19A – Idea Napkin No. 2

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. From my feedback I've found that this idea will play a major role in a lot of people's lives because my consumers, like me, also don't like to waste time and value convenience. My feedback was a lot of people relating to me about the time they've wasted looking through the libraries for seats and how they would value a product like the one I am putting forward.

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. From feedback, I've also tweaked my idea to be presented on the website in which students can rent rooms at the library so that there wouldn't be a need for an extra app or website, making it even more convenient. Also I developed the idea that I will use sensors in the chairs so that it will register when people sit in them, registering weights of about 70 lbs or more so that backpacks aren't counted as people. I chose this instead of switches that people would turn on or off when they sat down or got up because in my interviews people said that they could easily be forgotten and chairs could register as occupied when they are vacant and vice versa.

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?
At first I geared this idea towards to UF students on campus who enjoy to study in groups, mostly during midterm and finals weeks when the library is the busiest. They will be aged 18-22 usually and have a focus on their academics. They all have the goal of having a calming and nice study place to get work done. After interviews I realized that this product will also be used by people who live off campus who want to use the library, either during times when they are on campus in between classes, or just at times when they want to use the library in general. I also realized that this product doesn't have to be for study groups, it can be for singular people who just want to find a place to sit quickly, rather than walking around for a long time.

4. Why do they care? 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. This was my first response in Idea Napkin No. 2, and I've found that this is the main reason and concern of consumers using my product, I wouldn't change what I said and feedback has backed that up.

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. I think that my feedback helped me realize that this idea is really important to me and creating a more convenient and easy way of studying is a goal I have that I want to share with everyone at my school.