My first interview was with a man that some of you may know here on campus. His name is David Nassau, and he started the non-profit organization here at UF called Hopping 4 a Cure.
Now that we've got the introductions out of the way, we can talk about my first interview with him. I looked back at the questions I had asked him, and I noticed that the questions were really geared towards beginning entrepreneurs. It only makes sense, since at the beginning of the semester, I was still a beginning entrepreneur. Don't get me wrong, I still have no clue what I'm doing, but I do know a bit more than I did then, so yes I believe I've leveled up from beginning entrepreneur to aspiring entrepreneur. The questions asked things along the lines of "what should a beginner entrepreneur be prepared to face?" and "what can a beginning entrepreneur do in his/her power to be as prepared as possible for any situation?".
I've regularly been in contact with David since my first interview with him because I am involved in Hopping 4 a Cure, so throughout the semester I have been asking him several questions. I didn't want to bother him with asking these same questions again all at once, especially since this past weekend was our hopscotch tournament so he was very busy and stressed about getting that done. Instead, I'll just write about the questions I've asked him so far.
1. Did you use Kick-starter or another crowd funding site to get your organization going?
I didn't get it started using a crowd funding site, but I do plan on utilizing one for people to use to help them raise the money to compete in the tournaments. This allows people to raise more money than the $15 sign up fee, which is good for them because now they are able to get help from other supporters, and good for us because now each person is capable of raising more than $15.
2. What incentive do we offer businesses to get them to sponsor us?
Right now we have a few incentives, most of them being advertisement at our events, and a few others such as sponsor appreciation. Our main one would be putting their name and logo on the back of our shirts, and we offer our shirts as a free pass into our smaller events, people will wear them more often, which is exactly what those businesses want. They want people to be their walking billboard.
3. In what ways do we help contribute towards MS research?
Right now, being as small as we are, raising around $5,000 won't do squat for research, that will have to wait until we get bigger and start raising in the several hundred thousand to millions of dollars, which is pretty far down the road. But what we can do with that $5,000 is give out scholarships to those impacted by MS. Last year we gave out our first ever $1,500 scholarship to a guy with MS, who is now pursuing a degree in physical therapy. That, in my opinion, made a much larger impact on that man's life than $5,000 would've made to a research center.
David did notice a bit of a difference in me from our first interview. He said that now I was looking at things differently than last year. For example, me asking what incentives do we offer our sponsors is something I most likely would not have contributed to before. I too feel that I have come a long way through this class. My main accomplishment, I feel is how much I've built up on my business ideas. It all started out this semester as just an idea that I didn't think would catch on, but now I feel more confident that this is something that I could make into a reality.
