11A – Idea Napkin No. 1

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 Teagan Levee. I'm a freshman at UF and as of now I'm majoring in general business and either minoring or getting a certificate in Spanish. I'm minoring in Spanish because I love the language and love learning about new cultures, I want to learn more languages in my life. I like convenience so that was a big inspiration for my business. I want my business to make the lives of college students easier than before, eliminating wasted time and energy. 

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

I am offering to customers convenience. My product would offer a way to know which seats are currently occupied or vacant at Marston, so that people with large study groups can know beforehand if they can find a table or not. I am offering consumers something that will conserve their energy and time, because instead of searching throughout the whole library for a table, and sometimes not even finding one, now they will know where to sit.

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? 

I am offering this to students who attend UF that like to study in groups, especially during the times of finals and midterms when the library is really busy. During this whole product idea I've been saying it's for Marston but it could easily be applied to Newell or Lib West too. This is probably for students who live on campus, since they are the ones that use the library more during the night, but it can also be for students who live on campus and use the library during the day. All of my customers have in common the need to know where to sit and if it's even possible to fit their study group, with my product I am providing them with that.

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

My customers care because everyone hates to waste time and energy for nothing. I'm sure they would much rather prefer simply looking at a website and seeing what seats are available in place of the current system, which is going on all of the floors of the library and walking around all the rooms until seats can be found.

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

I think what sets me apart from everyone else, is that I am actually a student who has experienced this problem, so I can relate to how it's a "bug" and be able to offer a solution that would actually work. The thing that frustrates me the most is when people made products that they wouldn't actually use in their everyday life so they don't care if it works as well as it could or not, but with my product I would use it and I would strive to make it the best.

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 believe that these elements all fit together because I want to create a business that will alleviate stress to college students, that I can relate to on a person level. I think that being the same age demographic and in a similar situation as them, allows me to become a better entrepreneur because I am able to put myself in my consumers' shoes. I think my prospective customers and the reason for why they care about this product, will make them buy into it and seek to find out more about it.