24A

24A – Venture Concept No. 1

  

As part of ENT 3003, you are required to write a short (2-page, single spaced) description of a concept for a new venture. This write-up guide describes what you should cover in your write-up, and in so doing, it also presents a recommended outline for you to follow.

The three major elements of your write-up are the (1) opportunity, (2) innovation, and (3) venture concept. You should begin your write-up with detailed descriptions of each of these elements.

Opportunity. An opportunity may be defined as a group of customers with unmet or under-met needs. When you describe the opportunity you have identified, you need to be sure to describe both (1) who has the need (i.e., who are the potential customers?) and (2) the nature of the need. Other questions you should address in this section:



• • What are the forces or changes in the environment creating this opportunity?

• • How is this market defined geographically and demographically?

• • How are customers currently satisfying this need? And how loyal are they to whatever they use now?

• • How big is this opportunity?

• • How long will the “window of opportunity” be open?

When I first came up with an idea for a sports facility, I thought about a place to offer students, mainly high school students, a place to get off the streets and stay out of the negative influences and troubles from being on the street. My potential customers were less-fortunate minority individuals who are struggling to stay out of trouble or have a need to grow themselves personally and/or professionally.



This market will start out in the Tampa, FL area and target all students who qualify as minority students. This facility will have high school students that range from the age of 14-18 years old. Currently, these students do not have a positive way to stay out of trouble and are not surrounded by the correct influences. These students do not know the threats of the situations that they are dealing with and how it could end their future immediately.


Innovation. An innovation may be defined as a new or creative service, product, or process that may be applied in the marketplace to address customer needs. The service, product, or process you develop in this class may be radically innovative or it may be incrementally innovative. In this section, I would like to you discuss your innovation in moderate detail. Explain what it is, what it does, and how it works. You should also describe how you will make money – in other words, what, exactly, are you selling and for how much? For instance, if I was starting a business to teach people how to play the piano, I would be selling an hour of my time for $50.



The service that I plan on offering are academic tutoring, study sessions, career development, and personal development. I am offering the ability for minority students who are in need of staying out of trouble or need a room for growth. With this business, I will be giving the services to high school students.



I will be trying to receive some funding from the government through grants and scholarships for my students. The need for funding will be determined through the government in the same way that they have college students complete a FASFA every year.
Venture Concept. A venture concept may be defined as the application of a specific innovation to address a specific opportunity. In this section, describe how your innovation will solve or address the opportunity you identified. You also want to explain why customers will buy your innovation. In describing the concept, you also want to be sure to cover issues such as:

• • What are the reasons to think customers would switch to this new product? How hard will it be to get them to switch?

• • Who are the competitors? What are their possible weaknesses or vulnerabilities?

• • What role does packaging, your price points, distribution, customer support, the customer experience or the business location play (if any) in defining your business concept?

• • How would you organize a “business” to support the ongoing production of your new product, service, or process? How many employees? What roles are in the venture?



I have not seen many products that have focused specifically on emerging yourself in the teenagers’ culture and matching them up with people have gone through the same struggles. I will use my relationships and connections with ex-professionals and college athletes to allow them to see someone who has been in the same situation.



The Boys and Girls Club and other privately-owned recreational programs are my main competitors. Their weaknesses are the fact that they rely only on the funding that they fundraise instead of outsourcing a lot of the funding. They have a good strength with their brand recognition to lure in parents to bring their kids to the program.



I would have somewhere around 20-30 employees that specialize in many different roles. I want to bring people in that have a passion for each service that I have to offer. Since this a sports facility I want to bring in possibly P.E. coaches or old high school coaches who were around this area that are able to understand the stresses that the students go through.