20A- Growing Your Social Capital

The first thing I did to help grow my social capital was contact my friend's dad who is an engineer at Scandit. He's one of the smartest people I've met and I thought it would be a good idea to get his input on my product. I would consider him a domain expert in this industry since he is involved with working with the software that self-scanners use to function. I reached out to him over the phone and explained to him my product idea. He loved the idea of eliminating the job of the cashier completely but he noticed that I hadn't thought of anything technologically different that I could incorporate into my self-scanner. As a result, he gave me the idea to develop a self-scanner that can bag your groceries for you by using a robotic arm. I thought the idea was very neat because as time passes humans continue to get lazier and want easy solutions. The problem is it could be costly to develop this robotic arm, but if I could produce it without it being too expensive, it could be revolutionary. Including him in my network will help me develop innovative ideas for the scanner due to his technical background with these products. Also, he might know some important people who would be willing to invest in my product.

The next person I contacted was my high school precalculus teacher's husband. He's an expert in this market since he has sold different products to major retailers before. He works for a company that makes office supplies that are then sold in retail stores. He is on their management team and is involved with selling these products to retailers by B2B transactions. I still have contact with my teacher and I asked her if I could get her husband's email address since I remembered her telling me that he works in an upper-management position for his company. I emailed him a brief description of my product and I asked him how to approach the upper-management at major retailers when selling my product. He explained to me that displaying confidence in your product is the most important step in this process. If the retailer can see that you don't believe in your product, they won't be inclined to buy it. By having him in my network, I would have someone who is knowledgeable with making transactions with these retailers which would hopefully help us to have a smooth sailing selling process.

Lastly, I contacted one of my mom's clients who works for a company that sells LCD screens. these are the digital screens that are used most often for self-scanners. Since I am in the business of manufacturing a self-scanner, I would consider him in expert supplier in my industry. He supplies these screens to manufacturers to use in the production of self-scanners. I sent him an email and explained to him that I came up with an idea for my entrepreneurship class and that I could use some feedback. He thought my idea of having self-scanners at every register was representative of the feelings of younger generations and that it could see promise in this new generation. Having him in my network will help me exploit an opportunity because he could become my direct supplier of these digital screens to use in my manufacturing process. By having a good relationship with him and returning him with a favor, hopefully he could sell them to me for a below market price.

Reflection: This experience differed from networking events I've done in the past because most of the networking I've done has been at in-person events. It took me a little out of my comfort zone because I'd much rather talk to someone in person in a networking setting than to contact them over phone/email because the latter makes me feel like I'm bothering them. Overall, I'm glad I did it because I got some valuable information and contacts for the future of my product.