Applying the Timmons Model

I prefer the Conjoined Triangles of Success model, myself, because after all, "now they teach it at business schools."

Please tell me you like Silicon Valley and get that reference for the joke?

But back to the Timmons Model... and applying it to where I used to work.

Final assessment: Please assess whether the three components align.

I think the three components align well. Opportunity and Resources support each other especially well since the community attracts the people who have the need for it and those with a need for it are attracted to the community. The geographic location is our unique competitive advantage and is a key part of buying a home/selecting a community, and this becomes even more imports when you have a family. The team's job is basically to support alignment at all times, so I'd say the team is in alignment with the core need and using the resources to achieve it.

Forming An Opportunity Belief

1) Your beginning point. Do you have a belief, supposition, or feeling than an opportunity exists? 

I believe there must be a better way (more efficient, cost-effective, or environmentally friendly) to dispose of used motorcycle helmets. (like mine, pictured above).

2) Describe your belief. 

The unmet need is the wasted space taken up by used helmets, either in a person's home or in a landfill. The need is only by motorcyclists, specifically a motorcyclist who has been in an accident or used their helmet frequently for over five years. The need comes from as long as motorcycle hemet manufacturers have been designing helmets that lose their integrity after impact or molding to a person's head, i.e. their safety feature is what makes them not reusable. People hang up old helmets in their home as decoration, turn them into flower pots, turn them into lamps, or permanently damage the helmet in a way that no one could accidentally reuse it. Some use it as a second rider helmet, but that is not ideal either. I am 50% sure that an opportunity exists, because I see the opportunity but I also know people aren't quick to change their ways and the motorcycle community is no different.

Does this need extend to bicycle helmets?

3) Identify the prototypical customer. Motorcyclists (because it is the only activity requiring a motorcycle helmet)

4) Iteration No. 1: Instead of one interview, asked a little bit of several people.

Called Broward Motorsports in West Palm Beach: They will not accept used helmets and have no idea what to do with old helmets. They suggested selling the old helmet on eBay. I asked the person I talked with what he does with his old helmets and he says he keeps them "with his stuff." It was not an issue for him. I didn't ask further, but I assume it is less of an issue because he probably gets an employee discount so he doesn't feel the hurt of the full value of a $120 helmet.

Spoke with a classmate in plastics who confirmed the mix of materials makes recycling not a viable option. In case you didn't know, most helmets have EPS foam liner, nylon or polyethylene straps, a plastic buckle and the shell is plastic maybe PET but maybe polycarbonate, fiberglass or ABS hard shell.

Spoke with the boyfriend, his helmet was $400 (whoa! and that was on sale!), some sort of specialty helmet. He never thought about what he would do if he didn't need it anymore, he just assumed he would resell it on eBay. In reality, I think it would retain a good amount of its original value if it hasn't formed to his headshape too much or if the new user has a similar headshape to him. I guess an average height male has a better chance at finding a resale customer than me, a taller than average female. Some quick googling found out that nearly 25% of riders (helmet-users) are female. Just knowing what kind of shoppers we are though, we are not going to get a resale helmet and jeopardize our safety for a discount.

Talked to another rider who sold all the gear when he sold the bike, didn't even occur to him there might be difficulty selling a used helmet.

5) Reflect. Helmet buyers are not thinking about the disposal process until years later, when they need to. Disposal problems only come up if they can't resell the helmet easily.

For some reason, getting manufacturers to care about environmental disposal or getting consumers involved is difficult. A promising program in Portland failed.

This need is probably applicable to bicycle helmets

6) Repeat twice more steps 3, 4, and 5. Please be explicit with each step in your blog post.

7) Summarize. At first, I thought this was a huge, obvious opportunity for motorcycle helmet part recycling. Then I realized, not all motorcycle helmet buyers and users are experiencing the same scenario I am.

Since I bought my helmet in the last few years, perhaps I'm subject to a younger generation that has grown up with warnings to only buy new helmets, never used. So I'm part of a new group experiencing difficulty reselling the helmet, and has guilt over (1) not recycling and (2) keeping junk items in my home.

