Venture Concept No.1

Venture Concept No.1

Comp Hub

Opportunity:
Do you believe that you have a talent to be showcased? Do you feel you have no time to compete in competitions to show the world how good you are? Are you bored staying at home during the quarantine? Then my innovation called compete and win is the perfect platform for you. It is a website where you can compete against others all around right from the comfort of your home either for a prize money or just to experience the thrill of competing. This will provide you with the exposure of competing against others and also give you an opportunity to develop your skills and also find new interests. It will also allow you to show how good you are to colleges, your employer and the world in general. Currently, I feel my potential customers are students who are getting ready for college and about to graduate from college. This is because the students who are currently getting ready for college would like to show their skills to the college admission officers to standout from the crowd. The students who are going to graduate from colleges also, in the same way, would like to showcase their skills to potential employers and show them where they stand in comparison to the rest of the world. In the present situation of quarantine due to coronavirus, I also believe all the children would be my potential customers as most of the children are at home just wasting time. So most of the parents would like their children to do some activities to keep the children engaged. Currently, I believe that the customers are satisfying this need by competing in regional competitions. I believe this is a big opportunity given the present situation and once people see the real benefits of the service, I feel it would be a huge success. The window of opportunity will be open as long as mankind survives.

Innovation:

I believe that the service/product I am providing is innovative if not radically innovative. It is not a groundbreaking revolutionary project, and it need not be. For a business to be successful, it is important to solve a problem in the easiest and most effective way possible. So, coming to what my service is exactly is that, it is an online platform where a person can compete and collaborate with others around the world. The service is divided into two parts. Competing and collaborating. Coming to the competing part, users can either take part in existing competitions or start their own competitions and invite their friends to join the competition. Take the case of a photography competition hosted by X. If Y would like to join the competition, he/she should enroll in the competition before the deadline for enrolling. Then Y is given a set amount of time to capture a picture based on the topic provided after the start of the competition. Y then should post the picture on the page before the deadline. After the deadline is passed the host gets to vote and choose the winner. Coming to the collaborating part, the users can join with their friends and form groups to learn new skills or compete together as a team. The collaboration part is still under development and not completely done. The way service is going to make money is by placing a minimum fee to host competitions on the website. Initially, users would not like to pay for hosting competitions, but as the scale of the platform grows, I could include premium options. Also, if the competitions are held with an entry fee, I will take a percentage share from the host of the competition. And in the long run, advertisements will be a major source of income. Another way of making an income is by putting an entry fee for the competitions held by the company itself. These are various ways in which income could be made.

Venture Concept:

So basically the opportunity that I have identified is the lack of platforms to compete against others right from one's home. My service is also a great way to get rid of boredom during the quarantine. So my innovation exactly addresses the problem by providing the users to compete in competitions right from the comfort of their homes. My customers would like to buy my product mainly because it gives the comfort of hosting, competing and collaborating right from their homes. Also, it is a platform where you can actually test out where you stand in the real world in comparison to others. So, the ones who take their skills seriously would like to pay for getting the exposure of competing against others all around the world. I don't think there are any services like my platform to compete as far as I am aware of. So, I believe that my users need not switch from any platform, taking out the concept of getting them to transition. My potential competitors would be social media sites as it would be very easy for them just to provide an update to host competitions. But I am confident my service would be different as my service would not have any age restrictions to use and parents wouldn't mind their children using my service for that reason. Price points will play a crucial role in the success of my business. If the pricing is too high, users will not be willing to use the service and will try to find alternatives. The pricing should be reasonable and the service should provide them with unique features that justifies the pricing. 

My most important resource will be the determination and grit that I possess to make my business idea a success.

The next thing I want to tackle in my service is the collaborating part. It is not completely developed and the idea is being constructed. 

Assuming I have launched the service, I would like to sell my company to a huge social media/ online platform for a good amount of money. As it will be a tough thing to compete with such competitors and selling it off would take the burden off to compete against such huge guns.

What's Next?

What's Next?

Existing Customers:

For my service of providing an online platform for competing in competitions, I personally feel that getting colleges and companies to host their official competitions on my platform would be a huge step. This is because my existing customers are mainly school and college students who want to take part in competitions to prove to universities and companies that they are better than others around the world so that they could get admitted into colleges, and get placed into companies. So, making colleges and companies themselves host tournaments on my platform would be a great advantage and increase the legitimacy of the competition.

New Customers:

In the present situation, I would see almost all children as my new customers. Since all schools are closed and children are indoor due to coronavirus situation, competing in competitions will be a great way for them to get rid of boredom and also find new interests. From their perspective, I feel my idea of getting colleges and companies to host their official competitions on my platform would attract these new customers also. Additionally, coming up with courses for students to take part in so that they can master a skill will attract these new groups of people. By providing courses to learn, they will learn a new skill and then can compete on my service itself to test their skill/standing in the world.

Elevator Pitch 3

1) Elevator Pitch Link
https://youtu.be/AGPVwo2gfjc
2) The feedback I received on my elevator pitch 2 was that I improved a lot more from the first pitch and looked more connected to the product. I was suggested to add more emotion while delivering the pitch and also use phrases motivating the customer to use my service.

3) Based on the feedback from the first and second pitches, I tried to add more emotion while delivering the pitch and also use phrases to encourage the customer the use my service. Since my product is an online service, I used the present quarantine situation to my benefit to encourage the customers to use my service right from their home. Also, I felt more confident while delivering the pitch and the pitch itself sounded good in my opinion.

