The opportunity that I am pursuing is to
satisfy the needs of those who forget their headphones when going to the gym or
library. Many students today like to go to the gym on a regular
basis in order to stay fit and relieve themselves of the stresses of
school. Many students also visit the library on a regular basis to
do homework and watch on line lectures, which many classes here at UF provide.
What these two places have in common is that students using headphones commonly
inhabit them both. The majority of people use headphones at the gym
to listen to music when they work out, as it makes the tedious task of
exercising slightly less mundane. Students in the library commonly use
headphones to watch lessons, tutoring videos, or listen to music when they do
homework. Often, students will make plans to go to one of these
sights, and upon arrival realize that they have forgotten their
headphones. The forces of the environment that create this
opportunity is the natural forgetfulness of human beings, as well as the fast
paced schedule of a college student which may lead to forgetting minor details
such as picking up your ear buds. This market’s demographic is college
students, and more specifically for the gym college students who are into
fitness. Geographically, this market pertains to anywhere on a
college campus there is a gym or classroom. This is a need that
really has not been satisfied yet, as it is an opportunity that no one has
realized or pursued. This opportunity has potential to be big, but
also has a chance for failure if it doesn’t catch on. A major factor
is the tendencies of those at the university and how often regular attendees of
the primary locations forget their belongings. This window of
opportunity will be open as long as humans remain forgetful, or until
headphones become obsolete, which is a long way from happening.
The type of Innovation is would be incremental
innovation. I am bettering the service offered by gym’s and
libraries, by providing vending machines filled with reasonably priced
temporary use ear buds. The vending machine would provide
customers with the ability to still have access to headphones if they forgot
them or decided not to use their personal pair. The prices of the
headphones range from $3-5 dollars and would be based on the quality of the
headphone. There will be multiple options within the machines to
choose from, so that the customer gets to pick a product within their budget
and standard of living. I will make money off this service because this a very
convenient price to pay for the use of headphones. The headphones would be
intended to be disposable, meaning they are not meant to last for that many
uses. There has currently never been a product of this nature, as
most headphones are marketed as long lasting.
My innovation will solve the opportunity I
identified by providing a back up plan for when you forget your headphones at
these locations. Currently, there Is no product of this nature, so
there is will really not much “switching” going on in this scenario. I
also do not have any competitors, as the service I have provided is unique and
has yet to be done by anyone. The only competition I would have is
that of potential future competitors trying to create a better version of my
product. The two main defining roles of my business concept would be the
price points and location. The main focus of my concept is that the
price is cheap, making it a very practical alternative solution that people are
willing to spend money on. The location is another key component
because my product and service would be limited to only two types of locations,
at least to start out. If I were to organize a business to support
the on going production of this product and service, I would organize it to
where there would be main offices and manufacturing factories in specific
locations by nearby universities where the service would be in use. There
would be a team of sales representatives, as well as factory workers that
manufacture the product. The amount of employees would determine
very much on how large the business were to get. The sales
representatives would be responsible for universities in certain regions. For
example, one region would be the area from Tampa all the way to Tallahassee.
What
would make it hard for competitors to copy my success is that I am already
making this product as cheap as possible. In order for someone else
to better this plan, they would have to make higher quality headphones for the
same price, or make the same quality ones for a very cheaper price. However,
the minimum price of $3 would be very hard to beat.
My
next plan for this venture would be to implement a similar system of higher
quality headphones in commercial gyms such as LA Fitness or Anytime fitness. These
gyms usually have customers that are older and make a higher income than that
of college kids. This can be used to
assume that the standard of quality of headphones to be desired in these types
of facilities would be higher than those in the college gyms.
In the next 5 years I would like to see this product and service
take off at the University of Florida, and possibly one or two nearby
schools. Within the next decade, I would like to have a minimum of 3
separate product or service ideas already taken off and in motion. I also would
like to continue coming up with more ideas to further broaden my streams of
income and variety of products.
The feedback I got back from my first venture
concept was very positive, and the majority of the suggestions were
helpful. For example, I received the
same feedback multiple times saying that my price of $1 per headphone is
probably unrealistic and I would need to bump it up to $3-$5. I implemented this
in my new venture concept to better portray an accurate estimated price.
Another thing I changed based on my feedback was my concept for a future business
idea. The feedback on this idea I
received was that this idea was already being utilized on college campuses, so
I decided to broaden my headphone idea to commercial gyms instead as my future
business plan.