The reasons to get rid of a helmet are limited.
1) You were in an accident, in which case the helmet is trashed and belongs in the trash (you think trash, not recycling). You're not thinking about the environment, you're thinking damn I'm lucky to be alive, and perhaps the emergency crew took care of throwing away the trash like the helmet scraps.

2) You are getting rid of the bike. In that case, keeping the helmet on the shelf might be a nice way to remember the good ol days of riding. The gear really doesn't take up much space, you may forget you even have it and it becomes more of a memento. Helmets don't have the commitment that financing a motorcycle does, and they look cool as part of all the gear and sports equipment in the garage. Alternatively the helmet and gloves might be part of the package, i.e. selling the bike and everything related to it. 

 

Otherwise, people keep their helmets, especially as rider helmets. The helmets that get thrown away are more likely bicycle helmets. Many more people have bicycle helmets and bike helmets need thrown away when they start to erode, look gross, or otherwise become unsafe to wear.

Is there a trade-off between adapting and staying firm? Absolutely, but I think this scenario is closer to the invention of grocery carts. Shopper didn't know they needed or wanted this convenience, so they needed taught. I think getting manufacturers to change their materials is worth it and consumers can be educated that knowing where the helmet goes when it "dies" is important when they buy a helmet. Just like the marketing push to teach people to wear a helmet has been effective, teaching people to buy environmentally friendly materials can be used too, we need an environmentally friendly helmet to be manufactured first though in order to buy it!

Tweaking the Innovation

1) Sketch out the product/service mix for App Solution & optional mullion accessory:

Note: Green border indicates profitizing opportunities

2) Map each item:

3) Describe the innovations. 

Need 1: The app's technology to scan the grocery receipt and load/calculate expiration and spoilage dates is innovative technology. Instead of applying it to the store's inventory management, we are extending it to the consumer's home grocery inventory management. The recipe suggestions are also reversing the steps consumer typically take to use a recipe. Usually they pick a recipe and then go to the store and buy the ingredients, but the reserve is happening. Consumers went to the store and bought groceries, and the recipe now has to match up with the ingredients they need to use up. The recipes are both the product (tangible) and the augmented benefit of not wasting time trying to think of what to do (embrace the laziness!).

Need 2: The grocery store distribution channel is innovative. Typically the produce comes from the supplier to the grocery store then to the customer. For example, green bananas are shipped to the store, and the consumer buys perfect bananas that are just starting to ripen. The innovation is that if the consumer decides he or she does not want the banana for sure (will not use it in a recipe, freeze it, extra to avoid waste), the consumer can become the provider for the ugly fruit store. The composting is innovating in that it also embraces human laziness. We finally got trained to put a recycle bin next to our trash and think as we toss out items. The app is training wheels or baby steps towards a third bin we need, a compost bin. The reason the third bin is harder for people to adopt is that it requires having a smelly compost pile in the backyard, so this app removes that inconvenience.

Need 3: The App introduces good judgment where we were previously comfortable with a certain level of human error. By telling us we really shouldn't buy that item because we never eat all of it anyway and it costs us wasted $ amount, we are forced to recognize the monetary cost of our poor judgement. The mullion is in the augmented circle because we don't quite have a need yet to not waste time manually entering the inventory of our fridge into a database, but once we start using the app we will need that. Being able to look at your front door, your pets, or your fridge from the cameras in your home just using the app on your phone is the way of the future.

Need 4: This one was pretty lean to begin with, so it's hard to think of where the innovation is. The need essentially comes from the complaint my boyfriend and I have that "the produce was bad" at Publix today or the relief we have that "there were great produce choices at the store today." We've been discussing perhaps keeping some sort of chart, so we can figure out which of the two stores near us restock on which days, so we know which days of the week we should do our grocery shopping. Moreover, I went to the store yesterday (Monday) and they were actually OUT of two non-produce items I needed: red pepper flakes and fruit jelly. I tried to make a mental note that Mondays must be awful grocery shopping days since the weekend is so busy, but I know I'll forget. If the app could tell me the best days to get new produce so it will last the longest, I would find a lot of benefit and need fulfilled by that!

