1) Note: I didn't receive any feedback on my last venture concept so I made changes based on what I have learned in class and from other assignments.
The Opportunity
The opportunity that I identified was that there are many small businesses (approximately 46%) out there that do not have any sort of online presence. An online presence is anything over the internet that draws attention to your business or brand. This means that they rely solely on word of mouth to spread awareness about their business. This also means that they rely solely on face to face interaction in order to sell to customers. Given recent events (the coronavirus and the government restrictions that came along with it), many small business owners are now at risk of having to close down because they can no longer have face to face interactions with customers. All business owners in all states are facing this problem. Even though some states have eased up on restrictions, they are expecting to tighten them up again once Fall and Winter arrive. As of now, customers aren't really satisfying this need. Small business owners are relying on loans and grants to give them enough money to pay their bills during this time. However, that is not a good plan because there is no set end date to this problem. These small business owners could end up taking out tons of loans for the foreseeable future until there is a vaccine and government restrictions lighten up, putting them in large amounts of debt that they will never be able to get out of. I don't think they are "loyal" to taking out tons of loans. I think that every good business person knows that they will have to take out loans every once in a while in order to finance a piece of machinery, a building, etc, but they all know that it is not smart to take out loans in order to pay employees or to pay bills. I think that many small business owners have been forced to do this because they have no other options. I think that this opportunity is pretty big. This coronavirus is affecting small businesses all over the world and many of them could be saved if they had an easy and affordable online presence. I think that this opportunity will be here for the foreseeable future. Let's take the coronavirus out of the equation for a second. Ever since the 1990's, businesses have been using the internet in order to reach customers. Now it's the 2020's and the internet has become a more important part of businesses. Experts say that close to 20% of all retail sales were done over the internet in 2019. Now add the coronavirus, people can now only shop over the internet. In 2020, it is very important to have an online presence so that you can reach and sell to customers.
The Innovation
The innovation I have created is more of a process innovation rather than a product innovation. I plan on creating websites that are on par with competitors(GoDaddy and SquareSpace), but I am going to do it for less money. The way I plan on innovating the process is by hiring independent website designers (mainly college students that are looking for a good side-job), similar to how Uber hires their drivers. This will keep the costs that I incur low. These independent website designers will create websites for a flat $5 fee. This may not seem like a lot but the way my business will make money is through managing their online presence. If they choose to let us manage their online presence, we will charge them $20 a month. 46% of all small businesses don't have an online presence of any kind. If my business were able to reach all 46% of small businesses, we would make $71 million from flat fees alone and $300 million from managing online presences each month. The way my service will work relies primarily on me contacting small businesses and selling my idea to them. Once the small business owner sees that they need an online presence, I will send an independent website designer to them and they will talk to them about what they are looking for in an online presence. The independent website designer will create their online presence and if they would like, they will manage it for them. Small business owners will see how helpful and easy having an online presence is and will wish they had used our service sooner.
The opportunity that I identified was that there are many small businesses (approximately 46%) out there that do not have any sort of online presence. An online presence is anything over the internet that draws attention to your business or brand. This means that they rely solely on word of mouth to spread awareness about their business. This also means that they rely solely on face to face interaction in order to sell to customers. Given recent events (the coronavirus and the government restrictions that came along with it), many small business owners are now at risk of having to close down because they can no longer have face to face interactions with customers. All business owners in all states are facing this problem. Even though some states have eased up on restrictions, they are expecting to tighten them up again once Fall and Winter arrive. As of now, customers aren't really satisfying this need. Small business owners are relying on loans and grants to give them enough money to pay their bills during this time. However, that is not a good plan because there is no set end date to this problem. These small business owners could end up taking out tons of loans for the foreseeable future until there is a vaccine and government restrictions lighten up, putting them in large amounts of debt that they will never be able to get out of. I don't think they are "loyal" to taking out tons of loans. I think that every good business person knows that they will have to take out loans every once in a while in order to finance a piece of machinery, a building, etc, but they all know that it is not smart to take out loans in order to pay employees or to pay bills. I think that many small business owners have been forced to do this because they have no other options. I think that this opportunity is pretty big. This coronavirus is affecting small businesses all over the world and many of them could be saved if they had an easy and affordable online presence. I think that this opportunity will be here for the foreseeable future. Let's take the coronavirus out of the equation for a second. Ever since the 1990's, businesses have been using the internet in order to reach customers. Now it's the 2020's and the internet has become a more important part of businesses. Experts say that close to 20% of all retail sales were done over the internet in 2019. Now add the coronavirus, people can now only shop over the internet. In 2020, it is very important to have an online presence so that you can reach and sell to customers.
