Growing Your Social Capital

1.     Matthew Toren is the founder of YoungEntrepreneur.com, and he grants many people advice and mentorship on how to make your idea become a reality. His website is one of the biggest social networking sites/groups for young entrepreneurs throughout the world.

2.     Matthew Toren can be considered a domain expert. He gives up-and-coming entrepreneurs great advice on how to start, grow and maintain their businesses and provides a platform where other people can help you through networking as well.

3.     I found this person on Twitter when I was looking up successful entrepreneurs. I found his email on the internet and also direct messaged him on Twitter.

4.     Sadly, Mr. Toren did not answer any of my messages yet. However, if he eventually does I am sure it will be extremely helpful advice or tips that I may not have thought of yet.

5.     Including this person in my network will make this idea become an actual business concept. He has much experience with all different types of projects and has given people the type of advice that can make them become millionaires (by following each step and through hard work and dedication).

1.     Jeff Bezos is the richest man alive. An entrepreneur, investor and best known for being the founder, CEO and president of Amazon, Bezos has accomplished more than imaginable.

2.     Because of the amount of people Bezos is able to reach, he and I share a similar target with college students. College students use Amazon more than necessary. Due to this, he is the market expert I decided to reach out.

3.     I think it was fairly easy to find this person. Everyone knows who he is and what he does. However, it was difficult to get in contact with him because of his magnitude of success. I emailed him (his email was quite easy to find) and direct messaged him on Twitter just in case he did not answer the email.

4.     Sadly again, I was left on delivered. If or when he responds, I will know how to market better to reach my target consumers and gain some better insight on how to run a successful business.

5.     Including Jeff Bezos in my network would completely change my life. Besides this business, I can explore all the business ideas I have and run them through him to see if they would be successful and what I would have to do to make it sustainable and expandable. He can turn a small business into a global necessity.

1. W. Kent Fuchs is the current President of the University of Florida. He has gained a lot of experience of working with other universities and overall helping out college students to success in the world.

2. President Fuchs is a supplier in industry. He allows people to use University of Florida’s own property and establish certain businesses or services that benefit its students. He owns the property that I would like to use for building a parking lot that would benefit students tremendously.

3. I found out about W. Kent Fuchs when I was applying to the University of Florida and I researched important people at UF. I was able to get his email from the UF website fairly quickly.

4. I emailed President Fuchs about hypothetically allowing him to let me build a parking lot on his property and saying how it would benefit the students who need this product. He did not answer my email, but when he does I am sure he will give me a well-written and thought out answer as to why I can or cannot do this and what I need to do to be able to accomplish this goal.

5. Including President Fuchs in my network would allow me to help the University of Florida and its students in a large way. I would be able to solve issues that he may not even know that his students encounter every day. In addition, it would give me the chance to solve the overall parking issue at the University of Florida.

I think that this experience will help me become more active and prepared for when I encounter future networking events. I practiced sending professional emails and understood what needs to be said to interest people of great success. Although not everyone I contacted answered my messages, I will continue to wait for their responses because their advice/answers go a long way in helping me become the entrepreneur I want to become. This experience differed from my networking experiences in the past because I only had the chance to email or message them rather than meeting up with them in person. This is important because a lot of business is done through emails and messages and I had the chance to polish up on my communication skills.