My Solution

SOLUTION 1: THE APP

A potential solution is a phone app that centralizes the data and pushes information out to the consumer. A potential add on is a compatible mullion to be installed on your home fridge. Total cost must be affordable to appeal to consumers (unlike the $6,000 smart fridge).

INPUT:

• Consumer scans the receipt at the grocery store (must be compatible with all chains)
• Consumer manually adds an entry for leftovers
• Consumer manually swipes right or left on list of fridge/pantry ingredients to indicate "Used" or "Trashed" (app should remind user to update this twice a week during trash night)
• Smart Fridge Manufacturers make their fridge compatible with our app, then fridge provides expiration dates, used/unused ingredients and suggested grocery list
• Our branded mullion can be purchased and installed on home fridges
• Our branded pantry version of the mullion can be purchased and installed in cabinets
• Consumer inputs household headcount and trash/recycle nights

OUTPUT:

• App populates a list of "what's in my fridge/pantry" (avoid waste by not buying something you already have) separated by which items are recommended to be in the fridge or the pantry
• App populates "expires in 2 days" onto the user's calendar (must be compatible with google calendar, outlook calendar, etc.)
• App uses formula to determine typical consumption time of items you have, and populates a suggested grocery shopping list (i.e. you are probably running low on OJ by such date because it takes a family of four five days to drink the gallon you bought when you bought it)
• If SmartFridge or Mullion installed, App populates a suggested grocery shopping list (because it can see what you are running low on)
• App populates a list of items that are now "trash" (expired, spoiled, etc.) and separates the list by recycling, trash and compost. This way cleaning out the fridge is easy and environmentally friendly.
• App does push notifications to remind consumer to update it AND in the push notification indicates how much money/value was saved to motivate consumer to update it and keep using it
• App keeps running tally of cost of food wasted and value saved

SOLUTION 2: THE FRIDGE

Somehow make the smart fridges more affordable and user-friendly... http://www.cnet.com/news/touchscreen-refrigerators-and-talking-everything-at-ces-2016/

Assessing the Problem

1) Figure out who might have the problem / unmet need. 

• People who bought groceries and are putting them in the fridge (must own a fridge). People coming out of the grocery store have just spent money on the groceries and the value is fresher in their mind.
• People who had to clean out their fridge for trash night (must own a fridge). Neighbors who have their trash can out on trash day have the waste fresher in their mind.
• Someone who has recently purchased a fridge. People leaving an appliance store after purchasing a fridge have it fresh in their mind what they were looking for when buying a fridge.

2) Come up with an interview approach.

If Publix:

• We are finding out more about food waste, which is food you throw away because it spoiled or expired before you could use it. May I video or audio record you?
• Were any of those groceries you just bought replacements for foods you had but that went bad or expired?
• What percent of those groceries you just bought do you estimate will end up in the garbage because they spoiled or expired?
• Why do you think you let your food spoil, expire or otherwise go to waste?
• What's your estimated value of your wasted food in a week?
• If there was a phone app that synced with your grocery bill and put the spoilage dates on your calendar for advance notice, would you be interested in using it?
• Would you be willing to pay for that app?

If Neighbors:

• We are finding out more about food waste, which is food you throw away because it spoiled or expired before you could use it. May I video or audio record you?
• When is the last time you threw away spoiled or expired food from your fridge or pantry?
• Do you routinely clean your fridge or pantry out on trash nights? If not, when do you discover that the food has gone bad?
• Do you consider food past its expiration date to have "gone bad"?
• Is there a particular food item or type of item that is repeatedly part of your household's food waste?
• Why do you think you let your food spoil, expire or otherwise go to waste?
• How much food waste do you have in a typical week, either in quantity of items thrown out or percentage of your weekly grocery purchases?
• What's your estimated value of your weekly wasted food?
• If there was a phone app to scan your grocery bill and put the spoilage dates on your calendar for advance notice, would you be interested in using it?
• Would you be willing to pay for that app?

