Growing Your Social Capital

1) The first person I reached out to is a good friend of my uncle's. He lives in San Diego, where he designs and sells funny coffee mugs online. I sent out an email to him and would regard him as filling the slot of domain expert as he is engaged in the same sort of business that I would be doing with my t-shirt company. I have never met him before, but he and my uncle grew up together. He also works as an art consultant, where he goes into galleries to find pieces for his wealthy clients. I think that including him into my social capital would allow me to have a more mature insight into the workings of this sort of online retailer, such as how to manufacture the product. Furthermore, as an art consultant, he probably has a good idea of what sort of designs would look good on a t-shirt and could possibly give me insight into how to produce quality t-shirt designs.

2) A friend of a friend runs a fairly popular t-shirt/sticker company called Peace Alien. The company's central business model revolves around a design of a little alien doing a peace sign. She would be regarded as a market expert because Peace Alien also caters to young people in their teens and early 20's. In order to contact her, I texted her and we discussed how she reached out to the market and how she generated such an interest in the original Peace Alien tees. She said that she does most of the marketing through Instagram and other social media networks. Due to the fact that we have the same market demographic, I think that she would be a good resource as a market expert.

3) For the supplier, I emailed a company called MerchMaker, who didn't respond. I really didn't know who to contact for the supplier because I would like to mass produce the shirts someplace overseas to keep costs down, but I have no clue how to get in touch with that sort of place. Therefore, I emailed a domestic production company which could potentially be an ok starting point. Of course a supplier is an essential part of the company and the ability to have one is crucial. I will probably need to reach out to someone else, such as my friend who runs the Peace Alien company or my uncle's friend to see what they are doing and then sort of base my game plan off of them.

Reflect: I would say that this is definitely different than other networking exercises I have participated in simply because its more about making industry connections instead of just promoting yourself. Normally, its just me trying to get out there and meet people who might want to hire me later on, instead, this wasn't just about promoting myself, but also my business idea.