Emily's Entrepreneurship Blog

After reading about Steve Jobs' biography, I learned a lot about his journey as an entrepreneur. It's very inspiring that he started Apple by building computers with one other person in his garage. He did not grow up wealthy and he had to start from nothing after dropping out of college. It is surprising and very interesting to me that he dropped out of college, his reason being a lack of direction. It is widely believed today that you absolutely need a college education in order to succeed, but Steve Jobs was the exception to that. Although most of what he did in his life was very admirable, I believe he fell short in some areas because of his attitude. He seemed to act entitled and patronizing to those around him, since he probably knew he was always the smartest guy in the room. Although, that attitude probably helped him reach his success. He definitely faced adversity when he began the company, since him and Steve Wozniak had to start their company from nothing and give up...

The segment I have chosen is Instagram users who follow food blogs ages 16-24. The three people I chose to interview are: a 20 year-old female, a 21 year-old male, and an 18 year-old female. In the first interview I conducted with the 20 year-old female, I found that she runs into my unmet need and has difficulty finding a place to eat on a regular basis. She expressed that the first place she looks when she wants to find a new place to eat is definitely Instagram, but it is difficult to find somewhere easily. Although, she would like it more for when she's traveling places. She said it definitely affects her when she's just at home, but it bothers he when she's in an unfamiliar place and really wants to find a good place to eat. When she runs into this problem, she usually resorts to going on Yelp and looking at restaurants around her, but she is never very satisfied with what she finds. In my second interview, the 21 year-old male also runs into this issue. He expre...

My name is Emily Mintz and I'm a third year finance student at UF. One thing I really enjoy doing is traveling and experiencing new things. I have some experience working in the human resources department of a company as well as social media and advertising experience since I run an Instagram food blog, which I really enjoy doing. I see my business concept playing a significant role in my life because it would basically allow me to take my food blog to the next level and start an app that is based off of all major food blogs.  The product I am offering is an app that allows people to search Instagram's archives for solely food pictures in order to find desirable food and restaurants in their specific area. I am offering this to everyone who looks online for restaurant suggestions, but more specifically my users will probably be people who are familiar with the vast amount of food that gets posted on Instagram and these people will also likely follow one or more food blogs t...

Who: There are certain people who do not share the need for a way to search Instagram for food pictures. Some of these people are not avid social media users and do not understand the food blog culture and therefore are just not interested in using an app like this. Some other people do not eat out much or have dietary restrictions that would curb their interest in an app like this. What: One of the people I interviewed mentioned that they agreed an app like this would help, but some people would probably continue to use their existing methods of finding restaurants because they don't find it to be an active problem like I do. Why: I believe that the people who fall outside the boundaries of this need simply just do not care enough about this problem to make a change in their current routine. I, personally, find myself caring possibly more than others might because I am involved in the Instagram food blog culture since I run a food blog myself. ...

In my previous posts, the problem I identified that I believe exists is the lack of an efficient way to search for restaurants and food in an area that you may be unfamiliar with. A solution to this problem would be an app that effectively finds restaurants by searching through Instagram's archives. Currently while searching through Instagram itself for food pictures and blogs, you are able to search for a location but cannot specifically narrow down those pictures to only food ones, so it is very difficult to find a restaurant efficiently. My idea is to create an app where you can search a location and it finds Instagrams of food that have been posted that have over a certain number of likes, so you can narrow down the millions of Instagrams to specific ones you may be searching for. There are thousands of food blogs out there that have not been put to good use, and this app would create a search tool that would give all of these food pictures and blogs a purpose other than just l...

Searching for Food on Instagram Opportunity: People are unable to find restaurants and places to eat easily through Instagram's huge supply of food pictures and blogs The who: people who want to find restaurants The what: they are unable to easily find food and restaurants while in an unfamiliar place The why: there is no way to easily search Instagram by place and solely search for food and filter out the other photos Testing the who: Anyone who travels and needs to find a good restaurant to eat at could be a "who" for this app. Also, anyone who wants to find new places in their own area could benefit from this app. Testing the what: Some people are content with using apps like Yelp and Zomato to fulfill this need, but anyone who has seen food blogs on Instagram know that there are so many pictures of food that look delicious and would rather be getting suggestions on where to eat from Instagram's archives. Testing the why: There are hundreds of food bl...

Economic trend - Baby boomers aren't retiring when expected Source: https://www.thebalance.com/top-usa-future-economic-trends-3305666 I believe this means an opportunity exists because it's a problem economically that baby boomers aren't retiring and there has to be a solution to the problem that would help the economy.  The most likely customer for this opportunity are the baby boomers. The opportunity would probably be difficult to execute because the solution would be very complicated since we can't force baby boomers to retire and it would cost too much to provide them with a sufficient retirement fund. I saw this opportunity because it's very relevant that baby boomers are not retiring and I've seen it firsthand that many people from that generation don't have a good enough pension package that they have to continue working into their 70's. Economic trend - Growing income inequality Source: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/09/global-c...