20A- Growing Your Social Capital

My business is fairly unique and I have not been able to come into contact with anyone who is doing the same thing as me, so I called and interviewed a mobile car wash service instead, to get feedback on a similar business. This person, John, was my domain expert. John only gave me a few minutes of their time so I was only able to ask a few questions. I found the person online by searching boat washing Boca Raton and then only being able to come into contact with people who wash cars. I asked how he planned to expand his business and what his hiring process was because I wanted to know how he hired skilled professionals and not everyday workers who have the potential of making his business look bad. He told me that he goes off of existing workers recommendations. He also told me that my idea was a good one and he would consider expanding his business to let some of his workers work for me as well.

The second person I called was my expert on the market. I called a marina owner, to see what people store their boats at marinas. He told me that it was mostly middle to upper class males who have very high incomes. I called a high-end marina so I expected an answer similar to this. It sounded like we were targeting the same market, so his insight on the target customer was helpful.

The last person I called was a supplier, in which I called Home Depot. The workers at Home Depot told me that they carried everything I would need in order to wash boats and preform basic maintenance on the boats.


This experience helped me further specify what I would need to do in order to actually launch my business and what the likelihood of success would be. Overall, I enjoyed this exercise. 

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Comments

  1. UnknownNovember 5, 2017 at 3:02 PM

    It seems like this was a bit difficult for you as it was for me. My business is very specific as well because it focuses on specific air filtration systems. I had to contact people I did not know through LinkedIn and it was difficult to put into words what I was doing and what information I needed from them. I think you could have put a little more content in your reflection. You do not talk much about what this helped you learn about networking.

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  2. UnknownNovember 5, 2017 at 7:37 PM

    I like that since your idea is so original you had to expand to car wash's to ask your experts. This is good because the industry is similar enough that you can still get valid information from them. It sounds like you already know your market well since the marina owner didn't give you too much new information, which is a good thing.

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