14A – Halfway Reflection

1) Tenaciousness is a competency. What are the behaviors that you have used (or developed) to keep up with the requirements of this course? 

Discipline is huge. When you are disciplined, you wake up early, you get task done, and you take no shortcuts. I believe this one of the behaviors I have used throughout this course. I’ve also changed my mindset in the mornings to be more positive. I am not much of a morning person, however, trying to change my behavior to a more positive and sociable one in the morning has helped me throughout the whole day,

2) Tenaciousness is also about attitude. Talk about a moment or two when you felt like "giving up." What pulled you through? Do you feel like you've developed a tenacious attitude during the past two months? What experience or experiences most contributed to this?

I was rethinking my business idea because there were too many factors to consider. I was dealing with work and school and I though that I was taking on too many responsibilities. I had a shear moment of giving up on the idea until after graduation. However, I pulled through by thinking of them not as responsibilities, but hobbies that I am passionate for. I love school. I love trading, and I really enjoy creating my business idea. I feel like I’ve created a tenacious attitude out of these past two months, and I can say that basketball in high school, along with AP classes helped. Going through rigorous classes and one hell of a strict coach, I knew I had it in me.

3) Three tips. What are three tips you would offer next semester's student about (1) fostering the skills that support tenacity and (2) developing the 'tenacious mindset' ?

1. Think of your responsibilities as hobbies. If you don’t like your responsibilities, form them into something that you can enjoy.

2. Think about your younger self in high school that got through many struggles, either school or family orientated and assure yourself that you will get through the next obstacle in your way. If the younger you got through that struggle, why can’t the older you face what’s in front of you?

3. Don’t believe you have the traits of a tenacious mindset? Find something (a puzzle, a difficult class, a challenging video game, or someone (a coach) and take it as serious as possible. Find out your flaws and be open to yourself of what they are and work on them.

13A – Reading Reflection No. 1

 Reading Reflection: Shoe Dog, Phil Knight

1)      My family doesn’t have much money. The main reason I can afford college is because of scholarships. Knight surprised me by his story by showing similarities that I see in myself when he started his rode to be an entrepreneur. In the beginning, he faced adversity with financial struggles. He took an entrepreneurship class, just like I am now and paved his way with brute determination. I love trading in the markets. I’ll trade anything. I lose a lot too and I fail as well. I admired his tenacity. His will to move past his failures. I didn’t even know why stocks moved at first, but there I was trading. Just like Knight’s knowledge about shoes at first, he didn’t know too much at first, but he went into a market with little to know about it and made something his own. During Knight’s transition from his accountant job to Blue Ribbon Sports, I loved how he finally went on his own. There are few things to not admire about Phil Knight, although, I think he should have held his job until he was making more money than his monthly salary. I remember when I was trading, and I quit my job too early because early success in the market. In the end, it all worked out for Phil, but what if he would have had several months with no sales.

2)      One of Phil’s competencies is his resilience, which is one of the main reasons why his early sales reach greater heights when he started Blue Ribbon Sports. Nike would not have been a company if it wasn’t for his multi-tasking skills either. Knight was juggling accountant jobs as he was selling shoes for track runners. And lastly, his awareness to consumer struggles. He was so passionate about shoes, that became determined to make a shoe for certain athletes.

3)      Like all stories, there’s mixed information. There’s different information found in his book then other articles online. I tried finding other sources about US customs targeting Knight and Nike, however, it made it more confusing for myself. Overall, great read, and I really enjoyed learning more about the entrepreneur that I’m a customer for.

4)      2 Questions and Why?

-          Do you think you can create a company from the ground up in this era that competes with Nike? Sometime in the future

I would love to ask this question because I feel like everything is established to us. We have everything we need. We already have our top five apps. Can Phil Knight recreate Nike in this era?

-          What is your biggest fear looking back at your past?

Everyone has their current fear to this day. I want to know what his biggest fear was after he already accomplished so much. His fear in the beginning may have been providing stable income for his family. Maybe his fear was bigger as he accomplished more.

5)      I think Phil’s opinion of hard work is simple. So simple that you need to just do it. Don’t think and just do it. Afterall, that’s a slogan that made millions. I love simplicity and I share that opinion.

11A – Idea Napkin No. 1

Idea Napkin

About Me: My name is Michael Almeida. I am 20 years old, and I am a Junior at UF. I am pursuing a degree in business administration with a specialization in finance. I have been trading in the markets since I was 15 years old. I opened my trading account when I was 18. I am very passionate about financial literacy taught at a young age. I love helping people financially. I believe everyone is going through their struggle, and if money is a problem, then it is a problem that can be solved. In my spare time, I stream live videos of trading, where people watch me and see how I trade. This is another way I make money. I want to revolutionize the trading world, especially the retail-traders who consistently lose money in the markets. I have connections to over 100 traders around the US who trade daily.

What am I offering? I am offering a product that analyses traders’ facial expressions as they trade to prevent any trades that are likely to lose money. This product is offered to all retail-traders who trade in the market, which is concerned with trading with emotion. The product will connect personally to the trader who is using the software. 

Demographics: I am marketing my product to any all traders whose primary income is trading in the markets. As well as traders who biggest problem is getting emotional with their money while trading. Trading can be done anywhere. However, I would like to focus on US traders for my product primarily. In the beginning, I want to target smaller locations with the highest trading activity; for example, New York, Chicago, Boston, etc.

