Growing My Social Capital

1) Domain Expert
a) I chose to interview my friend Daniel who works as a referee for both intramural flag football and soccer.
b) Daniel fills the domain expert slot. Daniel fills the slot because he is familiar with recreational college sports. He understands the industry I am trying to enter and the demographic I am trying to target. Many people that play intramural sports will be very interested in pick-up sports.
c) Daniel is in my business speaking class and he actually refereed one of my intramural flag football games. I told him about the assignment and he agreed to help me out after class one time.
d) We are friends. He said he would be glad to help with my assignment. He did not expect anything in return. We also cooperate together in our business class.
e) Daniel can get me connections to talk to people higher up in the intramural program, like the director for all intramural sports. This would allow me to test if my idea would be successful with the athletic demographic I am targeting.

2) Market Expert
a) For this area I contacted another friend, Jose, who works for the Southwest Recreation Center as an athletic adviser of sorts. He helps out in the weight room and around the facilities. He knows many athletically-focused people that attend UF. Essentially he is very familiar with my target customers.
b) Jose is my market expert because he has a great understanding of my target market. He also has done 'research' with the customers interacting with them daily and finding out some of their interests and needs when it comes to athletics.
c) Jose is in my professional fraternity and I've known him and been friends with him for over a year.
d) I just talked to him about my assignment and made him aware of it. We are already friends so I did not have to do too much networking!
e) Being in contact with Jose gives me an insider look, similar to Daniel, into the market I'm trying to focus on.

3) Important Supplier
a) So I emailed a supervisor for the website IMLeagues which serves as the platform for intramural sports for colleges across the country. I asked them if they were familiar with something similar to what I wanted to offer in my app, and their opinion on the viability of the venture.
b) They fill the supplier role because they are the provider for over 1000+ intramural partners across the US, they are familiar with how to organize and provide intramural sports to people everywhere.
c) I found the person through IMLeagues and have contacted them through email.
d) I just asked if they could take some time to give me their opinion. I told them I went to UF and was active in many intramural sports. I admire the program they have, it is very useful to organize sports and I could use a similar platform for my app.
e) Including this supervisor in my network will give me an idea of how to format and go after my market. It will give me the 'supplies' to start-up my idea

Reflect:
This was a great networking opportunity to expand my knowledge into my target market. This experience will give me both great information on the customers and how to enter the market. My networking with the supplier will give me a good idea how to format my app to be effective in supplying it to my customers. This was pretty similar to my past networking experiences.