16A –What’s Your Secret Sauce?

What's your secret sauce?

1) Own Assessment

a) Organized - I am a firm believer in having a well-planned schedule for at least two days planned in advance. This way, I feel that I do not waste any time trying to think what I need to do and most importantly more often than not, I stick to my schedule.

b)  Leadership Skills - I feel that I am really good at handling people in a group and working with them. I can easily resolve disparities and I am always ready to take ownership of the problems being faced by the team.

c) Optimism - I am really optimistic and I always see the bright side of things even in the darkest of situations. I believe that everything, good or bad, happens for a reason and eventually, one will learn from his/her mistakes and end up on the bright side of things.

d) Hardworking - Since childhood, I always was taught by my father that there was no substitute for hard work. Since then it was rooted deeply in my brain and I never believed that there was a shortcut to success and always tried to give my 100% to achieve a goal.

e) Flexible - Even though I like being organized, stick to a schedule and work hard, in life we must always make time for the loved ones. Often we come across many unplanned events for which we must make space. I don't mind making changes to my schedule and instead, I would just wake up an hour earlier to complete the task and move ahead in the day.

2) Five Interviews

a) https://soundcloud.com/toshi-nandan/rohan-interview/s-Dtqt5
This interview is from my friend Rohan. He talks about my leadership skills and mentions how organized I am. He also mentions how organized and flexible I am at the same time.

b) https://soundcloud.com/toshi-nandan/nihit/s-RPtBU
This interview is from my cousin Nihit. He talks about my optimistic nature and how I see the bright side even in the darkest of situations. He also mentions that I am really patient.

c) https://soundcloud.com/toshi-nandan/university-of-florida/s-SDTk5
This interview is from my friend Aadesh. He mentions about my punctuality and my helping nature.

d) https://soundcloud.com/toshi-nandan/nithin/s-Etfrj
This interview is from my brother Nithin. He mentions about me being determined towards my goals and not dropping/changing my goals due to the toughness of the goal.

e) https://soundcloud.com/toshi-nandan/new-recording-5/s-uorQe
This interview is from my friend Tarang. He mentions about my organized schedule and my hardworking nature.

3) From the interviews, one can see that the observations made by others and me were mostly similar and I think the interviews are correct about me. I wouldn't make any corrections to my list from part 1.

Growing Your Social Capital

Growing Your Social Capital

1) Amanda Schull - graduate student at UF with expertise in web and app development. The slot being filled by her is a domain expert. She fills the spot because she has a wide range of knowledge in building and hosting webpages. I first met her during the UF Cyber Security weekly meeting. She offered to teach and help me if I face any problems during the construction of the webpage and doesn't expect anything in return. Including this person in my network will help me exploit an opportunity because she has prior work experience in a big firm and her experience can be used to attract potential investors if she is willing to work with me in the future.

2) Martin Clint - works at Neilsen in Tampa. His role is conducting surveys and collecting data for different markets and upcoming businesses. The slot being filled is that of a market expert. He is a colleague of my uncle and I met him during a family gathering. He offered his expertise to conduct a survey to know if customers are really into my service. Nothing is expected in return as he is a family friend. Including him in my network is really beneficial as I can get accurate results on who is interested in my service and then I can customize my service based on the results to target the specific group.

3) Bharat Tilak - works at Nielsen in Tampa. Has expertise in building webpages and apps to upcoming businesses. The slot being filled is that of a market supplier. I came in contact with him after asking Martin if he knew someone in the supplying domain. He offered help in the development of my service without any expectation in return. He would be a great addition to my network as he has the experience of developing many webpages and apps.

Reflection:
This has been a completely new experience. I don't generally reach out to new people for help but this assignment made me reach out to a whole new set of people. This will really help me in future networking events as I will be confident to start a conversation with a random person and establish connections easily. 

Final Reflection

Final Reflection

My most formative experience from this course is interviewing others to get feedback on my product. Usually, I am a bit of an introvert. But this course has helped me open up and make conversations with strangers. One most important thing that I learned from this course is that the most important aspect of a business is to solve a problem being faced by others. Also, I learned that the solution/product need not be very technologically advanced to be successful. At the end of this course, I believe that I have developed an entrepreneurial mindset and learned lots of tips and tricks in creating a successful business. My recommendation for the ones that are going to take this course is that make a schedule and ensure that you stick to the schedule at all times. At first glance, the assignments might look difficult and long but once you start the assignment, you will actually enjoy doing it and find it simple and also you will learn a lot of useful information while doing the assignments. Do not aim to just complete the assignment 10 minutes before it is due, the more time one spends the more one will learn.

Your Exit Strategy

Your Exit Strategy

1) I believe that the best exit strategy for my business would be to grow my business as much as possible in the next 5 years and sell it for a good return. I can see companies like YouTube buying my business.

2) I have selected this particular business strategy because I feel that after a certain amount of time there will be similar products in the market and the competition will be very high. Once the competition is very high, one must keep on improving the features of the product to stay in the race. Instead, I feel that using the money that I will get after selling the business on other new businesses would be more useful and less burdensome.

3) I think that my exit strategy has deeply influenced the decision I have made in the business concept. I always treated this business as a short term goal rather than a long term goal. Since I always saw this as a short term goal, I never really planned on taking debt.