Idea Napkin No. 1
Idea Napkin No. 1
1) Who you are you? 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?
o My name is Sydney Hoyo and I am a second-year transfer student at the University of Florida. My background includes lot of time spent in the food industry, more specifically, the restaurant business. My time being in this environment has allowed me to learn management systems as well as really be able to identify what customers need and tend to search for in different situations
o My aspirations are to eventually open my own business one day and grow alongside my business and learn new things everyday about the industry I end up in
o If I could start this business venture, I think it would make a huge impact on the general population of UF students who choose to do homework and studies at UFs Library West
2) What are you offering to customers? Describe the product or service (in other words, how you'll solve customers' unmet needs)
o The unmet I have chosen to touch on this semester is the addition of booths to Library West. The physical product would be the booths in which students love to study in, and the service would be allowing students to come in at any hour and have somewhere comfortable to do their studies in
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?
o The specific demographic would be those who chose Library West as their preferred study area
o This can include a large range of students from undergrad to graduate students because West caters to each of these groups of people
o I think I can safely say the majority of students who choose to go to Library West to study all tend to gravitate towards the area in which the booths are located
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.
o I believe my product is very valuable because it’s a common topic you hear complained about amongst students and in my friend groups as well
o Going to back to one of my interviews, a student expressed to me that jokingly she always tells her friends she wishes she could just rent out a booth for a semester, so she doesn’t have to worry about finding one when she goes to study
5) What are your core competencies? What sets you apart from everyone else? Also: what do you have that nobody else has?
o What sets me apart is that there is such a need for this opportunity, yet no one has acted upon it yet which is shocking
o I can act as the ignitor to start processes to give students what they want and as a result enhance studying habits for many
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.
Overall, I think all groups tie in well together from my perspective. I am a student, so the need I am talking about I share with those described in my demographics as well. I physically can see when people go to West and let a booth become a distraction, as well as hear people saying let’s go to the booths to study. It’s a very local problem and University of Florida specific, which makes it easier to analyze when coming up with solutions for this opportunity.
Hi Sydney, thank you for the post. I think the core competencies you identified were intriguing. It is a good point to consider that someone has not yet acted on this need although there are clearly so many people who have it and that have complained about it. It is very copyable however. It would be important to identify any uniqueness your booth service would, possibly a design of the booth that can be patented, that would ultimately separate your design from future competition. There is room to apply those entrepreneurial/business aspirations of yours you mentioned in your answer to the first question! Thanks.
ReplyDeleteHi Sydney, I think this is a really good idea and I liked how you included the fact that you are part of the demographic so that you are able to see first hand how this unmet need affects students. I think everyone can agree that students prefer to use booths at Library West. However, as Tyler stated, I do think the it would be beneficial to create something that could differentiate your booth from others. It could even be that they are comfortable but cheap to manufacture so that the school could buy in bulk for their libraries. It could also include features that are specific to students, like outlets, cup holders or storage for books and laptops.
ReplyDeleteSydney,
ReplyDeleteGood job on identifying your strengths. I think it's great that you were able to find an unmet need that's so prevalent on UF campus. Thousands of people study at Library West, and so adding more booths would improve productivity and make the library less crammed with students who are unable to find seats.
Hi Sydney!
ReplyDeleteI like how the layout you used on this blog post as I have been looking for ways to make my posts stand out more. I believe that the five elements analyzed in this assignment all tie together well. I personally have never sat at a booth in Library West, whether that's from me "not seeing my need" or the lack of their availability. I hope you can do something about this problem that many others face daily.
Good post!
Hi Sydney, thanks for sharing. I agree that more booths are definitely needed at library west as they foster a more collaborative learning environment, in addition to simply being more comfortable to sit at. Also the amount of booths currently is simply not enough for all students, especially during exam time. I have also heard many students complaining about not being able to find seating space in general, not just with booths. Your core competency of having the drive to solve this will definitely help you in your business ventures.
ReplyDelete