Assignment 19A- Idea Napkin No. 2

Still Pretend this is a Napkin

1) You. Who you are. What your talents are. What your skills and experiences are. Also: what are your aspirations? Specifically, regarding your business concept, how do you see this business (if you were to start it) playing a role in your life?

• My name is Madylin McConnell and I am a first-year student and I am a Business Administration General Studies major with an intended major in Urban Planning. I intend to get a minor in Real Estate and apply for the Masters of International Business Program. I am in the UF Honors Program and am also a first-generation student. After talking to five people closest to me and reflecting on interviews, I am someone who possesses good communication skills. I have been able to complete all of the assignments and effectively communicate with many different sources to gather the information I currently possess. I have experience in leadership and planning events with teams. I have held different leadership positions such as being the Class of 2019 Class Representative for the International Baccalaureate Program Student Union in high school. I had the opportunity to plan a cultural festival that entailed four months of planning and improving my team working skills. I aspire to continue to learn and grow as a person. I want to live out a career that I am good at, but also one that I get satisfaction from doing. If I were to start this business, I would not want it to be my main career. I would want to develop and launch the product, with ambitions of selling it for profit after a few years. 

2) What are you offering to customers? Describe the product or service (in other words, how you'll solve customers' unmet needs). 

• This part has not changed and I do not plan on it changing for the rest of the semester. I am offering both scooter owners and scooter dealers a way to protect merchandise and property from being stolen. For individuals, I am solving their problem because the locks currently on the market are obviously not effective and do not include a method for property recovery. Scooter dealers can increase their sales by having a very effective method of ensuring customers that their investment will not get stolen after a few days or months. From my interviews, I learned that some college students haven’t invested in scooters because they have heard of so many people getting stolen. Companies that sell these locks can use it as a way to promote the sale of their scooters. 

3) Who are you offering it to? Describe, in as much detail as possible, the demographic and psychographic characteristics of your customers. Think especially of this question: what do your customers all have in common?

• My market is narrowly defined as scooter owners and scooters. Individuals include scooters, moped, and potentially motorcycle owners. Individuals who own scooters in concentrated places like college towns where scooter usage is high and ranges only for a few miles of transportation are especially in the market. Individuals who live in European cities, such as London are very likely to need better anti-theft locks due to high theft rates. I could make lower and higher-priced ranges for different income levels. I don’t think the difference would have to be that large, because most individuals would be willing to protect there over a thousand dollar property. 
• For businesses, the main companies I would offer the product to would-be scooter and auto sales companies. The first dealers that would be contacted would be ones in college towns and cities that use mopeds as one of their primary means of transportation.
• Based on feedback from my last idea napkin, places of high tourism could also be a potential customer. Hotels or companies that rent out scooters to tourists would be interested in protecting their products from theft. This is a market that I had previously not recognized. 
• Amazon is also a universal market that I could reach potential customers.

4) Why do they care? Your solution is only valuable insofar as customers believe it’s valuable to them. Here, explain why customers will actually pay you money to use your product or service. 

• This has not changed. From interviews, I have confirmed that scooter owners would rather buy a lock than a whole other scooter. Also, I have learned that potential buyers would be more inclined to purchase a scooter if I believe that scooter owners and scooter dealers will buy my product because it is beneficial for both of them. From the consumers perspective, it is much cheaper to buy a 50 to 100 dollar anti-theft lock, rather than investing in another thousand dollars plus scooter. While businesses may make more profit by selling an entire new scoter, they may make more sales if they have the locks initially. From the business’s perspective, they could use the fact that customers will be more assured that their property will not get stolen in order to sell more scooters. In both cases, both parties save money or make more money from the purchase of antitheft locks.

5) What are your core competencies? What sets you apart from everyone else? Also: what do you have that nobody else has? 

• This remains the same because I have yet to find a similar lock on the market. As far as my knowledge goes, no other antitheft locks have attempted to combine three different types of locks. I have also not been able to find systems that come with tracking systems, in order to recover your property, just in case it does get stolen. I am not saying that this product would 100% prevent theft, however, it would greatly decrease any odds and help reclaim the property if it does get stolen. The first step is prevention, but recovery also needs to be considered. 

In addition to these five elements, please spend a paragraph evaluating whether you believe these elements fit together or whether there are aspects of your business concept that are weaker / out-of-joint with the others. 

• I think that my elements work well together, however, I have two areas of concern. First, I think that the market of businesses may be smaller than the market for individuals. Businesses could think in the opposite way, “Why would I want to prevent scooters from being stolen when it means they might buy another one?” I would have to research into the perspective that scooter sellers would take before preceding. Finally, I do not have any current connections that would help me launch this product or5 have money for research in development. This would be a hurdle that I would have to overcome before proceeding. 

Feedback Memo:

1. One of my main points of feedback was that I was missing a very large part of my market segment that I had yet to identify. This segment was tourist-filled towns that rent our scooters and similar vehicles. These rental companies would want to protect their rentals, so, therefore, could potentially be a very large part of the market. I included this under the who I am offering it to section. 
2. Another point that was mentioned in the feedback was when I made the point that businesses might not want to seel the lock because they make more revenue when people have to buy a whole new scooter. The feedback suggested to add that people may be more likely to by a scooter if they do have the lock, so it really just depends on which option carries more weight. I edited this under the why they care section.