exploit an opportunity?

It will give me a location to test my product before bringing it to market and give me real customer experience.

Mr. Neely

1) Who they are and what their background is.

Mr. Neely is one of my cousins Dads and works for a financial company in Denver where most of my family is from. 

2) Which 'slot' you are filling with each person (i.e., domain expert, market expert, supplier), and how the person fills the spot.

He is my expert on the market because he is always buying and selling stocks in things and knows what a good product looks like. 

3) A description of how you found the person and contacted the person.

I asked my cousin for his phone number and contacted him through that. 

4) The nature of the exchange you have with the person -- what favor did they do for you? What is the return expectation? 

Mr Neely found my product very interesting and thinks if I could find the right target market it could have success. He said he would be willing to help me try and find investors if I ever brought the product to market. 

5) How will including this person in your network enhance your ability to exploit an opportunity?

It will bring an expert to the business world to my team and help me make the right investment decisions. 

Mr. Doltan

1) Who they are and what their background is.

Mr Doltan works for a manufacturing company that makes lots of plastic products for companies who want them such as printing a company's name on hand sanitizer bottles form them to hand out as premiums. 

2) Which 'slot' you are filling with each person (i.e., domain expert, market expert, supplier), and how the person fills the spot.

Supplier to the industry, he has experience manufacturing products for companies. 

3) A description of how you found the person and contacted the person.

He is a friend of my moms so I asked her to text him to see if I could call him about this assignment. 

4) The nature of the exchange you have with the person -- what favor did they do for you? What is the return expectation? 

I told Mr Doltan about my idea for custom toilets seats and he laughed an thought it was crazy, but said it might be different enough to catch consumers eyes. I asked him if his company would be able to manufacture something like this if I were to ever build a prototype and he said the heating seats part would have to be separate but everything else is possible. 

5) How will including this person in your network enhance your ability to exploit an opportunity?

It will give me an idea of what it takes to manufacture a product and see if the costs the manufacturing will leave enough room for profit. 

This experience showed me that with a unique product people are usually willing to listen to what you have to say. I think this was a great experience to talk to experts in the business field and see what it takes to really bring a product it market. It makes me confident in my abilities to network in the future.