Venture Concept No. 1

Opportunity:

               The unmet need I observed from customers was an easily accessible event provider/planner; one that could be accessed from their phone or computer. The customers I initially realized needed this service were students around my own university, which led me to conclude that students at others universities likely had a similar need. This opportunity seems to have been created by the growth of technology, and the fact that our younger generation wants just about EVERY service in the world, to be in the palm of their hand. It sounds like the major resource students obtain the information this service could provide is by flyers, local promotions, researching the specific events website, and word-of-mouth.

Thus, the need for this service realistically spreads across (at least) the entire nation, or at least in cities that have colleges and universities. Personally, I see this as a global opportunity because people around the world (whether or not it just relates to university cities) will eventually find themselves in a situation where they want/need to know what event are happening around their area. I’d say this window of opportunity won’t last long, in fact based off the research I did from the “Amazon Whisperer” assignment, it seems people are trying to purse creating such a service (unsuccessfully, I might add).

Innovation:

               My innovation idea is combining a person’s personal planner with that of publically scheduled events into an app that can be accessed via their phone or on a computer (much like Facebook/Groupme). The app will have to main tabs in the home screen: My Schedule and My Local Area.

Under the My Local Area tab there will be another list of tabs that range from the following: Most Recent, Featured, Categories, and Public Schedule.

The Most Recent tab will be in a “newsfeed” format, that way users can see what the most up to date events are in their area. An event will appear on the Most Recent tab as it is added on to the calendar in the Public Schedule tab. In the Most Recent tab the user will have the ability to click on the event for more information regarding the event, and even “like” the event if they so choose.

Like the Most Recent tab, the Featured tab will also be in a “newsfeed” format. The order of events under this tab will be directly related to two things: Endorsement and Popularity. If an owner of an event wants the event to be in the public’s face and remain relevant for a while, then they may pay a mall fee for their event to remain among the top in the Featured tab. Contrary to this, is ranking by popularity: events will be listed (after endorsed events) by the amount of “likes” they’ve received. These rankings were designed to both persuade local businesses to “buy” Featured slots, and to give the public a good idea which events would be the most popular to attend.

The Categories tab would pull up a list of tabs of different type of events (i.e Movies, Sports, Nightlife, etc…). These tabs would have events that were organized by type, and are added to that type when previously added in the Public Schedule’s calendar screen.

In the Public Schedule tab there will be an interactive calendar where students/local businesses can add their own event (whether the event is an Art Fair downtown, a promotion at a local restaurant, or even a Career seminar at the Reitz). The days on the calendar will be broken down into timeslots (i.e. 4:00 pm-5:00 pm); any one timeslot can have a maximum of 5 events scheduled for it (that max number of available spaces may raise according to popularity and need). The public will have the ability to “like” an event, just to gauge the event’s interest in the area. There will not be a commenting feature for events, at least in the initial launch. When a user adds an event to the calendar, they will be prompted on what type of event it is (which will automatically add the event into one of the Categories sub-tab).

The My Schedule tab will be a generic personal planner that users can add events to from the public calendar in the Public Schedule tab. In this main tab, user can make reminders and even post an event they’re attending to other forms of social media (Facebook/Twitter). Currently I’m excluding a “friending” feature to my app; I haven’t gauged interest in that form of expression for an app that is more a more utility-based.

Venture Concept:

I think students will find that my app is an easy adjustment to the current norm, mostly because it's a user friendly/highly accessible form of both social media and personal planning. I think they'd switch because it offers a quick, central location for them to find out just what events are going on around their area. Although this app is catered to a students local area, I'd consider making it so that a user could view other location's events (such as a user in Gainesville viewing events in Miami).  

Week 11 Reading Reflection

1. I was surprised about how cautious the author wanted the reader to be about starting any kind of innovation strategy.

2. I didn't fully understand the drawbacks to crowd-sourcing, and why exactly a modular system wouldn't be very effective for that type of innovative testing.

