20a: Growing your Social Capital

Metro Diner Gainesville Manager Mark Davoli

-       Mark Davoli is the head manager at Metro Diner in Gainesville Florida. He helped open Gainesville Metro Diner in 2000, after the original metro diner located in Jacksonville, had killed the market for years.

-       Domain Expert; Mr. Mark is engaged in the restaurant industry and serves breakfast food here in Gainesville.

-       I found this person by simply researching “Metro Diner Gainesville Manager”, found his email and contacted him.

-       I emailed him just reaching out at first hoping for a response. When Mr. Mark got back to me, I then opened up about my business idea that was on display with the idea napkin. He mentioned that locally on the proximity of UF’s campus, there is nothing like I have in mind for creating.

-       Mark Davoli has already increased my network in the restaurant industry and given my great tips on the startup of this industry.

Pascals Coffee Shop Owner Lauren Babb

-       Lauren Babb opening Pascal’s Coffee Shop in 2005 at UF. Lauren opened Pascals as a Christian Study Center as well as a coffee shop in order to attract a whole host of students and Gainesville residents.

-       Expert on the market; Lauren is in a similar industry where she is targeting specific UF students, but where she focuses on coffee rather than food.

-       I found this person by simply researching “Pascals Coffee Owner”, found her email and contacted her.

-       I emailed her just reaching out at first hoping for a response. When Laurent got back to me, I then opened up about my business idea that I created for the idea napkin. She mentioned that a study space that focused on the food it sold would be different and interesting, contrary to most study spaces being primary coffee shops.

-       This person will increase my network because I already know I can reach out to Lauren and she can help me with any questions I have.

Publix Shopping Center at Butler Plaza Manager Tony Allen

-       Tony Allen is one of the mangers of Publix at Butler Plaza. He started his manager role at Publix after graduating from UF in 2014.

-       Supplier to your industry. Publix is one a shopping center for everyone, but also a major supplier of products to surrounding businesses.

-       I found this person differently. I called the Butler Plaza Publix and told them who I was and the assignment I was working on and asked if I could speak to one of their managers over the phone. I then got in touch with Tony Allen.

-       The conversation started off with myself simply asking about Mr. Tony’s background, his experiences, and what led to his job at Publix nowadays. Then I started to unfold my ideas and I asked for his honest answers as to what he thought. He liked my idea, my ambition going into the project, he said whatever further questions I had that if he could, he would love to answer in the future.

-       Having Tony in my sphere of network helps me out because just his knowledge on a different industry, and being a supplier is huge.

This ‘targeted networking’ will influence my future networking events because now I have some veterans in my corner who have specific knowledge on the industry I’m interested in going into. This definitely was different than past networking experiences for myself, because for this one, I had to reach out to people in the Gainesville area I was not familiar with.