If Appliance Store:

• We are finding out more about home refrigeration use. May I video or audio record you?
• In your lifetime, how often have you gone out and purchased a refrigerator for your home?
• What qualities do you look for in a fridge to determine which to buy?
• If there was a fridge that could notify you before food spoiled, would you be interested in it?
• Would you be willing to pay for that fridge?

3) Go talk to customers! 

Audio Files:	Neighbor A	Neighbor B	Neighbor C
We are finding out more about food waste, which is food you throw away because it spoiled or expired before you could use it. May I video or audio record you?	Audio	Audio	Audio
When is the last time you threw away spoiled or expired food from your fridge or pantry?	2 weeks ago	1 week ago	Today
Do you routinely clean your fridge or pantry out on trash nights? If not, when do you discover that the food has gone bad?	No, when I go to use it	No, when I go to use it	Yes, on trash nights
Do you consider food past its expiration date to have "gone bad"?	Yes	Sometimes: dairy yes, but dry goods no	Yes
Is there a particular food item or type of item that is repeatedly part of your household's food waste?	Vegetables	Leftovers from restaurants	Dairy, sandwich meats
Why do you think you let your food spoil, expire or otherwise go to waste?	We don't cook as much as we think we will when grocery shopping	I forget that it's there	Don't want the same meal as often as I think when grocery shopping
How much food waste do you have in a typical week, either in quantity of items thrown out or percentage of your weekly grocery purchases?	2-5%	10%	5-10%
What's your estimated value of your weekly wasted food?	$30 to $40	$20 or less	$20 to $25
If there was a phone app to scan your grocery bill and put the spoilage dates on your calendar for advance notice, would you be interested in using it?	Yes	Not really (like the idea but wouldn't use it)	Not really (like the idea but wouldn't use it)
Would you be willing to pay for that app?	Yes	No	No

4) Tell us what you learned about the opportunity. 
I think the food waste is just a result of errors in human judgment. We don't seem to be too far off the right amount of food as I initially thought. I originally thought the waste would be around 33%, but with 5% waste it's not such a problem. Also, people are lazy and want things to take of take care of themselves, not have an app that basically is you managing your own calendar of expiration dates and needing to think to check it.

5) Tell us what you learned about interviewing customers. I didn't think of the variety of lifestyles, some neighbors are younger, some have more people in their household, etc. so I need to tweak the questions a bit (I needed to be clear with neighbor B to make sure she is the one in the house who works on the fridge, and for neighbor A she might have been more comfortable in Spanish). None minded that I talked to them for a few minutes about my school project, probably because their young kids have all kinds of weird school assignments (papermache dinosaur, diorama, mobile, etc.)

Looking for Opportunity

Economic Trend Opportunity: Another Day, Another Hack (found at LA Times)
"Another day, another security breach. They'v almost become routine to many of us." "If you are online at all, you can assume you've been hacked."

Opportunity: The obvious opportunities are (1) selling security products to companies who of course don't want to get hacked and (2) selling a password keeper product for consumers to remember harder-to-hack passwords. However, this article provides a new perspective. The professor interviewed had his students do a risk assessment of themselves. Selling a risk assessment product for your data would be a good opportunity, much how people these days like to check their own credit score with an independent product.

Difficulty/Why Me: The easiest opportunities to exploit are selling security products to companies and selling a password keeper to consumers. The self risk-assessment product is moderately difficult to exploit because it would probably require providing some information to the system, which means that system might be hacked for your data. If it was packaged with a credit report as a dual self-assessment product it would be much easier to sell to customers. The professor is using this idea to teach his students important lessons, but I think its a great product to take outside the classroom.

Economic Trend Opportunity: Another Day, Another VR Announcement (found at WSJ)
There is so much media hype around the big companies (Google, Facebook, etc.) who are investing big amount to create the next big thing: Virtual Reality. 

Opportunity: We've been hearing about it and hearing about it, so when will these products finally come out? (at affordable prices at the mass-consumer scale) And once they do, who will win? The market leaders creates opportunity them it because of all the accessories and content that will need created to apply the VR technology to use. (Think Nintendo, Playstation and Xbox console wars) We just don't know if we should make that content for the Google platform, Oculus code, etc.
Difficulty/Why Me: This should not be difficult at all to exploit, there's a long-standing relationship of platform companies relying on other companies to make engaging content that keeps their product popular. I see the same opportunities everyone else does. The hardest part is waiting!


