Venture Concept No. 2

My concept hasn’t changed because there was so much positive feedback, but after the venture concept please read what I wrote about the responses to my first Venture Concept post.

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).  

What I've Learned

As far as the responses I received go, I learned a few interesting ideas. The most valuable actually being a negative response! One comment was blatantly honest with me and told me that Apple has already created an app very similar to my idea. That since people prefer physical planners they wouldn’t even consider my app.


Now I actually 100% with this person, physical planners are more widely used that app planners. That being said, my app isn’t necessarily for planning one’s life. The point of the app is actually to be more informed about events around your local college town. As discussed in the venture concept, the app will be divided into tabs (i.e. Most Recent and Featured); these tabs will be in a “newsfeed” format so that customers can easily navigate through all the events. The format and ease of use of my app is one of its bests strengths.