My Business Concept
1) My name is Will Templin and I am wanting to start a business that helps small businesses gain an online presence in an affordable and easy way. I think that I am a great people person and I consider it to be one of my best skills. I have been able to hone this skill by working in multiple industries: restaurant and research. Both of these industries involve working with others and being accommodating. I think these skills will be very helpful because they will allow me to form great relationships with potential customers and investors. Regarding my business, I hope that I can help all small businesses gain an online presence. In today's business world, it is very important to have a website, social media, etc, because it can be the difference between the business being open and having to close down. I think this is a need that most small businesses have and if my assumption ends up being true, I would like to pursue this full time, because it would be a great way to help small businesses across the country.
2) I will be providing small businesses with a way to gain an online presence (website, social media, etc). My plan is to offer potential customers plans, which will vary in price based on how much I will be creating for them. For instance, a website would be a cheaper option compared to me creating a website and running their social media accounts. After that, I would charge them a yearly or monthly fee for me to run everything. Doing this will give small businesses the online presence they need in order to reach customers over the internet.
3) I will be offering this service to a wide variety of people. Luckily, the interviews I did allowed me to figure out exactly needs my service. I learned that retailers, private practice physicians, small marketing firms, restaurants, salon owners, mechanics, and many more would benefit from my service. Although they would use their online presence for different reasons, they could all benefit from having one. One thing that all of these potential customers have in common is that they are all small businesses. Unlike large businesses, small businesses don't have the in-house capabilities to make and run their online presence, so they would understandably benefit from this service.
4) I think customers will pay for the service because of semi-recent business trends, the government restrictions that were implemented due to the coronavirus. E-commerce has been increasing over the past decade. As of now, e-commerce accounts for 12% of total sales in the United States and is increasing. Not having an online presence means that you are going to missing out on this trend and potential sales. Also, the government has placed restrictions on businesses during the pandemic. In many states, businesses are not allowed to sell to people in person, and rely on their websites and social media accounts to sell to customers. The businesses that don't have an online presence are at risk of closing down because they are unable to sell to customers during this time. During this time, an online presence could be the difference between staying open and being forced to close down.
5) I think the thing that gives my idea a competitive advantage of others that do the same thing is that I will try to make it as affordable as possible. I think the reason that many small businesses do not have an online presence is because they can't afford it. If I were to make my service affordable, I would be able to provide the small businesses that normally can't afford an online presence with one. Also, I might be able to sway some businesses that already use a service to use mine because it is so affordable. The other thing that could set me apart from others is that mine will be easy to use and change. I will be the one running their online presence, so they won't have to worry about anything except completing all of the online orders they get.
Evaluation
I think that for the most part all of the parts of my business concept fit together well. For instance, a large part of owning and running a business is have people skills. You need people skills to reach out to customers, investors, etc in order to get your business off the ground. Also, I think that the problem small businesses are facing is a big enough one that they will be willing to pay for my service, especially if the service is affordable and easy (my core competencies). The only thing that doesn't really fit well is the technical skills I have. I don't know how to put together a website from scratch or anything like that. I can make social media accounts and run those, but as far as creating and running websites, I don't know how to do that. Like Dr. Pryor said, that isn't the end of the world to lack the technical skills or experience. As long as you have the entrepreneurial spirit, you can overcome that roadblock.
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