3. First, I'd ask what's his opinion of the most successful innovation strategy approached by a company? I ask because it seems like a great starting point for a would-be innovator. Second. I'd ask what was the worst innovation strategy he's ever seen; both questions I'd ask in an attempt to mock, and avoid, the types of strategies past innovators have tried.

4. To be 100% honest, I agreed with just about everything Gary said. His approach to explaining the importance of developing an innovation strategy was cautious; one that really wanted to warn the reader of the challenges awaiting them should they want to pursue an innovative venture. That being said he also gave a hopeful, almost child-like excitement about how a proper innovation strategy could change the world, evolve it into a new norm for society.

Amazon Whisperer

Revenue Drivers:

Since my idea is an app that provides a service, it will likely my revenue will come from In-app purchases (whether it's subscription based or one-time purchases I haven't decided). It might also incorporate the use of In-app advertising as a way to initially draw in revenue; this is basically advertising/sponsoring other apps that aren't direct competitors to your app.

The Next Step:

Since what I'm offering is basically a scheduling/event-planning app for college towns, I'd assume the next logical step would be how the customer can utilize the information. Originally, the app would just have the name, time and location of an event (no description). They'll know when and where an event is happening, but how does that help them? What incentives make a customer keep using the app? I was thinking of adding limited-time special deals going on at local businesses.

Later in the development of the app, possibly adding the commenting feature, since this will be left out of the app's release (only because it would generate unnecessary noise within the app).

How it Improves:

The special deals addition will provide customers an incentive to actually attend an event that's scheduled in my app. It'll also promote local businesses and possibly raise extra revenue from advertising.

 Since the app will come with a "like" feature, it's only natural that the successive version should include commenting to some degree. This feature would be set up similar to commenting in a Facebook event page. In theory, the commenting will be there for questions and useful information regarding the event. We would have moderators the are assigned to certain events and handle any unnecessary noise from the comments feed.

With a commenting feature comes a user interface. Meaning people will need to create profiles to comment on these events. I think this app could even expand to creating one's own "personal" schedule from the "public" one that's going to be released initially.

Similar Product:

The product I found was an app called "Party & Event Planner". It's a scheduling app that allows a user to create events and manage the costs of the event, who gets invited to it, and all information related to the event.
 

Reviews About the Product:

Pros: If you're looking to plan events like wedding or birthday parties this app is perfect.

Cons: The app is boring. It doesn't have any real use other than personal parties/ events. You could put its costs, grocery list, and guest list all on a paper pad...

Changes to the Product:

It seems this app is limited to just events you create yourself, and possibly events that people who've "friended"  you have invited you to. I can see a friending-system becoming a good idea, but first your friends need to have the app... Also, how often do you and your friends create events that need such detailed planning? While this app makes the main attraction the fact you can make your OWN schedule, I would make the main attraction the fact that a user can post events to a PUBLIC schedule (i.e. Art Fair on Main Street from 10:00am - 5:00pm on Saturday).

Why it's a Good Addition:

The parts I think would make it a good addition are the personal planner aspect and the friend list. The personal planner part could be set up like (or connected to) Google Calendar; implementing reminders, saving dates, and even sharing the events on other social media sites (i.e. Facebook/Twitter). Like I mentioned above, the friending an friend list ideas will need to be thought through a little harder. I still think that they're probably better to add after the initial release of the product (or maybe as a Premium of the free app).

Growing My Social Capital

Domain Expert:

The person I chose for this slot, is Andy Norman. Andy is the Chief Executive Officer at Mobiquity, which is a leading app developer locate here in Gainesville. Andy fills the role of Domain Expert because he's put in a position daily about creating, promoting, and fulfilling the need for app-based business. I found Andy by researching local app developers, I figured this would be the best way to try and implement my idea. I talked with Andy on the phone, and asked if he'd take the time to view my elevator speech. He thought the idea wasn't terrible, but the specifics definitely needed to be improved upon. Being that Andy had to go through the same process I'll have to go through, I think he would be a great adviser to my endeavors.


