Assignment 20: Growing Your Social Capital

Domain expert: Caty MacFarlane, freelance makeup artist

• Caty is the president of my belly dance troupe and someone who knows a great deal about makeup. She is always stocked up on the latest beauty products and usually does everyone's makeup for big performances. She sells her services on a case-by-case basis. I reached out to her on Messenger to get her thoughts on my business idea. She said that a huge challenge in makeup is finding your exact skintone, and the lighting in makeup stores doesn't exactly help. She said if you're mixing shades to try and find your exact match, you usually have to step outside to see for sure. However, she said that even a shade that seemed fine under different lighting looks completely different once you step outside. She said that a mirror like the one I'm offering would be most useful in makeup stores, a target market I hadn't even considered. She seemed very excited about my product concept, which boosted my confidence in the viability of my product. She's a great person to have in my corner because she represents two target markets: regular makeup users and makeup artists. If there's an expert on makeup, it's Caty.

Market expert: Courtney Rosso, LimeLife sales representative

• Courtney is my cousin's wife who has recently started selling LimeLife makeup products (think MaryKay). She really believes in the product she sells, and she has said that she would never be caught dead leaving the house without makeup. This led me to believe that she is a market expert because she is both part of and selling to the target market. I reached out to her via Messenger to ask how she thinks my business idea would function in our target market. She also made a great point that I hadn't considered before. She said that a mirror with the capabilities of photo editing apps on phones that allows you to choose what lighting is best for your house would be ideal. For example, this mirror would allow you to adjust the color, shadows, saturation, etc. of the room's lighting. This is an interesting idea since I had only considered a mirror that is focused on producing light that matches natural sunlight. Perhaps I could expand it to include more adjustable settings like the ones Courtney mentioned. I know that my target market cares a lot about Instagram and photo editing, so this mirror could also help them in that endeavor, solving two problems with one product. Courtney is a very extroverted person, so she was easy to talk to and bounce ideas off of. I'm glad I networked with her because she has the pulse of the makeup community through the sale of her company's products. She knows what consumers prefer and dislike and she is a makeup enthusiast herself.

Industry supplier: Alex, Ulta employee

• Since Caty mentioned that my mirror would work great in makeup stores, I thought that talking to a makeup store employee to fill my supplier spot would be a perfect way to find out if this is true. It was easy, since I literally just walked into Ulta and talked to the first person I could find. That person was Alex, who is very knowledgable about makeup (obviously) and was nice enough to give me her thoughts on the product. I took her a bit off guard, but she warmed to the idea quickly. She prefaced by saying that she doesn't make purchase decisions for the store, but neither does the manager since the company dictates how the stores are set up. However, she said that she personally has trouble matching customers' foundation and a mirror like mine could help. She said she has developed a knack for recognizing mismatched hues under any lighting, but many of her peers who just started working haven't developed these skills yet. She said it could help her new co-workers recognize the right shades, and lessen the time it takes to match a customer for more experienced employees like herself. I'm a journalism major, so I'm used to approaching people to talk to. Like most people I talk to this way, she was a little nervous at first, but the trick is to make the interaction seem normal so they feel at ease. Alex is a great person to have made contact with because stores like Ulta and its competitor, Sephora, are where my product will be sold if it enters the market. I should establish good relationships with these stores if I hope for them to carry my product in the future.

Reflect: As with all assignments that require me to get out there and talk to people, I ended up hearing a lot of good ideas from the people I spoke with. The people I networked with for this assignment knew a great deal about my target market, which allowed them to bring up interesting points that I hadn't considered before talking to them. It never gets easier walking up to a stranger and asking them about a completely random topic, but the initial plunge of approaching them is worth it in the end. Networking, for me, has always just been about knowing the right person at the right time. I got my current job because my boss is the wife of my boyfriend's boss. I've just kind of fallen into fortuitous circumstances. This experience reminded me to keep meeting people and establishing and maintaining good relationships so I can continue my streak of luck.