20A - Growing your social capital

Allan Malaki - Venture capitalist and startup owner
1) Allan is originally from the Philippines and moved here at the age of 20 years old. He did all of the schoolings in the Philippines and has a very tenacious attitude. He is also a certified CPA
2) I classify Allan as a domain expert because he has experience in the early phases of companies and currently has a successful startup that is based around accounting services for lower-end income people.
3) I actually found Allan through Couchsurfing a few months ago, as he hosted me in San Francisco for a couple of nights. As it turns out, he is a perfect candidate for the role I am trying to fill because of all that he has accomplished.
4) Allan was more than willing to share his knowledge with me. I had a great visit to San Francisco and we established a thorough friendship in the time being.
5) Having Allan in my network of people will allow me to prospect businesses on the west coast and how the start-up process is done over there compared to here. He is also 20 years older than I am and has much more life experience than I do.

Alexandre Pagani - Local start-up owner
1) Alex has recently started up his own social media marketing business here in Gainesville, and he is targeting all sorts of audiences including my audience, local students and residential people. He is also studying advertising at the University of Florida.
2) Alex would most definitely be categorized as a market expert. He is extremely knowledgable and adept at using social media and knows the ins and outs of capturing audiences and keeping them engaged.
3) Alex is actually my roommate
4) Alex was more than willing to help me out on how I should go about navigating social media and how I should approach the city of Gainesville and others about the idea.
5) Alex is my age and is adept at navigating social media and creating a network of people. By working hand in hand with him and hanging out with him more, I can see more of what he does at an interpersonal level with others and copy his good habits.

Seyi Oluwaleimu - Local Start-up owner
1) Seyi is another local start-up owner just like Alex, except Seyi sells stickers to others including other companies at competitive prices. He is originally from England and moved here to attend the University of Florida. He has always had an entrepreneurial mindset since the moment I met him.
2) Seyi fills the supplier spot because he creates his own stickers and acts as a supplier for other consumers.
3) I found Seyi because we are both in Innovation Academy at the University of Florida and have lots of mutual friends, and we are set to be roommates for the upcoming fall.
4) All of the people I have found, including Seyi, have been very happy to share their knowledge and stories with me since we are all such great friends. There is nothing in return except for that I share my experiences and stories with him as well.
5) Seyi is local and has a great network of customers that he has studied for a time, his shrewdness has allowed his start-up to do well.

Reflect: This experience has encouraged me to dive more into the networking field globally through social media and in my community by attending more networking events and creating new friends that are entrepreneurial.  By speaking to all of these business-oriented people I have found that they all have unique knowledge to share and there are loads of people to meet out there.

Comments

  1. Jared BrewsterJuly 13, 2019 at 2:37 PM

    Hello, good post and reflection. You seemed to find three experts that have the same message. In other words, they all seemed to stress marketing and networking are your most important asset in the business world today. I relate to your idea that you need to start attending more networking events and speaking to more knowledgeable people that may be able to help in your business venture.

    ReplyDelete

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