11A Idea Napkin No.1

1.     Who you are? What your talents are? What your skills and experiences are? Also: what are your aspirations? Specifically, regarding your business concept, how do you see this business (if you were to start it) playing a role in your life?

My name is Avery Smith. I am a first year at the University of Florida and I am currently a marketing major. My intention is to eventually join the Master of International Business program. I have a lot of experience with public speaking and leadership. I volunteered at Sarasota Teen Court for three years where I was a peer leader. I also have experience with creating a company that also offered software and apps to consumers. This experience will be extremely beneficial to this opportunity. My aspirations are to be an entrepreneur and perhaps even a lawyer someday. My goal is to be able to do something that can help people. By starting this business concept, it would play a big role in my life. I would be able to help others succeed and that is something that excites me.

2.      What are you offering to customers? Describe the product or service (in other words, how you'll solve customers' unmet needs).

I am offering this product to both individual consumers and businesses. The product is a software application that helps individuals hold themselves accountable for maintaining healthy, balanced lifestyles. The application will be able to track various aspects of a balanced lifestyle (social time, study time, diet, fitness, mental well-being, etc.) by having the individuals set goals and manually input their data so that they can hold themselves accountable for meeting these goals. This product is solving individual’s un-met needs by helping them be accountable for maintaining healthy, balanced lifestyles during periods of transition.  I am also helping businesses because the businesses thrive when people are well rounded and have healthy balance in their lives. This could mean happy customers of the business or even more productive employees. Businesses also gain an outlet to provide services that can be used to help individuals with this unmet need.

3.     Who are you offering it to? Describe, in as much detail as possible, the demographic and psychographic characteristics of your customers. Think especially of this question: what do your customers all have in common?

I am offering this product to both individuals and businesses. Individuals in my target market would be primarily 18-19-year old’s who are just starting their first year in college. This includes both men and women. Not all first year students will have this unmet need of a way to maintain accountability for a healthy balanced lifestyle. Some students come from backgrounds where they have developed the skills and independence to maintain such a lifestyle. The primary focus is on students who are living away from home for the first time and need a way to hold themselves accountable for certain balances that they have been able to rely on parents or guardians for growing up. Some students may not need help or accountability for all aspects of a healthy, balanced lifestyle; but rather, they need help with one or two areas (i.e. time management and diet). They would still fall into the target market group because the product is designed to help with all aspects and the goals the students would set would just be for the few they need. The product will be marketed to any income level, all for the same set price.

I am also offering the application to businesses. This would include colleges and universities. Universities, like UF, all have incoming freshmen and understand the difficulties that students might have with the first year transition. Many, if not all, of these institutions offer services to help students, but students may not know where to go to find them. The application would be customizable so that institutions, like UF, can preload their services and resources to the app if the students need them. The idea is to sell the customizable application to universities in which they can in turn provide it free to their incoming freshmen.

4.      Why do they care? Your solution is only valuable insofar as customers believe its valuable to them. Here, explain why customers will actually pay you money to use your product or service. 

I believe that primarily the businesses will pay money for my product. They are focused on providing the best resources to help their students transition well and succeed. By providing a way for students to maintain healthy balanced lifestyles, they are not only helping the students, but also better performing students who are able to perform well for the university rather than spending the time trying to figure out how to be healthy on their own. It also benefits the universities by helping them provide easier access to the resources they provide but students may be unable to find. I think universities, by purchasing this product, will be able to provide the product to students for free which will make the students more inclined to use it. I think students will use the product since it gives them a platform to make sure they are staying healthy and balanced during times of transition (in this case college).

5.     What are your core competencies? What sets you apart from everyone else? Also: what do you have that nobody else has? 

There is no denying there are already products and resources on market already. These could be coming from the universities themselves or other third-party vendors. However, many of the products either focus on just one particular aspect of a balanced lifestyle or may be difficult for students to find. This product sets itself apart by providing a platform for all aspects that are relevant to the student and provides ease of access to resources they may not know where to find otherwise. The idea is to not compete with the resources the universities have to offer, but rather it is a platform to help guide students to these resources. It also sets itself apart as being one hundred percent customizable to fit students’ needs and allows them to hold themselves accountable by manually tracking these aspects in order to reach the goals the set for themselves.

In addition to these five elements, please spend a paragraph evaluating whether you believe these elements fit together or whether there are aspects of your business concept that are weaker / out-of-joint with the others. 

I think the five elements work relatively well together. I feel like there could be some hesitation with universities adopting the product until it builds a reputation for itself. Until it is shown that the application can really help provide better access to their resources, universities may not buy the product for students right away. Also, both customer bases are necessary to each other, but both are extremely different. The business group’s focus of the product would be to provide a resource to students along with easier access to ones that are also available. The students would be interested in the product in order to better themselves and make sure they are maintaining healthy balanced lives. Students, due to tight budgets may not be as inclined to pay for the product which is why in order for the company to be successful, it has to be bought by universities. Other than that, due to my experience with app development and having gone through the college transition myself, I feel that I am a good person to offer this product and that there is definitely potential for success.  

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