EZ Presence's Venture Concept
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 to keep their business 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 would have the money to pay employees, their rent, etc. There are other companies that do similar things such as GoDaddy and SquareSpace, but I plan on taking a cost-leadership approach, charging less for the same service. I think that people will likely use my service over other services because they will get a comparable product for a lower price. In all honesty, I think that this is my "secret sauce", it'll be the thing that will get them to use my service over others. Also, I don't think that it will be hard to get small businesses to use my service because I will be targeting small businesses that don't have an online presence. My goal is to help all small businesses with attain some sort of online presence, because it is key to expanding and running a successful business. As far as what's next for me, I hope to continue to grow this business and stay in it long term, because it will probably not take off within the first couple of years. I think that it will start in a city and continuously expand over its lifetime. In the five years after my business launches, I hope to be servicing all of the small businesses in Florida and in the next ten years, all of the small businesses in the Southeast. I know I'm getting a head of myself, but I think that this is a service that could help a lot of people.
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