20A – Growing Your Social Capital

Domain Expert

Domain Expert

1. Who are they? 

• Chris Knox, VP of Youth Development Operation-South Florida YMCA branch 

2. How is this person a domain expert? 

• Chris has worked in non-profit for the past couple of years and is familiar with how it works and how to get ideas started in the industry 

3. How I found and contacted this person: 

• I previously worked with Chris during my internship with Bank of America and I have his email.

4. Nature of Exchange: 

• We didn't go into extreme detail, just generally talked about what it is like working in non-profit because that is what I am most concerned about with my business idea. 

5. How will including them enhance my ability to exploit an opportunity?:

• He is someone who provides the non-profit option side of my idea and can help me see if my service would survive in the non-profit world.  I would also like to talk to other people in this category to get more opinions. 

Market Expert:

1. Who are they? 

• Alvaro, a student at Santa Fe who frequently goes to restaurants and grew up in the same town I did. 

2. How is this person a domain expert? 

• Although not in the non-profit field, Alvaro is someone who’s family was affected by hunger and he also eats out at restaurants every weekend. 

3. How I found and contacted this person?

• We were friends in high school, so I just messaged him and asked him if he’d like to catch up and asked him a few questions about my service. 

4. Nature of Exchange: 

• It was incredibly casual since we were good friends in high school. Some of the questions I asked him included what he thought of my overall service idea, whether or not it would work, and if he knows any other families that are hungry that could be helped by this service. He gave me his honest opinion on every question I asked, he believes that my service could be successful if it was properly marketed and that it has the ability to help a lot of people, including people he knows. 

5. How will including them enhance my ability to exploit an opportunity? 

• Alvaro’s opinion helps me to better gauge where to guide my service and also gave me a first hand account of the potential it has to help me. If i were to eventually try to grow this service, I think he would be able to help me do so. 

Industry Supplier: 

1. Who are they? 

• Caroline Coyle. 

2. How is this person an industry supplier?

• Caroline has been in the supply industry for years and is familiar with what it takes in order to build connections and keep them lasting. She has been employed with several supply companies including Baxter, Johnson & Johnson, and several others. Ultimately, she helped me to gain more insight on the industry. 

3. How I found and contacted this person? 

• She is an old family friend and I have her phone number. 

4. Nature of Exchange: 

• I told her about my idea and how I would need vans in order to be able to distribute food to and from restaurants and food banks. She brought up the same concern that I have, how would I be able to afford the vans if I am doing non-profit. She explained that even for non-profit work, you're not just going to find vans and people for free. 

5. How will including them enhance my ability to exploit an opportunity?

• Caroline is incredibly good at creating connections and could be a great asset in helping me meet other people in my market. 

Reflect: This exercise showed me that it can be difficult to find someone within your market that does exactly what you want them to, however there may be many people who are willing to help and provide you with connections to help you meet other people. In the future, I will try to find more exact people that fit my market and use them to my advantage. I think the most important thing to remember is that your idea is original, and a lot of people like to help out with original things.