Regulatory Opportunity: "White Collar Overtime Exemption (found at Department of Labor)
On May 18, 2016, President Obama and Secretary Perez announced the publication of the Department of Labor’s final rule updating the overtime regulations: (1) Sets the standard salary level at the 40th percentile of earnings of full-time salaried workers in the lowest-wage Census Region, currently the South ($913 per week; $47,476 annually for a full-year worker); (2) Sets the total annual compensation requirement for highly compensated employees (HCE) subject to a minimal duties test to the annual equivalent of the 90th percentile of full-time salaried workers nationally ($134,004); and (3) Establishes a mechanism for automatically updating the salary and compensation levels every three years to maintain the levels at the above percentiles and to ensure that they continue to provide useful and effective tests for exemption. Additionally, the Final Rule amends the salary basis test to allow employers to use nondiscretionary bonuses and incentive payments (including commissions) to satisfy up to 10 percent of the new standard salary level. The effective date of the final rule is December 1, 2016.

Opportunity: Employment lawyers and Human resources consultants will be getting plenty of hours working with their clients to determine the steps to take to be in compliance. Corporations will be the prototypical customer. Most of the work will fall on the company's Human Resources department, but ultimately, HR will submit their proposed changes to legal counsel or outside consulting for final review before submitting it to the board for approval.

Difficulty/Why Me: I think any person already in a capacity for evaluating HR practices or compliance knows this change is going to generate a lot of work. It's been updated 36 other times since it was initially made a law in 1938 and we've had the heads up since 2014 that this change is on the horizon. It should be relatively easy to exploit since running the proposal by legal is a standard best practice for HR.

Regulatory Opportunity: Florida Senate passed bill for Competency-Based Education (read in Sun-Sentinel and reviewed on Florida Senate website)
Sets up a five-year pilot program starting in 2016-17 for Pinellas, Palm Beach, Lake and Seminole counties to let students advance through school if they can prove they've mastered lessons. (HB 1365)

Opportunity: Graduating early from high school and attending college before 18 carries with it a certain level of prestige in our society. I think this new program will create a lot of business for the tutoring companies. Parents of means will likely be the prototypical customers who pay to have their children's education supplemented by private tutoring ($) for the reward of an early graduation and a head-start in life.

Difficulty/Why Me: I grew up attending private school, so our parents were already encouraged by the school itself to pay for private tutoring especially for the SAT exams. Nearly all my classmates were enrolled in private tutoring and those who were not did not score as high, so not getting private tutoring held you back from success. Because I am familiar with this environment, I think this exactly the group that would pay to get their kids through school faster, especially because even one year less of private high school tuition could pretty much cover the costs of all that private tutoring. This is a moderately difficult opportunity to exploit because it is a pilot program. Getting the success and appeal of the program out there for parents to buy into require a successful marketing campaign.

Very Short Interview No. 1

*Warning to Vegans and PETA enthusiasts this is an interview with a beef cow farmer*

I've always enjoyed the view from our farmhouse, which is the neighboring field of cows. MOOOO!

 

Growing up, these neighbors both owned the land and operated a diary farm. One of my fondest memories as a little kid is going up the lane with my grandmother to the neighbor's barn and getting to milk a cow (the modern way, where you milk by hand just to get it started and then hook up the milking machine), and then being able to dazzle my classmates back home in South Florida about "what I did on summer break" because milking a cow is pretty darn cool.

Today, there are still cows in the field across from our house and the land is still owned by the same neighbors, but they don't run their dairy farm anymore. They shut down the whole business, which was one of the largest dairy farms in the region. If you're not familiar with dairy farming, it's a lot of work, more than crop or beef farming or anything else I can think of, so be happy for those neighbors who finally get to entire the retirement they worked so hard for. Anyway, since their land was already setup for cows, they rent their land to a local beef farmer. That's Frank, and that's who I interviewed.

