Venture Concept No. 2

Feedback: Contrary to the instructions I only received positive feedback for my last venture concept. Every comment just really said that the app would be successful. So I asked a few friends to comment on my blog for me. They suggested different ways of advertising the app and how to make it better. I added these ideas into my initial venture concept and this is what I came up with:

Putting it All Together

For this week’s assignment we are supposed to create a venture concept write-up. A venture concept write-up is a description of a possible product or service. It contains a description of the opportunity present, the innovation of a new idea, and the overall venture concept incorporating the other aspects. Until now we have been working backwards. We first came up with a venture concept and then settled the details later. This time around we are going in an order that makes sense. So here is my attempt at putting things in the right order again.

The first step is defining an opportunity. Unlike the name suggests, an opportunity is a group of customers with unmet or under met needs. I have chosen to target a customer base that I am a part of; Young adults with little and time and big appetites. I feel that by choosing an opportunity with a common connection with myself will allow me to service the venture to my best ability. The nature of the need of this opportunity is predominantly personal and a luxury. This venture is not necessary for life but it does increase the ease of life. Knowing the wait time at restaurants is a helpful tool and for some people it is a dire need. With recent improvements in the economy, people are beginning to eat out again. With this increase in restaurant patrons comes a proportional increase in wait times and lines. Currently this market is focused on college towns and busy cities. This is because there is the highest concentration of restaurants and people who eat out in these areas. College students tend to eat out with friends, on the run, or when they don’t feel like cooking. Families with small children like to get in and out of a restaurant as soon as possible. Waiting for food is not a simple task for hungry small children.  Currently customers are not satisfying this need; they are merely dealing with the problem. Any new information would be welcomed with open arms by all foodies alike. This opportunity is huge. Food is any important part of everyday life, as is time. Both are important aspects of life. People will always need food and they will always need to save time. The only reason the “window of opportunity” would close would be because someone else swopped in and created their own product with the same end goal.

Once you have defined an opportunity, you must create an innovation to address these customer’s needs. In response to the peoples need to get food fast and efficiently I have created The Waiter.  The Waiter is an app that tells you the current waiting time at your favorite restaurants. The app will also give the customer and option to call ahead to order their food to go, in case all the lines are long. It is a simple app that can be downloaded through the app store. Restaurants report the wait time in 15 minute intervals directly to the app, in turn the app relays the information to consumers. The app will also offer other information such as delivery services, phone number, ratings, reviews, etc.  The revenue from my venture is purely based off of app sales and advertisements. Like most apps I will offer two versions of my app.  A free version, with advertisements and a paid version which allows people to view the app without extra ads. These advertisements will come from the restaurants that are already partnered with the app.

The third and final step is two combine these two aspects. A venture concept is the application of a specific innovation to address a specific opportunity. In this case I will show how The Waiter benefits the target market, college students and other families. Since there are no other products on the market like this I don’t believe it will be difficult to get people to start using this app. It might take a bit of time to gain popularity but I believe that after one successful use the word will spread like wild fire and people all over will be using The Waiter. Companies such as Yelp and a few other apps are similar to the Waiter but do not combine all the components that make The Waiter successful. The weakness of these other companies are all different, it is the fact that each of them lacks what the other has that makes them vulnerable. Because The Waiter is an app packaging does not play an important role in its success. However the way the app is presented could make a big difference. The first thing consumers notice about an app or product is the way it looks. A simple design for the logo that is still eye catching is the best route to go. There are several other aspects that define my business concept. These include price points, distribution, customer support, and the customer experience. In sales reports it would be interesting to see how customers prefer the free version with ads or the paid version without ads. From those results it might be beneficial to change the way the app is priced.

Apart from having a unique product there are several other resources that will make my venture succeeded my greatest resource is my ability to communicate my message. This skill will help me communicate my venture idea with potential investors, clients, and connections. This is more important than all my other resources because it leads to success with the other resources. This difference in me is that I am passionate about this idea, because food is a good portion of my life. When something directly affects you people are more likely to do something about, make a move, change in some way. For me the fact that I am a busy college student, and hopefully one day a busy med student means that this app will become a sort of life line for me.

In the future I hope to build off this app. One day building a restaurant that guarantees no wait, no lines, and good food. Another idea would be to target the same customer base with other things college students need. For myself the future holds a lot of things hopefully, including medical school, a successful career as a pediatrician, travel, volunteering, family, and thousands of happy memories to come.