Assignment 11A

Idea Napkin

1. I am a student at the University of Florida and am majoring in General Business. My skills include problem-solving, critical thinking, and creativity. My aspirations are to enjoy life and help people solve their problems. I see my business concept as one that I would work on in my free time and continue to work at until I feel that I am not helping anyone by pursuing this opportunity. 

2. WHAT ARE YOU OFFERING TO CUSTOMERS?

My service would be a service that goes to schools and informs teachers about how they should be telling their students how to study and learn their specific class. I would mainly focus on helping teachers inform their students how they should be studying for tests. This will help students clear their confusion about how they can be effective and efficient when studying in order to reach their goals in the classroom.

3. WHO ARE YOU OFFERING IT TO?

Although I would be selling my service to schools, the students would be the primary market that would benefit from my service. The service would primarily be targeted towards middle school and high school students who are seeking better grades on tests. I would not limit my market to any specific gender, race, or income level.

4. WHY DO THEY CARE?

Although schools would directly pay for my service, I will talk about why students care about my service because they are the ones who will benefit the most from it.  Students will find my service valuable because not only will it allow them to get better grades in the classroom, it will also save them time when studying. This will make their parents happier and will give them more time for activities that they would rather be doing. Additionally, this service will benefit them for many more years as they still have many years of schooling ahead.

5. WHAT ARE YOUR CORE COMPETENCIES?

I believe that my primary core competency is that, from what I have seen, there is not a single company that is offering this service to schools. While the barriers to entry might be relatively nominal, I believe through some experience, I could develop a service tailored perfectly to the needs of the students. This experience would put me far ahead of anyone else trying to compete against me. Another core competency that I have is that I am young and have recently experienced the need that I am trying to fill. My proximity to the problem gives me a more empathetic nature than most potential competitors.

COHESIVENESS

Although I do believe that my business model is fairly cohesive, one part that seems to be a bit unsteady is my target market. I talked about how the need is one that comes from students, although they cannot pay for my service. I may need to market my service more towards parents and schools. This is something that I have struggled with, and I am unsure how this fits into my business model. Although schools and parents would both benefit from my service greatly, I am unsure whether I should also consider these segments as a part of my target market because they would not be benefited as much as students would be.