I was really excited to both meet and interview Frank A. (last name withheld so you won't google him) because I hadn't worked with him yet but my family has and despite my knowledge of moo cows (my cousins had dairy cows too) I know next to nothing about beef cows, and as a landowner it is worth finding out if I'd benefit more from renting to crop farmers or beef farmers.

Interview typed out questions and answers. C for Christie and F for Frank.

C&F Introductions to each other.

C: So, these are your cows right?

F: Yeh, I rent the land from Bob N., but these are my cows.

Note: I withheld the land owner's last name as well for his privacy but it's the neighbor I talked about in the introduction.

C: They're beef cows? Right? Not milk cows?

F: No, not milk cows.

Note: I wish I'd ask if you can tell by looking which kind of cow it is!

C: What kind of yield do you get on your cows, each... yeeear?
F: Oh, I got about 850 last year. I change the bull each year. I trade him in though when I buy the new one. I got some real good ones, a buddy of mine takes them up to Colorado for the testing and everything. He called me this year and said he didn't think he'd get a good price for the bulls so I bid $5,220. The other fellow didn't want to pay the extra $220 so I got him. A few days before the bull was supposed to get here, he called me and said they could only take the bull as far as Kentucky. I asked the driver to call me when he got there so I could meet him. He called me at 10:30 the day he arrived so I headed out but I went south to Evansville first and got all turned around, and when I finally got in the driver told me the right highway to take back, but it was the windiest road I ever drove on so I pulled over and went back to check on the bull. He was laying down but doing fine, and kind of looking like he just didn't have his sea legs. Had to keep him in the shed when we first got back, so we'll see how he does.
Note: Cool to learn that bulls are basically traded in like when buying a new car and considered an investment, like a new piece of equipment that is supposed to improve profits. My team used the bidding trick in the global strategy game when we bid $5,002 and outbid others who put in $5,000. I don't know how often cows are harvested, so I defaulted to a per year measurement. But I was looking for how many cows are sold off so I tried to clarify in my next question.

C: How many of your cows can you sell each year?
F: Oh, I sell the calves. But I wait and sell them in February when the price is higher.
Note: Whoa, does this make him a veal farmer? There are about 5 calves in the herd at this field. And I didn't know there was a harvest season for cows that drives the prices down. Corn is similar, we typically store our corn in our silos (not all farmers have silos) for later sale and what we can't store we sell right away after harvesting. Overall, spreading our sales out protects us from the risk of the fluctuating sale price of corn.

C: How many cows do you have?
F: 'Bout forty, but I have three different locations where I have them.
(F pauses and gestures to really far away at the end of the field)
Black cows are really hard to spot, but you wouldn't think it. They get up back along the trees and just blend in. Whenever I come out to check on my cows, first I have to find them. Sometimes I just wait a bit and then the one with the white face turns and then I've spotted them!
(C squints)
C: Whoa, they actually do blend in. The tree trunks look black too in their shade!
Note: The cows have a good amount of land to roam, in search of yummy grass for their non-stop eating, so even if they were purple I think finding them would definitely be a pain in the butt. I lose track of my pink golf ball on the golf course, I'd never find a cow.

C: Do you live close by? To check on all those fields...

F: (chuckle) 11 miles up the Rio Grande where it turns south.
Note: He's clearly lived there forever and knows everyone in the town, so it's so obvious I'm a non-resident when I ask where he lives.

C: How long have you been doing this?

F: (chuckle) Since 1983.

Note: This is clearly since before I was born, hence the chuckle at my asking about his experience.

C: Have you always been a farmer?
F: No. I wanted to move out here to have more space. We had 3 acres in the city, but not much you can do on 3 acres. You can't hunt or hardly do anything. Some neighbors let me farm their land, started with weed trimming, they didn't want to be bothered with it, and went from there. See (gestures to center of field) I tried to grow some grazing crop out there for this year but it didn't take in time, I wanted them to have it to graze on, but it looks like it didn't grow. I've done hay some years, but not the past few. I do feed 'em though up at the barn.
Note: It is planting season now but it's been really rainy, posing various problems for growing crops.

