Assignment 29A - Venture Concept No. 2

OPPORTUNITY

            The opportunity that I’ve been attempting to solve throughout this class is the issue of seating at UF’s Library West. The need is for UF administrators because having a lack of seats is detrimental for students to get their studying done. The students at UF are going to benefit from this, but the actual people in charge of making the decisions regarding the library are the customers that I am trying to sell this idea to. Currently this need is focused only on UF, but might be applicable to large Universities all over the country. The forces in the environment that create this opportunity are the fact that there are 55,000 students at the University of Florida and Library West simply is not designed for this many students to effectively use it. This market is defined geographically in Gainesville at UF and for college age students. Customers currently are satisfying this need by opening other libraries on campus such as Newell, however it didn’t change much at Library West at all when it opened. This opportunity is big as it has the potential to exist at Universities all over the country. This particular window of opportunity is open for as long as the library continues to have hard copy books that take up a ton of space.

INNOVATION

            My innovation for this issue is to create a digitalized archive of Library West’s books in order to free up more space to install tables and chairs for students to utilize daily. This online archive would hold every single book that is currently taking up unnecessary space in the library right now. Few students actually make use of the hard copy books now and putting them online would enable even easier access to them if a student required it. Installing more seating options is not much of an innovation, but it would provide the necessary tools for more students to use the library at a time. I am not selling a product in this scenario, but a service to open up more space in the Library and I would profit on the entire process. I am not able to provide a concrete number for the cost of this project as it is quite an undertaking, but this could either be done directly through me if I were to create a company for this purpose or could be outsourced to another company that already serves this purpose and I would take a cut of the profits.

VENTURE CONCEPT

            My innovation solves the issue of seating at Library West because it removes items that are currently taking up large amounts of space in the library and replaces them with seats for students. This will enable more students to be in the library at one time and eliminates the issue of wasting time by walking around looking for seats, especially during exam weeks. I think that customers would switch to this online database for the books because it will benefit them in more than one way. For one, they would be revolutionizing the traditional library setting by digitalizing the library. This is taking advantage of technology that is only going to improve. It is only a matter of time before everything is digitalized and there really is not a good reason for not carrying through with this plan. Also they would see an increase in student performance because more students would have access to the library. The only competitors are companies that currently create online databases for businesses. They are already established so that makes my job a little more difficult, but their weakness is that they are not in this environment and haven’t seen this opportunity firsthand. I have direct experience with this issue and can use that to insure that this project is implemented correctly, this is not something that these random companies possess.  This could also be used to my advantage as I wouldn’t have to establish my own company for this and I could outsource this directly to them instead. This would save a lot of time and money and would get the project moving forward quickly.  

THE THREE MINOR ELEMENTS

Secret Sauce

I think my most important resource is my social capital. I need to have connections with the right people in order to make this project work. I currently do not have the resources to carry this out on my own and forming meaningful relationships with those that can help me accomplish what I am trying to do is a crucial part of the success of this project. Connections are key in the business world and having the right ones would only aid my progress. The feedback I received on this assignment really backed this idea and it furthers my belief that social capital is the way for this project to come to fruition.

What Is Next?

 After watching the success of the Library West project I’d like to expand this idea to Universities all across the country. I think college campuses are the perfect place to start this movement and then eventually bring it to all libraries in the country. There might be more resistance for regular public libraries, but it is something worth exploring. However, this might not be overseen by me as I might be looking to sell the company after UF integrates this idea. This would be more of a movement to integrate technology completely into libraries as more and more people become technologically capable. Technology is a tool that should be utilized effectively and hard copy books are becoming a thing of the past.

What is next for me?

In five years I want to have this project implemented throughout the entire UF Campus. I want to see technology being used to its full potential. This is a good opportunity for me to learn a great deal about being an entrepreneur as there is no telling the success of this project. I will either learn from my failure or continue to implement this type of project wherever I can. In a decade I hope to be working on multiple projects at once and have a solid network of people I can rely on and be in a stable financial situation. I want to be able to see how this company performs before I decide whether I’m going to stay involved in it or sell it off to someone else. I think after UF’s implementation is complete I would be able to make that decision.

2) The feedback I received on my first Venture Concept assignment was really positive. Everyone seemed to agree with me that my most important resource was my social capital. This really drove home the importance of my social capital. I completely agree with this feedback as it was one of my main points that I focused on. I also received feedback from my exit strategy assignment that supported my decision to kind of see how the company performs before deciding whether to sell it or stick with it.

3) I incorporated the feedback about my social capital into my “secret sauce” section as I just reiterated its importance. I factored in the feedback about my exit strategy into my “What is Next” and “What is next for me?” category.

           

Assignment 30A - Final Reflection

2) My most formative experience in this class would have to be how many interviews I had to conduct. I learned so much about how to interact with others in an interview setting, where I was the one conducting the interviews. I think that by having to go out and find people that fit the criteria of my opportunity really pushed me out of my comfort zone and overall helped me grow as a person. My most joyous experience is when I had to interview my friends to see what they really thought of me. It was nice to hear what they really thought deep down. The experience that I am proud of accomplishing is the elevator pitch. I wasn’t super comfortable speaking on camera, but after a lot of practice I was able to move past that.

3) I think this class has helped me develop a more entrepreneurial mindset. By having to go out and find people to interview and really think about the opportunity and the needs of the customer I feel like I have a better understanding about how to think like an entrepreneur. I’m excited to be able to apply these new skills into my life and see how far I can take them!

4) I recommend that students in the future complete all of the assignments ahead of the deadline because I ran into a problem with two of the assignments and I am going to miss an A by one point. There really is no reason for that to happen as there is plenty of time to finish the work that is assigned, I just let myself get behind on two of them. Time management is the key to this course. For fostering the entrepreneurial mindset, I recommend actually putting in the time and completing the assignments instead of putting in just enough effort to get by.

Assignment 28A - Your Exit Strategy

1.     My exit strategy for my venture is to see how the process works at UF. After seeing how it performs here, I would then decide if I was going to keep going with it or sell it to someone else who can pursue the vision. This would all take place within the next ten years so it really depends on the success of the project.

2.     I selected this particular exit strategy because I think that seeing how the first run goes is a good way to judge how I want to handle the future of the company. I don’t see this as become a powerful or long-lasting company so I definitely would not keep it as a family business.

3.     I think this exit strategy influenced other decisions as I never saw this as a long term project. I always saw it as a way to change the libraries in the US and that was it. I was only looking at that and not a way to put this into a bigger picture.