20A - Growing Your Social Capital

Domain Expert: Sydney Gallagher
Sydney Gallagher is a University of Florida student. She is vegetarian and has been for about eight years now. Sydney has worked for and been involved with many organic eateries and genuinely values eating fresh, organic meals on a day-to-day basis. I went to high school with Sydney and have known her for many years so I wanted to speak with her about my business venture because I know she is passionate about nutritious foods. This person in my network will enhance my ability to know exactly what fruits and vegetables must be made fresh every single day in addition to what vegetarian meals are crowd favorites. If I were to go forth with my business idea, I would be sure to bring her on board.

Market Expert: Charlie Wilson
Charlie is the owner of Date & Thyme; a natural foods market and organic cafe located in the heart of old town Key West, Florida. Due to personal health challenges, Charlie began immersing herself into the world of natural foods at a very young age. She moved to New York in her twenties where she studied at the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts while also gaining experience in likeminded restaurants. I decided to reach out to Charlie because her business, which I am a huge fan of, is stationed in my hometown, and just blocks from my house. She was very happy to speak with me about my possible business idea and gave me great insight into what running a restaurant or eatery of this type is all about.

Industry Supplier: John Steyer
John, better known as Farmer John, is a local Gainesville farmer who sells his freshly-grown, leafy greens every Wednesday at the Union Street Farmer's Market. He is 80 years old and has been sitting in the same spot, selling the same goods for 50 years. John speaks very passionately about farming and has even said that he would choose farming over career advancement any day. He is a strong advocate for local farmers and encourages everyone to ditch the grocery store and buy local produce. I have witnessed this passion of his myself, as I am an avid visitor of the weekly farmer's market. In going into the freshly-made, organic meal world, I would definitely keep John as one of my greatest inspirations and go-to people for inspiration.

This assignment was definitely much harder and time-oriented than majority of previous ones and though I did struggle a bit, it gave me great insight into the skeleton of building a business of this kind from the ground up. I think expanding your network in any field is beneficial and you will only gain from it because it will only help your business, not hinder it. Though this assignment was similar to previous networking assignments I have done, it was different in that I wanted to gain perspectives and ideas that I have never thought of or considered. Moving forward, I will seek further opinions and thoughts of those whose values align with those of my business in order to make it the best it can be.