1. The domain expert that I talked to in my industry is an individual from GE's appliance customer service department. I first spoke with someone who did not know the inner workings of GE's microwaves. However, I was eventually transferred to someone more knowledgeable on the subject. Will is an engineer from Florida State University and has been working at GE for 2 years. He did indeed say that this invention is possible and that there was actually a product very similar to it on the market right now. However, this product only chills drinks and it is extremely expensive. This individual truly gave me more knowledge on my product and even gave me his number for questions in the future. This person being added to my network will definitely help when it comes to the technical issues of my product.
2. The market expert that I talked to was my friend, Josh's, dad. He is a Marketing manager for a Best Buy in South Florida. He has been working at Best Buy's marketing department for 8 years and knows an extensive amount of information on each appliance in the store. He even is aware of the individual target markets of each appliance in the store. He really helped me figure out how to gauge whether my target market is the correct one and said that the market for a regular microwave would be families. This individual could even help me when it comes to finding people who are interested in my product.
3. The important supplier I talked to was a customer service representative for K&L Microwaves. This individual has a vast knowledge of microwave parts that are distributed to brand name appliance companies. I found the customer service phone number on K&L's website and spoke with the first person to answer the phone. I explained my idea and they said that they would be able to provide certain parts that would go on a normal microwave. They also claimed to provide special order parts which may be useful when making my product. This individual provided me with the costs of ordering parts for a microwave as well as provided me feedback for my idea. This contact will be extremely important in the future when I want to build my product.
This experience definitely had a positive impact on my networking skills. I now understand how to not only talk to others when representing myself, but also when representing a company, I am used to networking through friends and family, but this provided me with a more professional form of networking. This will definitely be one of many opportunities for me to connect with others in the business world.
Hey Matt, great job on this post! You really put a lot of effort into finding these people to add to your network. Not only did you get really useful information regarding the supplies you would need and the logistics of making the reverse microwave, but you established contact with important people that will definitely help you in executing this. I agree that this exercise was a great learning experience for networking skills.
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