Amazon Whisperer

The current cost drivers for my business concept revolve around revenue from the sale of textbooks and school supplies as well as revenue from online advertising on my website.

The product offering that I believe should be offered to students next is a mobile note-taking app geared specifically towards textbooks. For example, if a student took four classes, they would upload their books for each class onto the app, where they would then be able to create their own note templates as well as annotate their textbooks. Through the use of the app, studying will be made easier for students and will contain all of their notes, highlights, reminders, and key info right alongside their textbooks. This would also eliminate the need for dragging cumbersome textbooks and notepads to class and around campus.

I was not able to search Amazon for a product like the one that I would like to deliver; however, I was able to find an app on the Apple App Store that closely resembled the app that I would like to create. This app was called Notability. Notability is an app that allows students to create their own notes in any which way they please. However, this application is geared specifically towards class notes. Really, the sky is the limit with this app as far as note-taking goes and it allows you to type, draw, sketch among its other features.

All of the customer reviews I read were very encouraging and had a lot of good things to say about the app. Customers seemed to be mostly comprised of college students (the demographic I want to cater to) that stated the app had made their note-taking experience much easier. Most customers seemed to enjoy the fact that they could customize their notes in whichever way they wanted to and which in turn led to easier learning. Some people said they no longer bought notebooks because of the app, and most everyone highly recommended it to other students. The main things that customers were dissatisfied with revolved around syncing to different devices, making sure the most recent versions of their notes were the ones that are saved, and some formatting errors regarding graphs and charts.

As far as the design of the product, I would not change it too much. Its main function would be geared towards the actual textbooks themselves rather than just class notes. I want students to be able to sync to their different devices, whether mobile, tablet, or PC with ease and allow them the opportunity to study on the go. When it comes test time, I want students to be able to scroll through their books with guided and efficient notes, and be able to say "Yea, I remember that concept" or "I know Professor ____ said that will be on this next exam". So I believe the biggest jump my product makes is its purpose for textbook annotations first, then class notes.

Finally, I think this product will make a good addition to my business due to the fact that my whole business revolves around the sale of textbooks to students. If I could develop an application to make e-books more user-friendly and ready to edit, it would save students a lot of time and making studying easier. In return, we would charge a small fee for the app, and the students would find themselves achieving higher grades with greater satisfaction!

Until next time,

-Bryce