The Twenty Percent

The local Entrepreneur I chose to interview is Jerome Reed. He is currently one of the leaders of a start up called R.A.W.E. Recruits, a small time recruitment agency aimed at getting kids in high school who are both exceptional athletes and students in the classroom more notoriety when it comes to scouts and creating opportunities beyond high school.

Here are his responses to the general Questions:

1. Who do you think your target customers are? - I would say that any sports fans from the age 14-45. These include high schoolers, all the way up to the possible age of their parents. Both male and female, as well.

2. Where do you find your customers? - We find our customers through social media outlets, as well as traveling to different high school sporting events to promote RAWE by word-of-mouth and provide our services at games.

3. What are your customers demographics? - Age: 16-45, Gender: Male 65%, Fem. 35%, Ethnicity: No preference, Location: (Year 1) Gainesville area. (Year 2.5) Northern Florida area. (Year 5) Entire Florida area, Income Level: HHI Avg. 55K, College Education: At least 40%, Post-Undergraduate Education: At least 20%

4. What kinds of media do their customers consume? - All variations of social media, as well as TV, movies (Netflix), music found through Spotify, Apple Music or Torrents.

5. What are your customers' problems? - If we're talking in relation to our product, it could be travel-related. Everyone may not have cars to travel to a game we're at and see us in action. Financially, it could be anything from not being able to have the money to fund HS/AAU sports fees, to not being able to pay for the videos we charge for.

6. What are your customers doing to fix their problems? - I would imagine, especially at a time like right now, income tax would come in very handy. However, if we come across a situation where financials are a problem, we do our best to work with them individually.

7. How big on the scale of 1-10 is this problem in your customers' lives? - I haven't seen it too, too often. So at this moment, I'd say a 4.

8. what are some bigger problems your customers are dealing with? - Other than financials, in a city as non-affluent as Gainesville, I can't imagine any bigger issues. Maybe personal health would go above that, but that's getting away from our wheelhouse.

9. Do your customers have a budget to help fix the problem? - I sure hope so lol. But seriously, we should have budgets for all things in life. It helps with planning down the road for other necessary or desired things.

Here are 3 customers and what they had to say in response to the same questions:

Reflection: As far as knowing his customers needs I think Jerome understands one aspect about the problems student athletes are facing but hasn't yet made his business to take care of the problems that are more pertinent to the students and getting noticed via social media. Maybe incorporating, a teaching moment for these students to better learn to develop a presence and notoriety on social media could extend the value of the business and it's prospects.