The Innovation
The innovation I have created is more of a process innovation rather than a product innovation. I plan on creating websites that are on par with competitors(GoDaddy and SquareSpace), but I am going to do it for less money. The way I plan on innovating the process is by hiring independent website designers (mainly college students that are looking for a good side-job), similar to how Uber hires their drivers. This will keep the costs that I incur low. These independent website designers will create websites for a flat $5 fee. This may not seem like a lot but the way my business will make money is through managing their online presence. If they choose to let us manage their online presence, we will charge them $20 a month. 46% of all small businesses don't have an online presence of any kind. If my business were able to reach all 46% of small businesses, we would make $71 million from flat fees alone and $300 million from managing online presences each month. The way my service will work relies primarily on me contacting small businesses and selling my idea to them. Once the small business owner sees that they need an online presence, I will send an independent website designer to them and they will talk to them about what they are looking for in an online presence. The independent website designer will create their online presence and if they would like, they will manage it for them. Small business owners will see how helpful and easy having an online presence is and will wish they had used our service sooner.
The Venture Concept
As previously stated, many small business owners are relying on loans and grants in order to keep their businesses open during this time of tough government restrictions, which is not ideal. However, getting an online presence could make it where they don't need to take out loans or apply for grants. In other words, if small businesses were able to sell to customers over the internet, they could make the money to pay employees, pay their rent, etc. There are other companies that do similar things such as GoDaddy or SquareSpace, but I plan on taking a cost-leadership approach, charging less for the same service. I think small businesses will likely use my service over others because they will get the same product for a lower price. In all honesty, I think that this is my "Secret Sauce", it will be the thing that gets small businesses to use my service over others. Also, I don't think that it will be that hard to get small businesses to use my service over others because I will be targeting businesses that don't have an online presence. Most small businesses that don't have an online presence don't have one because they can't afford it or they don't have the "know how" to make one themselves, so they would benefit from me doing it for them for a low price. My goal is to help all small businesses attain an online presence because it is a key part to running and expanding a business. As far as what's next for EZ Presence, I hope to continue to grow this business because I feel that it can do a lot of good for small businesses. I want to start off small, helping my local community, then expand slowly. Hopefully, EZ Presence can service all of Florida, 10 years after its creation and all of the Southeast, 25 years after its creation. I think this business/service can do a lot of good, so I want to be a part of it for as long as possible.
2) I actually didn't receive any feedback from my first "Venture Concept" assignment, so I based all of my changes off of the things that I learned from class and from the "What's Next" assignment. Also, most of the changes I made came at the end of my venture concept. One of the changes I made was to my expectation for how quickly my business would grow. In one of the lectures, Dr. Pryor talked about how hard it was and how long it took for businesses to grow, no matter how successful. Another thing that influenced the changes I made was the "What's Next" assignment. The "What's Next" assignment got me to think about my role within the business long-term. Originally, I didn't put much about my role within the organization long-term, but I added that in this post.
3) One of the specific changes I made was increase the amount of time it will take me to expand. I originally said that it would take me about 10 years to expand to the whole Southeast, but I changed that to 25 years. Based on what we learned in class, that is a more realistic growth than what I had put before. The other change I had made was add a part about where I see myself long-term. I added this part because it is important to do. If you plan on staying with the business long-term, your business strategy will be different than if you planned on selling the business shortly after creating it. Those were pretty much all of the major changes that I made to my venture concept.
Hi Will,
ReplyDeleteI think taking the cost-leadership approach is a good place to start to encourage small business to use your service. The other thing that will set you apart from national/global services is that you will be delivering your service personally to the business. I think this is especially important for small er, local businesses so that they can have an actual goto person instead of an online bot. To a point I get why you would stretch your time frame to 25 years for national expansion, That is a really long time frame. Maybe take that off the table for right now and aim for all of Florida as you big goal. Technology changes so much and so fast- how could you be certain that in 25 years this would still be a relevant service? Good Luck.
Hi Will,
ReplyDeleteI liked how you were able to critique your own work even though you did not get any feedback last time, just by thinking of the things that we have learned in class. I like that you made a more realistic goal for yourself by changing the amount of time it would take you to expand. However, I do agree with Tracie when she commented about how fast technology changes and how this could be an obsolete venture in 25 years. Good luck on this venture in the future!