Why do they care?  I believe that people, especially traders, whose primary income is in the markets, want to improve their ‘salaries’, their performance in the market. If there was any way to suppress their human emotion that is tied to their money, then I believe they would want the product. Every day a trader checks their account balance in their portfolio, and each day they may check several times. Every day they think of why it is that number, and they know the mistakes they made that resulted to where they are now. Most of those mistakes are emotion-based trading.

Core competencies: There is no product out there that connects personally to the trader. There may be some podcasts or articles that advise certain personality traits. However, it does not know the person’s trading habits. I have connections to many traders in the US who trade daily.

             I believe these five elements fit together nicely. My background supports the reason why I want to implement my product on the market. I have many connections that help grow the product, whether it may be diversifying facial expressions analyzed by the software, or marketing-wise. The demographics will solely focus on populations with the most trading activity to connect to the traders who need it most. Most importantly, I believe every trader, especially the ones living off their portfolios, want to increase their income. They want to better themselves while trading.  

12A – Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 1

Business Idea Recap (condensed): A software that analyses people’s facial expressions as they trade to prevent trades that are likely to lose money when producing certain facial traits.

Picking a segment: Keyword: Retail-trader

A section that might exist in my venture market is retail-traders, whose primary income is personal capital gains (people who make money trading in the market). All my interviewers are traders who rely on their on their portfolio’s performance to meet ends meet. Traders who only trade use personal decision base trades, no algorithms that buy or sell the securities for them. One of the traders I interviewed is a student at NYU, who pays tuition solely on profit made from his portfolio. He consistently has drawbacks in his portfolio that he has categorized as emotional drawbacks. The same problem occurs to a front-line trader who works for a hedge fund in New York who trades with emotion from time to time. Some of his most significant losses were the fear of missing out on opportunities, and thus, he purchased with feeling. The last person I interviewed is a UF student whose primary income (no other job) is trading in the market and has been trading for the previous two years. She believes she always mixes her emotions with her trading.

Interviews:

In the interviews, I made sure that the three traders’ primary income was from the market. All three of them were more than aware that they had the unmet need to have a way to manage their emotion while trading. When presented with the idea, they were surprised and thought it was a great innovation if it worked properly for different individuals.

What I learned in the interviews:

I learned that the demand for some product that suppresses human emotion while trading is high. The traders I interviewed said they would love the product; however, one was concerned with whether it worked properly with different people. All three of them found it difficult to this day to trade in the market with their money and have emotional ties to it. The student at NYU was more than willing to pay for the service if it worked correctly as well as the other two. One said she is unsure of what to do to find a solution to this problem. Again, I realized that the three people I interviewed solely make money in the market. If there was a way to increase someone’s salary by a considerable amount, they would pay for it. The three traders, when asked, “what are a few ways to cope with your emotion?” said they either listen to a podcast for advice, or any articles that give solid routines to go through that will tell them that they are trading with emotion. There is no product that connects personally to the trader’s emotion and who they are as a person.

How I would describe this segment:

Retail-traders, from novice to expert, trade with emotion from time to time. I believe that there are a lot of traders who are trying to find a way to suppress their emotions when trading their money. In this segment, most traders would pay for this software because, in the end, it will potentially increase their performance of their portfolio. Basically, any retail-traders who are trying to suppress their emotion will search google, podcast, etc. for ways to suppress their emotion in trading.

10A – Elevator Pitch No. 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvzkkpnThmQ

9A- Testing the Hypothesis, Part 2

Who: Many investment firms to this day still have active traders (humans), trading in the market with their strategies that they developed. However, many hedge funds use algorithms that are consistent with historical trends in the market. The bigger money as one of the people I interviewed in New York who works for Nomura Securities would say, is traded using their algorithms. Although, it may have not occurred to them that humans may do the same thing but can have their emotions suppressed. Others you may have the same need are retail traders but have issues with technology watching them and would not like to have my product. 

What: There is a fine line between suppressing human emotions ands completely erasing it with algorithms. There are several drawbacks in trading with emotion, as well as there are drawbacks by completely erasing human influence in trading (algorithms). One of the people I interviewed was an intern for a quantitative trading firm, a firm that trades strictly on algorithmic base. He told me that are several problems using algorithms (algos) because they follow some historical trend that may not be happening in this era, and so the algos performs terrible. He made me realize that there is a need for human cognition while trading with a limit for human emotions.

Why: I do not believe the need is different for people. The only difference would be the style of trading that hedge funds do. Whether it is trading with people or algos. The hedge funds who trade with algo only want to erase human emotions, the need for suppressing human emotion is still in my business idea. The fifth person I interviewed had trouble with the government always watching his every move so he rejected the idea. He did not like the fact that he was going to monitored as he traded.

INSIDE THE BOUNDARY:	OUTSIDE THE BOUNDARY:
Retail traders (experienced and novice), Hedge funds who have traders (humans). Investment firms (the big banks).	Hedge Funds that trade with algorithms who want to completely erase human emotions in trading.
To suppress human emotion while trading because there are several drawbacks to trading with emotion.	To eliminate human emotion while trading, hence why they have computers trading their money.
The need exists because humans have emotional ties with their money or huge lump sums while trading. And thus, lose money because their emotion takes over.	The same need exists, however, these outsiders believe that human emotion should be completely erased.