Growing My Social Capital

1) One person must be a domain expert in your industry.

I met with a student leasing agent here at UF. I consider this person to be a domain expert because of their extensive and ongoing experience with leasing contracts they have acquired over the past year. I know this person through my organizational affiliation with them, and was able to approach her in person at a recent general body meeting, where we set up a time and location to meet and discuss my idea regarding my subleasing mobile application an online service. At our meeting, I presented her my first napkin idea and also discussed some of my interviews with her, and asked her for her insight. There wasn't an exchange of favors, we simply discussed the opportunities that my application presented and all of the components that would set my idea apart from already present platforms. Including this person in my network will enhance my ability to exploit an opportunity, because of the network that she has. While she is connected to other domain experts within her own company, she has past experience with other real estate agencies, as well as a myriad of peer entrepreneurial and tech-savvy individuals who could be valuable assets to my team and get this idea off of the books and into the app store.


2) One person must be an expert on your market.

This next individual is a member of my market, my ideal customer, making them my market expert. As a student enrolled here at UF who is also working part time, volunteering, and has specific housing needs, and has years of experience with subleasing their apartments across Gainesville they perfectly fit the general criteria for the majority of my market and had a ton of insight to provide. I actually happened upon this person in public. I was out at lunch with one of my friends discussing this idea, (I had brought up my brilliant entrepreneurial concoction upon her whining about not being able to find someone to sublease her apartment for the fall), when a stranger sitting behind me chimed in and asked about my application. We ended up spending the next hour discussing his past failures and successes with subleasing over the years, how his employment, financial, and travel situations necessitated this ongoing short-term leasing extravaganza, and how he and others in his own personal network have tried their best to overcome the hardships that follow with leasing out their contract for short terms. The favor they unknowingly provided me was their knowledge, but in the end this person did expect something in return: they wanted to know when I got this application off of the ground I would contact them, and so we exchanged Facebook information. This person has a great amount of experience with short term leases in the local area and working with other students to meet each other's leasing needs. He understands the trials and tribulations associated with the process of locating and also selling leases, and thoroughly understands the target market's unmet needs. Furthermore, his network can be utilized to promote and advertise this application or online service and help acquire a mass amount of customers.


3) One person must be an important supplier to your industry.

This person is an employee of College Magazine, providing PR, marketing, and advertising through print and online publication for organizations and firms in my industry with the same target market: college students. This student editor I contacted will serve as my "supplier" for this post, as they have experience working with other organizations and markets to write articles regarding their services and gearing it for a target audience of college students. I was connected to this person by a friend of mine who is in the College of Journalism with this individual, and was aware of their employment with College Magazine as well as their availability and contact information. I reached out via email to set up a meeting place and time to have a short discussion regarding their expertise in application to the development of my idea. The exchange was simply that of discussion and knowledge, and there was a small return expectation. She, the College Magazine employee, simply invited me to keep in contact with her and let her know if I ever got my idea off of the ground and running so she could write about it. While the conversation started with the idea itself and the feedback I had received in junction with the progression of the application development, the meat of the discussion was regarding her area of expertise and what she knows about marketing an organization's attributes to college students, and how to best gain the attention of college students. This awesome woman is going to be a vital part of my network in order to help enhance my ability to get this service off the ground and pull in the attention of potential customers.



This experience in contacting relevant members of expertise in my industry has propelled me forward in this endeavor. Furthermore, my perspective on this project has been broadened and I have been able to identify necessary team members that will take this project and make it go viral. Although this was a simple "assignment" for a class, targeted networking is something I will definitely be making a routine practice with all of my ideas and endeavors at future networking events, I hadn't realized how resourceful other individuals truly were up until I was activated to contact experts in the field. This was different than networking experiences I've had in the past because I had a purpose and a project underway. Other networking events I've been to are concerning my own personal human capital and learning about others in the same manner: at a surface level. This has probably been one of my favorite exercises, I truly engaged with this assignment and will practice it for years to come!