C: So you also have to come out and feed them? They're kind of skittish, if I walked too near the fence I noticed it, but when Brian had his truck out here, as soon as they heard the sounds of his truck door opening and closing they all came up to the fence and stared. I'm guessing you use a truck? They did eat up all the yellow weed flowers the other day, so they took care of that!
F: Yeah, I come out and feed 'em. They know when it's feeding time. Oh, they eat constantly. They've about eaten everything in there.  When I come up, they know it's me, but if there's a stranger or I bring someone else with me, it's real funny how they do, they know it and won't come near.

C: How many years can a heifer have calves?
F: They have one about once a year.
Note: Not what I meant to ask, I'll try again.

C: For how many years?
F: 18 or so.
Note: That's also not what I meant, I don't know how to say it, so let's get awkward.

C: Is there a cutoff time for them to have babies? Like, I'm at an age where adult women like to constantly tell me "You better have children before it's too late" because of aging. Do cows have that?
F: Well I run mine up to 18 or so but you're probably only supposed to maybe up to 10 or 12 years.
Note: That's what I was wondering, sorry for the awkardness.

C: Nature is pretty much for the same for everything then.
F: Just like adult women, some are better mothers than others. One winter a came up, knew a heifer was about to drop a calf. She dropped the calf before I got there and when I showed up she looked at me like "I don't want nothing to do with this," wouldn't nurse it and walked away from the calf. I had just had a knee replacement but I had to pick up the calf and carry it back to the barn. We gave it milk and everything and I carried it back out to her. Well, she kicked at the calf, she really didn't want nothing to do with it. So I took her up on up and that was the end of that (Note: he killed the bad heifer). Others I got, they're the babysitters, you see the calves hanging around them all the time. They got a special sort of moo or however they do, means danger.

C: So when one heifer rejects her calf the babysitter cow will nurse it?
F: No, she'll only nurse her own.

C: So she only nurses her own but really is the babysitter, just watching the other kids to make sure they don't get into trouble... or danger.
F: (nods)

C: Do you slaughter them yourself too?
F: I used to do my own butchering, not anymore. Usually in winter, cut them up and hung it up in the shed. Now I give them to a guy, he does everything.

C: Was it too costly with all the FDA regulations? Don't you have to kill them with a special machine and everything?
F: Not for your own butchering, there aren't. I was running out of time, just not enough time to do everything, so now he takes care of it. Less mess too. And people get all fussy about it.
C: There aren't FDA regulations if you do your own butchering?
F: My butchering was just for the land owners and such who wanted to try fresh beef.

C: Oh, does the fresh beef taste really different? I would think so...
F: I gave some to my sister and told her go to Kroger's and buy the beef patty there too.  Fry them both up, each in a different skillet and pour it off into a container. The one from Kroger's about a quarter inch -
C: the fats from the skillet?
F: - yes fats and water.
C:  How did yours do?
F: Nothing!
C: It didn't have any fat drain off?
F: Now she says she can't eat hamburgers from the store or at a restaurant, she says it doesn't taste as good as fresh.
C: I bet it does taste better, fresh caught fish back home can't be compared to the store or restaurant.
F: My wife and I think the restaurant tastes the best.
C: (puzzled expression) ... why?
F: Because we didn't have to do all the work!
(group laugh)

End Interview Notes

I know these questions weren't the sorts of questions we were supposed to ask about what we might encounter on the journey of entrepreneurship, but formal questions like that would have been out of place in this setting. Also, I can infer from his answers what type of challenges he encounters and I did find out that he is the entrepreneurship model of "falling into it." 

I was really excited about everything I learned by talking to Frank. My reflections are built into the interview transcript since they were reactions I had to his answers as we were talking. I hope you found it interesting too to learn about local, small scale beef farming right here in your backyard of Indiana!

Entrepreneurial Audit: Opportunity Identification

At the Human Resources level of a Country Club:

1) What are the routines/procedures that the organization uses to identify new opportunities?

The head of the Human Resources Department is very much responsible for identifying new opportunities for HR to contribute strategically to the overall business. 

