19A

1) You. Who you are. What your talents are. What your skills and experiences are. Also: what are your aspirations? Specifically, regarding your business concept, how do you see this business (if you were to start it) playing a role in your life? 

-      My name is Kristie Alina Brenes. I am a General Business Studies major. I started college a little later than most. Before college I was in the United States Coast Guard for six years as a health services technician. Being in a branch of the military taught me responsibility and comradery that many people will never experience. I grew up living around the world my entire life as well as moving around for my job in the Coast Guard. This has given me the ability to make connections with individuals not matter where I am as well as an understanding of many different cultures and customs. My aspirations are to simply make a difference. My dad worked for the government helping third world countries start businesses that would ultimately create many jobs and bring in much needed revenue and I was able to experience the positive impact this had on so many people’s lives. I want to be able to accomplish something similar to this. If I were to start this business of a hydroponic farming market I believe this would play a major role in meeting my aspirations of making a difference especially when it comes to protecting our environment. 

2) What are you offering to customers? Describe the product or service (in other words, how you'll solve customers' unmet needs). 

-      With Hydro Market, a hydroponic farming market, what I am offering is a farm to table experience for customers. This will meet their need for fresh produce at reasonable prices year-round. I will be able to provide this because with hydroponic farming the produce is grown in a controlled environment where the plants are protected from bugs, unpredictable weather, and unfavorable growing temperatures. It will also meet the needs of environmentally conscious individuals in that it is a highly sustainable approach to farming as well as it leaving a much smaller carbon footprint than traditional farming and using far fewer natural resources. 

3) Who are you offering it to? Describe, in as much detail as possible, the demographic and psychographic characteristics of your customers. Think especially of this question: what do your customers all have in common?

-      This service and products will be geared toward environmentally conscious suburban and city dwellers in the middle to upper class brackets at first. Eventually I would want the prices of produce to allow all economic classes the ability to shop at the store but with startup costs it will be difficult at first. The reason this is geared more towards the metropolitan market is because these areas do not have the space for traditional farms which means the rely on products to be transported in from other areas. With hydroponic farming markets little space is required due to the fact that they can be grown stacked vertically as opposed to spread out horizontally. This creates the ability to provide fresh produce without the need for excessive amounts of land, farming equipment, and transportation of goods due to the fact they will be grown indoors and sold on site. 

4) Why do they care? Your solution is only valuable insofar as customers believe its valuable to them. Here, explain why customers will actually pay you money to use your product or service. 

-      Customers care, especially in the states that experience four seasons, because fresh quality produce is hard to find during months of inclement weather. Not only that but the prices increase as well due to the fact that they must be imported from other locations. Environmentally conscious individuals will also respect that fact that these hydroponic farms reduce CO2 emissions as well as use fewer natural resources. The price of my produce will be competitive with the market as well as the produce being available year-round. Customers will pay the money to use these hydroponic farm markets because they are home grown, competitive with market prices, require no pesticides, available year-round, and are grown in a more environmentally friendly way than traditional farming. 

5) What are your core competencies? What sets you apart from everyone else? Also: what do you have that nobody else has? 

-      To my knowledge there are no businesses that offer both hydroponic farms and the sale of the produce on site to customers. This farm to market experience and freshness of produce is what would set me apart from other competitors in the field. The produce has the ability to be picked and sold in the same day while being grown indoors in a metropolitan area which is a service no one else has to offer. 

¨    I believe all of these elements fit into my business design/model. I would have to ensure that all aspects of the business being run on a day to day basis aired on the side of being environmentally consciences. If this was unable to come to fruition than a big purpose of business model in hydroponic farming would be rendered useless. Basically, if I am able to connect all of the moving parts I believe these elements all play a major role in what this business would stand for as well as how it would be run. 

·     Feedback- Again on this assignment I had no feedback. I think maybe for future classes it would be important to pair people together for a certain number of weeks and switch because I am noticing an uneven amount of comments on certain people’s post’s and it makes assignments like this difficult to complete. I also don’t believe we should have to email it to the teacher to receive feedback if no one provides feedback because this just creates redundancy of the assignment when we already have to post these to blogs, YouTube, and SoundCloud.