Market Expert:

For this position, I chose to talk to Chris Harding. Chris also works for Mobiquity as the Executive Vice President for Business Development. Harding fills this spot perfectly, mostly because Mobiquity plays both the developer and the product sales role. Harding has to create market schemes and reviews customer reports to help future company projects. Just like Andy, I found Harding's contact info online at Mobiquity's website. I asked Harding to give me his opinion about my first elevator speech (arguably my best), and he actually really liked my idea and was encouraging me to develop more customer research and pursue the idea. Harding is he kind of person I'd love to have on my marketing team to get my app idea into the industry efficiently and effectively.

Supplier:

This was a surprisingly hard person to find because I didn't know if I should use an obvious choice (such as Microsoft or Apple) or use a company that would sell apps to them. I decided on Jack Zoldos, a sales rep/computer engineer for Apple. Zoldos' job involves buying/selling app-based technology from smaller companies, and then adapting them to Apple's services (even selling them on the App Store); I found Jack though a friend of mine who actually works at Apple as well. I presented my idea to him via my first elevator speech, which he responded pretty well with. Zoldos actually recommended a couple smaller companies that might be able to help me bring my idea into existence. I see Zoldos being the person I need to manage the flow information from any potential partner companies, as well as being the person I need to seek out potential, young companies.

Reflection:

This was a great experience, I'll definitely be using the methods I learned from it to help bring my idea to life. The people I talked to were much more understanding than I originally thought, I expected them to brush me off because they might think I was a just an annoying kid. However, they were very responsive and gave me good advice. The experience was a much more direct method than I'm used to when to comes to marketing, but I've learned that it might just be more effective and ambitious.

Elevator Pitch No. 3

Video: 

https://youtu.be/3CwtUSBhJlg

From what I learned from the comments of my past elevator speech, was mainly that I should go into more detail about what exactly my product is. When I made the second video I didn't even think to add much more detail, this is because I got comments from my first video to include less detail. I guess I'm hoping the third video is a good median between the two. 

Reflection:

I made the video more of a sales pitch, instead of an advertisement. In my first video it was clear that I didn't describe the service enough, or even how far it's extent reaches. 

My Secret Sauce

1. My five characteristics of human capital:

• I'm self-confident, this is true not only in the decisions I make, but also the relationships I maintain.
• I'm fairly silly (and may I say light-hearted). This is important because the mass populace wants someone who doesn't treat life (and work) like a job, but rather someone who treats it as it as a career where it develops the individual both professionally and socially.
• In a sentence: I mold to my environment. I know when to act professional and when to act comical. Many of my peers know me as the sarcastic, silly jokster, but that's only because they've only seen me in a relaxed social environment.
• I'm determined and passionate. When given a task I like to finish it as completely as possible; this means not just meeting the minimum requirement, but take the project well past my audience's expectations.
• I typically have an approachable personality, one that doesn't set a person off ease or make them uncomfortable.  

2. My interviews:

Tom-

https://youtu.be/Tq6wPukuzQ8

Jon-

https://youtu.be/GNvszmTteoI

Matt-

https://youtu.be/Rn-hSJCFyBo

Lauren-

https://youtu.be/jSOL6xtFp44

Kaylee-

https://youtu.be/likE-pFBYKE

Each of the interviewees said very similar opinions. Tom and Matt focused more on my drive and the professional aspect or my human capital, stating I was determined and have a great potential for success when I really put my mind to it. Jon and Kaylee stated similar things, but also alluded to my somewhat goofy and less professional, more social, nature.

3. Quite honestly, there weren't many differences between what I said about myself and what the interviewees said about me. When writing qualities about yourself, you really start to wonder how other people actually see you. I was pleased (and a tad surprised) to discover all the positive comments in the videos, as I can be quite the goof. I definitely think the interviews are correct about me, the people in my videos are among my closest friends and would know me the best. I don't think I'd change the list I made above, but rather I would take the comments from the videos that weren't mentioned and add them to the list.