Venture Concept No. 2

Opportunity:

When examining my venture concept, ChompNation Books, I see a great opportunity right before my own eyes. This opportunity revolves around the fact that thousands of college students are overpaying for and overbuying textbooks every single semester. The current need that I see is an alternative source for students to get quality textbooks, fair prices, and expert advice on which books are necessary to buy. The forces that currently shape the environment in which I plan to enter are mainly the prices set by the UF bookstore, as well as the alternatives to buying them elsewhere, which are few and far in between. My target market is located in Gainesville, FL and my target demographic is focused on UF students of all ages and majors. Currently, the students inside of my demographic are satisfying their needs by buying from either the UF bookstore, exchanging with other students on Facebook, or ordering books from other websites. However, the loyalty rate among this demographic is not high at all, and as a student myself, I know that I would be willingly to buy from somewhere else if I knew I could obtain these texts at a lower price. Knowing all of these things, I believe that my opportunity could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and impact thousands of students at the university. The best part about this venture opportunity is that this opportunity can last for years on end, depending on the consistency and quality of the services that I provide. Also, this will depend on whether or not a lot of competitors flood the market in the coming years.

Innovation:

The innovation portion of my venture concept is nothing along the lines of inventing the new iPhone or a teleportation device, but rather a service that will make peoples' everyday lives easier while saving them time and money. The innovation that I am proposing is a website where students can come to buy, sell, or even trade their textbooks and school supplies. Through efficient supply chain management, I plan to offer these textbooks and supplies at lower prices than students would typically pay for them, while letting students buy and sell texts with one another over an e-marketplace setting.  An interesting feature of our website will allow students to communicate with one another by posting questions about classes or materials that are needed. In addition, you will be able to select, for one, the school you are attending, and you then be able to choose your college, specific class, and even section number within the class.
I know from personal experience that buying $400 worth of books that I maybe opened three times all semester is a real bummer and wished that I would have gotten the advice of an older, more experienced student. To go along with this, I am trying to provide either same or next day delivery to students so that they will receive their materials as soon as they need them. Finally, I hope to release a note-taking app that will be compatible with PC, tablets, and phones. Through this app, students will be able to access all of their texts in one place electronically and have the ability to edit and create custom note templates to help them study. This app will consist of "communities", and therefore allow all UF students the opportunity to communicate over the app in their respective communities or colleges. I have not decided to charge extra for app or tie it in with the purchase of texts. However, I do believe this app will entice to students to buy their books with us, and it will be exclusively available to ChompNation patrons.

Venture Concept:

I believe these innovations will be able to solve the problems students’ deal with when purchasing texts for a multitude of reasons. First of all, money is one of the most important priorities for a college student, and they will be able to save possibly hundreds of dollars every semester through our services. Second, it will save students loads to time. Since we are an online business, students will no longer have to experience a two-hour bookstore wait during the middle of their usually busy day. Third, I believe that the app, bundled with the texts, will allow to students to access their texts from anywhere and not have to lug multiple books across campus throughout the day. They will also be able to customize the way that they learn, which in turn could lead to improved customer satisfaction and high retention rates. 

Customers will want to switch to my company due to the fact that our prices will be lower and service quality will be higher. I believe that in the first year or so, it could be hard to garner the reputation against competitors. However, if I am smart about how I market the company and services that we provide, people will be looking to us as their place of choice for buying books in no time. The competitors in my market (Facebook, UF Bookstore, Chegg, etc.) are merely trying to turn a profit, while ChompNation is geared towards giving the most bang for the buck. We are genuinely interested in providing the best buying and learning experience for students and our prices will reflect this. It is here that I believe I will be able to gain an advantage over my competitors.  The main points that I want to focus on while creating the customer experience are: easy usability, high interaction between the buyer and seller, lower prices, and efficient delivery time. If I am able to manage these aspects well, I believe this venture could be a huge success. I would not have many employees, however the ones that I hire will have to be very tech savvy and have some experience with UF courses and require materials.

Three Minor Points:

I feel like my venture unfair advantage would be my experience with building a brand name and catering to the demographic which is the student body of UF. I really could use these experience to figure out the Do’s and Don’t’s when first starting out in here in Gainesville.

Eventually, I would like to launch my app to students and businesspeople nationwide. The students at UF will be the test market for this production, but I feel like I could give it to much more people on a national scale, years down the road.

Honestly, I believe that I will be selling this company within 5-10 years. During this period of time, competition will seriously increase as my services can be mimicked. This makes me focus on a strategy of rapid growth, as I would like to expand my company and utilize my services nationwide within the first few years. After that, I would sell ChompNation and mostly likely continue to innovate on the technical/ digital side of the business.


For the most part, my feedback from the first venture concept was very positive. However, one thing that really stood out me was when one person said that the website should be easier for students at UF specifically, to navigate as well as communicate.
Therefore, I changed the website in my concept to include a series of drop-down bars where one is able to select their specific college within UF, followed by the class, and finally the section number. In this way, it will point you in the most narrow, specific direction as possible and make it easier for students to find exactly what they need and eliminate even more time. In addition, I added the concept of "communities" in the app that I would like to develop. These communities would allow students the opportunity to communicate with students in their respective classes and colleges. This could be in the form of note-sharing, forming study groups, asking questions and so forth. Finally, I changed my third minor element to include my business growth strategy as I have decided that I would like to sell my business within the next 5-10 years. Other than that, everything else remained in tact due to the positive feedback I received.

Until next time,

-Bryce