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 $1-3 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 $1 would be very hard to
beat.
My next
plan for this venture would be to implement a similar system in libraries with
electronic chargers. This could be
implemented in two ways. The first would be the same concept of the headphones
where they are low quality chargers meant for a few uses and would be very low
priced. The second option would be a
charger rental service in the libraries, that would charge students a flat all
day rate of somewhere between 10-15 dollars, or an hourly rate of $2 an
hour. I believe the second option could
be more implementable, and would result in less business expenses because there
would be a lower frequency of renewing inventory.
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.
