29A - Venture Concept No.2

Opportunity: As more and more students graduate from high school, they have not learned important life skills to aid them in the "real world." More often than not, when reflecting back to the past, students remember random information from classes that won't help them in their daily lives. As a result, there is an unmet need to be met in terms of learning skills to tackle adult's challenges before they arise. As stated before, the target market is high school seniors.

• As of right now, the school system does not make life skills a priority - instead they are focusing on academic subjects, student organizations, and sports. Thus, students are forced to find these answers for themselves.
• The market is in the U.S. and typically within the public school system.
• Customers now are currently satisfying their need by either Googling it or asking family/friends. The method of satisfying their need is based off preference and varies depending on the degree of difficulty/complexity of their problem. However, they would probably rely on one method as of right now, but this could change when given the opportunity to learn beforehand during senior year of high school.
• This opportunity is widespread and applies to everyone at some point. However, there are some people who don't see this as a prevalent problem and are satisfied with what they are doing now.
• The "window of opportunity" is hard to judge how long it will be open. Most things are automated or through the internet, but this problem will most likely not be resolved until schools take greater steps to implement this into their curriculum or as a part of their responsibilities.

Innovation: The high school program I'm developing would run throughout the school year and address multiple topics such as credit cards/credit score, good financial habits, insurance, taxes, acquiring assets (buying/renting a house, apartment, or a car), stock market, investments, etc. These topics would be taught by experts in the "field" and would be provided to students through a hybrid system where students can choose to have more emphasis of the content either in-person or online. Ideally, the program would be offered to students in partnership with their high school in order to reach students more directly. To make money, either the program could be offered to students at a discounted rate in tandem with the school or by completing the program, students would benefit by not only learning these valuable skills but would also receive an external reward (such as having their college application fees waived/discounted). This would be similar to taking Driver's Ed to reduce your car insurance payment.

Venture Concept: With the high school program, students would have the ability to learn the skills while at school. This allows the program to be directed to the students as opposed to students trying to figure out their problem themselves. By having the program aimed at seniors, this ensures that students are prepared whether they go to college, enter the workforce, or join the military. With the incentives, students (or schools) are motivated to pay for this service.

• Customers would switch to this product if they realized their unmet need and desired to solve it. Some of these customers may not have reliable people around them that they could go to for help so by having the program, their needs are addressed. It wouldn't be that hard for them to switch if schools partnered with my program.
• Other competitors include companies like Khan Academy that have tutorial/informative videos addressing these topics on their website. A possible weakness they have is that it is not that enforced and that they do not have a direct connection to schools (they are more of a 3rd party service).
• Price points: Students themselves don't have that much disposable income and their budgets tend to be lower so having a program that offers students incentives and discounts was essential to reach my target market.
• Distribution: Students' learning styles are different and with the hybrid system, this caters to their different learning habits. In addition, having experts in their "field" teach is important to establish credibility.
• Customer support/experience: Having the program in partnership with schools allows for more direct access to students at a discounted rate to boost engagement and interaction.
• Business Organization: Like any business, there are multiple departments like finance, marketing, HR, operations, etc. Generally, the main departments would be marketing (those who would be making connections with schools and "field" experts), technology (the coders who actually implement the program), operations (those who actually design the program) and management (those who make sure everything is running smoothly).

1. Most Important Resource: From the last assignment, I learned my most important resource was my social capital. My market is extremely accessible to me, and I, too fit my market segment. This allows me to modify my idea fairly quickly, and gain valuable feedback very easily.
2. What's Next for the Venture: Aside from the program being primarily lecture based, the next step would be to make the program more interactive. This could include introducing different scenarios and having students navigate the situation to find the best solution, designing personal plans for the future as well as alternative options, and possibly even a workshop of some sort.
3. What's Next for Me: In five years, I would hope every subsequent class is graduating high school with more certainty, adaptability, and confidence for the real world and that my program was a part of that process. As an entrepreneur, in the next decade, I hope I have learned a lot and continue to keep learning from both the operational standpoint of my own business - while at the same time taking into account other methods successful business professionals are taking. This first venture is the tip of the iceberg and really sets the foundation of developing an entrepreneurial mindset. Throughout this course, I've done the groundwork for my idea and put in the thought behind it.

Summary of Feedback: The feedback I received mainly highlighted how the organization and format of my venture concept was easy to read and understand. In my "What's Next" blog post, there was a lot of positive feedback about how it could be more profitable to target schools instead of students and how making the program more interactive would be beneficial. 

What I changed: Although most of my feedback was positive, I tried to change some areas of my venture concept that could use more clarification and specifics.