I. Opportunity
What are the forces or changes in the
environment creating this opportunity?
The forces creating my
opportunity, defined as the issues inherent to living with roommates, is
created by (but not limited to) the opposing perspectives, social tendencies,
living habits, and traditions that every person has. Regardless if you live in
same city, people live and behave differently in their household because that’s
the normal thing to do. Upon moving to a communal house, or even a shared
bedroom with roommates, this all changes due to the different living styles and
factors listed above. Furthermore, it is very challenging, and in some cases
impossible to be forced to live a certain fashion – and this provides the most
fuel to this problem where roommates don not work together.
How is this market defined geographically and
demographically?
For the entire semester, I
identified University of Florida students as my sole customer. In result of the
“What’s Next?” assignment, I have changed my customer range to be from 16-18 years
old. With these demographics, my company can serve the age group (through
workshops/events) that is expected to live with roommates in the near future; basically right after their high school graduation. Geographically, I can
theoretically provide my service anywhere, though I would focus my efforts in schools
and school districts that have the resources necessary to pay for my services. Although
I would love to provide my service at a discount for certain schools, this can only
happen if my firm has matured enough financially to do so.
How are customers currently satisfying this
need? And how loyal are they to whatever they use now?
Currently, my customers are
not satisfying this need at all unless they are being actively trained and
conditioned by their parents, teachers, relatives, or friends. Further, most of
my customers are not necessarily concerning themselves over how to live
peacefully with roommates (I know I wasn’t at that age). In result, there is
practically no loyalty to anything because there aren’t other companies that
have implemented a system that could create customer loyalty in the first
place.
How big is this opportunity?
This opportunity is massive. There
are millions of current and future high school students that meet my customer parameters in the United States
that will undoubtedly experience issues living with roommates in college.
How long will the “window of opportunity” be
open?
This question is quite hard to
determine because there’s no saying as to when a person will think of the same
idea I have proposed. Moreover, it can happen at any point in time since all
the necessary technology and resources are available and only getting better.
II. Innovation
My innovation is recognizing a
huge unmet customer need and exploiting it by providing workshops and events
that will teach/expose students how to live effectively with roommates. In the
past three years of my higher education, only one class briefly talked about
this issue, a class that was created to get us prepared for transferring from a
community college to a university. Basically, my company could pitch to high
schools, school districts, or other related high school programs to host a
series of workshop or events at their school – or somewhere offsite if need be.
For pricing, I am not certain what we would charge but I’m sure it would be
upwards of $5,000 for a two or three-part series.
III. Venture
Concept
What are the reasons to think customers would
switch to this new product? How hard will it be to get them to
switch?
My customers are not switching
over to my product, since no other product possesses market share for my
opportunity. This is great because my product is entirely new, but also bad
because if my company takes off, new competition will be introduced proving
different products or services.
Who are the competitors? What are
their possible weaknesses or vulnerabilities?
It is unclear who my direct
competitors will be since the market for my opportunity does not exist and is
not being recognized. With such low recognition, it would take multiple years
to develop enough brand power to entice other competitors. Overall, I suppose
my competitors would be high schools (as they can always create a class),
universities, government-led programs, and investors that can also recognize
this opportunity – who will probably have stronger finances and marketing to
overwhelm my company. For both high schools and school district officials,
their weaknesses include the time and resources necessary to create a class, a
class that is worth teaching for a full ten months in comparison to one or two
days. For credible investors who know what they are doing, their capabilities
outweigh their weaknesses; they can get it wrong and still win because of how
much money they put in.
What role does packaging, your price points,
distribution, customer support, the customer experience or the business
location play (if any) in defining your business concept?
Asides from perhaps packaging,
distribution, and the business location, all these factors play a tremendous
role in my business concept. Selling at price points too high will kill my
business, strong customer support can sway high schools into becoming a regular
customer for future years, and if the customer experience does not exceed
expectations, my customers have zero incentive to pay for more workshops.
How would you organize a “business” to support
the ongoing production of your new product, service, or process? How many
employees? What roles are in the venture?
In the beginning stages (years 1-3),
my company will consist of about 30-40 employees, in a relatively small office.
As for any business, there will be a marketing team, social media team, finance
team, and so forth. These teams will contain about 3-10 employees each. For
professional aspects of the company, such as legal, I would outsource that to
another firm until the company could afford to create its own department.
IV. Three
Minor Elements
Once I completely commit to
exploiting this opportunity, my livelihood is determined by the success of my
company until I’m in a position where I can afford to diversify. Therefore,
my continuous dedication to the company will ultimately be the
deciding factor.
What’s next for the venture? Describe either the
next opportunity you want to tackle with your current innovation, or describe
the next new product, service, or process that may be aimed at your existing
customers.
The next new product will be creating
an app that teaches everything we mention in workshops through a mobile device.
Although this can potentially decrease the chances of high schools paying for
workshops, I would only create this app once the company is established and
financially prepared for it.
What’s next for you? Assuming you launched,
where do you want to be in five years with this venture? Where do you want to
be, as an entrepreneur, in the next decade, and how does this first venture
help you achieve your vision?
After
five years of launching the company, my goal would be providing my services
every year to at least one hundred different customers. This is a small number
because it will take a while to develop my product and my company’s
infrastructure, let alone the natural roadblocks you experience with start-ups.
Ten, twenty, thirty years after that I would consistently attempt to exploit
other opportunities that relate to my company, while also diversifying into
other more stable businesses/industries.
Provide
a summary of the feedback you received from your previous venture concept
description. You certainly want to include the student feedback, but you may
also include the feedback you received from others during the "What's
Next" exercise. You want to summarize all of the feedback, but be sure to
place an emphasis on what people recommended you change about your idea. (In
other words, don't just describe the positive feedback.)
From the feedback on my
first venture concept assignment, the main concern was high schools or school
districts not having the financial resources to pay for my service. Naturally,
this is one the biggest factors that will contribute to the success of my
company. Thus, my research and development team and I would be forced to identify
specific customers (defined in this venture concept) who will be capable of
paying for my service(s). Even so, it is still a challenge to sell to these
particular schools – yet every company experiences this issue, as this is part
of predetermined and constantly evolving business plan.
In addition, I also
received some key insights from the “What’s Next” assignments. These included
breaking down the workshop/class into manageable stages and adding excitement to
the presentations. In retrospect, I have not considered the effect of excitement
in prior assignments, though the college experience is exciting indeed. Regardless
of the complexities and issues of living with roommates, college remains a
transformative and enjoyable couple of years, where students (being on their
own) start to recognize the world around them. If my company can both excite students
for college and leave a lasting impression that will help them in troubling
situations with future roommates, I believe that will define success above all
else.
3)
Describe how you changed your venture concept, based on what you learned from
the feedback.
Some key changes include:
· Changed
the demographic parameters of the course for only junior and seniors.
·
Changed the customer outlook from “everywhere” to
only high school or school districts who can afford to pay for my services. Once
I can offer lower prices, then I will expand into more financially restricted sectors.
·
Added school districts as a customer; school
districts can create contracts with multiple high schools as opposed to me
selling to them one-by-one.
·
Added universities and government sponsored programs
to my competition.
·
Changed goal to serve at least 100 different
customers by five years of creating the company; 20 customers was far too small
of a goal.
4)
Include a picture (for illustration!).
I would tell students to just watch Friends,
if only it was that easy.
