19A Idea Napkin No. 2

1)     You. 

My name is Avery Smith. I am a first year student at the UF and I am currently a marketing major in the business school. I hope to eventually join the Master of International Business program. After conducting interviews with people close to me, I have found that I am very hard working, energetic, and motivated. I always try to be a team player and try to have good communication skills. I have a lot of experience with leadership from the volunteer work I have done the past couple of years. I also have experience with creating a company that offered software and apps to people. My aspirations are to be an international business attorney someday.

In regards to this business concept, my goal is to be able to help people. If I were to start this business concept, I can see it playing a really big role in my life. I want to help others succeed and being able to do something like that excites me.  

2)     What are you offering to customers? 

As in my last idea napkin, I am offering this product to both the individual and businesses. However, my primary market is with the individual. The product is a software application that people can download on their phone that will help them hold themselves accountable for maintaining healthy, balanced lifestyles. The application will track various aspects of a balanced lifestyle (social time, study time, diet, fitness, mental well-being, etc.) by having the users set goals and manually input their data so that they can hold themselves accountable for meeting these goals.

The unmet need that this product is helping to solve is the need of a way for someone to hold themselves accountable for maintaining a healthy balance in their life styles. Right now, there are many products out on the market that can help with one individual aspect, but there is not a product that can help with the balance of all aspects. I am also helping solve businesses’ unmet need by providing a way to help keep people (employees or customers) well rounded and more productive. It also provides businesses an outlet in order to provide their own services and products to the individual who are experiencing the unmet need described.

3)     Who are you offering it to? 

The customers for my product are both individuals and businesses. On the individual level, my target segment are current freshmen students (both male and female) who are experiencing independence for the first time. The primary age of these students would be 18-19 years old. Not all freshmen will have this unmet need. Everyone comes from different backgrounds which as a result, some students may not struggle with being independent and being accountable for leading a balanced life. The primary target market is those who struggle with trying to lead a healthy lifestyle during the transition into college life. Based on the research and interviews, the primary users would more than likely be those who still struggle at the end of their first semester living away from home. Many of the interviews I conducted showed me that the aspects that students struggle balancing vary person to person. Even if it is just one aspect they struggle with (diet, fitness, time management, etc.), they would also fall into the target market group.

I am also offering this application to universities and local services. Many universities offer products and services to incoming freshmen who are experiencing this unmet need. This product could help guide students to these services that they may not have known were available. The idea is to make the application customizable so that universities can upload their own specific content and provide it to their students.

4)     Why do they care? 

Like in my first idea napkin, I think that individuals and primarily the universities will pay money for this product. I think that students understand the importance of having a healthy balance in their lifestyles and I think they would be willing to pay for services that can help them hold themselves accountable for this balance. The universities would pay money because this product would allow them to provide easier access to the resources that they provide that students may be unable to find. If universities choose to purchase the product, they can provide it free to their students which would incline them to use it. Local businesses would also be inclined to purchase it because then they have a platform to promote their services to help students as well.

5)     What are your core competencies? 

There are already many products out there on the market that are designed to help students with aspects like how to time manage or how to eat healthy. Many universities and third-party vendors also provide their own services. However, the down side to this is that many of those products only focus on one aspect of someone’s lifestyle. This product would set itself apart because it would be able to focus on all elements of a balanced lifestyle. This product is not a “how-to guide”, but rather a platform that generates goals to keep people motivated and accountable. Based on the interviews I have conducted, people value the effectiveness of this product. People can quickly see the effectiveness by tracking how well they are completing their goals.

I think that the five elements of this idea napkin work really well together. Having done more buyer behavior research and changing the idea napkin based on the feedback I received, these elements now work really well together. I still believe that universities would show some hesitation until the product has built a good reputation and there are many users. I think now that the idea napkin has been improved, aspects of the concept are stronger and more solid. I think the only thing that would be a holdback is the lack of reputation. I think once people start using the product and it starts to build a good reputation, then it will be successful.

Feedback memo:

1.     I changed some formatting issues that were in the first idea napkin. I shortened the subheadings in order to make the idea napkin cleaner and easier to read.

2.     I included more information from the interviews with people who know me best. I added more detail to who I am and what my skills are in order to further attest as to why I am a good fit to further pursue this venture and make it go.

3.     I provided more detail to who my target audience is. I included details from my buyer behavior research to specifically describe what kind of individual I am trying to sell this product to. I included details about who exactly the individual is and why they would use this product.

4.     I also updated the sections on why people care and my core competencies. I used the feedback I received from the buyer behavior research in order to improve these sections. I focused primarily on individuals purchase decisions and post-purchase evaluations. I think by adding this information, it has made the sections of my idea napkin stronger and more valuable.