Venture Concept No. 2

Opportunity:

What are the forces or changes in the environment creating this opportunity?

The forces haven’t changed; the opportunity is a captive audience at festivals.  Festivals have very high prices for food, so a vender that is will to offer a decent meal at a decent price will have a great volume of business.

How is this market defined geographically and demographically?

The market is defined by customers at festivals looking for good food.  These people are a captive audience, and have limited choices.

How are customers currently satisfying this need?  And how loyal are they to whatever they use now? 

The customers are currently paying ridiculous prices to eat.  Granted the food can be great, but it is still overpriced.

How big is this opportunity?

This opportunity is not the biggest in the world, but it will suffice for my goals at present.  My goal is to keep my job and work this on the weekends or more.

How long will the “window of opportunity” be open?

The window is open in the festival season.  That is basically all year except when it gets cold out. 

Innovation. An innovation may be defined as a new or creative service, product, or process that may be applied in the marketplace to address customer needs. The service, product, or process you develop in this class may be radically innovative or it may be incrementally innovative. In this section, I would like to you discuss your innovation in moderate detail. Explain what it is, what it does, and how it works. You should also describe how you will make money

In my earlier post, I talked about competitors, pricing and the business.  My competitors are other venders in festivals.   My business idea is to provide great food at a low price at festivals in order to draw in a large volume of transactions.  This will serve the needs of the customer who want to eat, but do not want to mortgage their house to pay for it.

My food is great, it consists of shrimp, sausage, corn, potatoes, and crab legs.  This is very easy to prepare, and is always good.  It is very cost effective, and can make a profit of each plate.

Venture Concept. A venture concept may be defined as the application of a specific innovation to address a specific opportunity. In this section, describe how your innovation will solve or address the opportunity you identified. You also want to explain why customers will buy your innovation. In describing the concept, you also want to be sure to cover issues such as:

What are the reasons to think customers would switch to this new product?  How hard will it be to get them to switch?

My customers are people attending festivals.  Most people go to festivals on an adventure.  It comes down to marketing at the festival, and serving great food at a great price.

What role does packaging, your price points, distribution, customer support, the customer experience or the business location play (if any) in defining your business concept?

Packaging has got to be conducive to someone eating on the go. That will be a factor. The price point has got to make a profit, but has got to be low enough to beat out competitors.

How would you organize a “business” to support the ongoing production of your new product, service, or process? How many employees? What roles are in the venture?

For the first opening, I would have myself and a friend start at a festival with plenty of prior planning going into cooking supplies, food, and time and equipment.  It would simply be myself with a helper.

The three minor elements

I also want you to cover three final elements in your description. Your treatment of these questions can be relatively short. Please focus most of your time on the opportunity, innovation, concept descriptions above.

First, describe what you think your most important resource will be. You might call this your venture’s “secret sauce” or “unfair advantage.” Besides your actual innovative product, service, or process, what will you have that will make it hard for competitors to copy your success?

My most important resource will be me.  I will be able to devote the time and money in order to get this off the ground.  Once it is running, training and management skills will have to be top notch in the people I hire.

Second, what’s next for the venture? Describe either the next opportunity you want to tackle with your current innovation, or describe the next new product, service, or process that may be aimed at your existing customers.

The next opportunity will be to franchise my business out to other aspiring entrepreneurs.  That will help me succeed, while helping someone else succeed.

Third, what’s next for you? Assuming you launched, where do you want to be in five years with this venture? Where do you want to be, as an entrepreneur, in the next decade, and how does this first venture help you achieve your vision?

In five years, I hope to be doing this venture full time.  I hope to have been able to franchise out to other people while at the same time operating in more than one location myself.