• The HRD's boss is the GM, the head of the organization and the GM sets annual goals as part of the HRD's yearly performance review; the HRD can be as creative as needed to reach the goals
• The HRD shares these goals with the staff according to the specialty area of HR (recruiting, benefits, payroll, etc.) on their yearly performance reviews, so they can be as creative as needed over the upcoming year to meet the set goal
• New opportunities are identified as needed solutions to new problems that arise; new problems are brought to the executive committee to discuss and the HRD has a seat on the EC; if it is a problem that HR can assist with solving, the HRD bring a solution to the next meeting
• The HRD is responsible for identifying and proposing new opportunities, so the HRD fosters a similar "keep an eye out and your mind open" culture in the HR department, in addition to the HRD attending meetings with local HRDs in the same industry, attending SHRM conferences, and similar events to get out of the same old same old and think of, discuss and see new best practices

2) Explain the relationship between these routines/procedures with the organization's performance. 

With the head of the department taking an active role in identifying and implementing new opportunities, this same mental attitude spreads among the department and the HRD is made more effective by specialty areas of the department thinking of new opportunities in the fields they know well and bringing those ideas to the HRD. The same happens with goals being shared by specialty area and the HRD still being held accountable for all goals HR-wide, it structures the department to stay aligned with the company's goals. However, the best new opportunities are the results of discussing new problems because the entire situation is so new, it gets the creativity flowing to both understand and solve the problem simultaneously. Annual reviews and regular meetings can become routine and squash the excitement of new ideas.

3) What are some of the more important opportunities that your organization has discovered in the past five years?

After the economic downturn (ok that was more than 5 years ago but creative solutions have spanned since then), the board of directors voted to no longer sponsor any visas. This was traumatic for recruiting because we had always recruited through visas to increase our labor for season, and it was only needed temporarily. How were we going to find affordable labor? 

• We partnered with high schools that had culinary programs (employees needed to be 16 or older). During our biggest events when we needed extra hands over that weekend, we had the students from the culinary program come work the weekend under supervision of our chefs and experienced supervisory cooks. It turned out great and if I was high schooler there, I would definitely have taken advantage of the opportunity to get hands on experience and a paying summer job.
• We partner with the local university. Did you know you can commission a college class? We didn't either until we came across this possibility! We partnered with four other country clubs and the five of us paid to commission a college class on Club Management as part of the hospitality school. We timed it so the class was offered during a term that ended just as our season began. At the end of the term, the students visited each of the sponsoring Clubs and interviewed at each Club. As the best one, we got the most recruits and they were great additions to the employee team.

A new challenge has been the healthcare reform laws, which mandates that an employee routinely working 30 hours per week must be offered healthcare insurance coverage, and employees who don't keep a steady 30 hours per week are at risk of losing their insurance. Thankfully we had already set our full time and part time hours cutoff at 30 hours, so we didn't even have to rewrite the handbook much, but we did have to keep an eye on part time employees picking up extra shifts during our peak business times. Originally, we appreciated these employees stepping up to help out and we were happy to share in the money, but now it carried with it the risk that they would qualify for health insurance after a busy month. In order for employees to still get the extra hours they depended on, we partners with local Clubs to refer great part-time employees. Most of the best employees on our staff work two jobs, a primary one at one Club and secondary at another Club to get extra hours. The Clubs are all respectful of this arrangement when it comes to scheduling and it has worked out for employees to get up to a total of 60 hours steady each week by working at two locations, instead of a temporary upswing to 40 or 50 hours for a short time.

4) Describe one routine/procedure the organization can implement right now to improve its ability to identify new opportunities. What is the routine? What additional resources would it require to organization to acquire?

The Executive Committee and the Board of Directors could do quarterly SWAT analyses. The current routine of setting year-long goals may not be moving fast enough for the competitive landscape. It couldn't require any more resources than perhaps a few more meetings and mental power for critical assessment.

5) Overall, does the organization do a good job or a poor job of identifying opportunities?

Overall, a very good job. Each department head including the HRD are aware of how the same operations are carried out at competing clubs. Being aware of the best practices for the local market helps the leadership team see changes in the landscape and identify problems while they are still far off in the horizon allowing time to think of solutions and they can also identify new opportunities presented on the horizon.