Venture Concept No. 1 ~ Assignment Twenty-Four

Assignments before Thanksgiving break are never fun to do... Usually I wait until Friday to post my blogs but I am going out of town so I had to complete it earlier! Anyone else feeling like the stick figure? Thanksgiving is next week, finals are right after that... It is all happening so fast!

So I am going to go about this blog by writing it in sections. I will write about opportunity first, innovation next, venture concept and then a reflection on all three topics as a whole. I will keep it at around 1,000 words so it's not too boring to read!

Just to review... My idea is a painting company. This point of this business is to get me started and save some money for what I would like to pursue in the near future.

So... Who has my need? In my customer avatar I created a character that looked a little bit like I do. A lot of people like to keep up with the style trends and my company would be there to fulfill those needs. I have worked in the low income housing and seen some of the NASTIEST houses. It is amazing what a little paint on the walls can do. Another potential customer would be individuals or families looking to sell their house. A little bit of paint could help them squeeze every penny out of their home. People in the business that I eventually want to get into which is home renovations, flipping and rental properties and they could possibly be our customers. Instead of doing it themselves, we could knock out of a job quickly and efficiently, making them able to dedicate their time to something more important.

I guess style trends could be a force or an environment change. People loved the tuscan tans and browns before. Now it is all about having the modern greys and the light, clean and fresh look. I have communicated with a lot of people and so many people would love to change the look of their home but don't know how. So they do one of two things... They either live with it and never do anything... Or they try to hire a designer (who is usually super expensive) to do it for them. I would say they are pretty loyal to what they do now because at home projects can be a hassle especially if you have kids, work full time, etc. Who want's to live in a construction zone (except for people who love construction ~ like me)? I would say the opportunity is pretty big. There are other paint companies out there so I would definitely have to market myself and the company in order to get business and be noticed. I also don't think that the window of opportunity will ever close. The only time I think it may close is if the housing market crashes. Even then though, there will still be people wanting to improve their home.

In regards to innovation... My service isn't a new product or even a new service. It is a service that has been used countless times but the difference is that we are making it better. We are making it cost effective, fast and we are creating relationships with our customers. There isn't a set price on our service either because it depends on what our customers want. We have to take the space, type of paint and labor hours it would take to complete, into account for pricing a project. I don't really know what else to write about innovation for our service because it is pretty self explanatory so I will just move on to the next topic which is the venture concept!

So my concept is solving the problem of expensive renovations. Paint is a simple and easy fix. Most people don't know that throwing some paint on the walls can definitely transform the space. I think customers would use us for a couple of reasons...

1. We are college students and people want to help college students grow. (This could also go the opposite way though because they might not think we're professional. I think that if we set ourselves up correctly, we would get their business though)

2. Because we are college students, we can charge a cheaper price AND give quality work.

3. They want it done quickly. We would make sure were at the project everyday after they hire us to get the job done as fast as possible.

Like I stated in my first point... I think it might be difficult to get some people to take college students seriously just excuse there is a stereotype on how the typical college kids acts. So that might sway some people against us but I believe more people would be supportive of it than against it. Our competitors are other paint companies. One of the things that they would have a let up on us is their materials. They would be able to afford nicer materials for the work. Eventually we would too but when we are starting out, we would use the best and cost effective materials. Something that we have over other companies is our youth. We are smart, hard working college students who want to work and make money. As a lot of you guys know, there are A LOT of lazy people in the construction industry. There would only be two employees when the business first started which decreases the costs. If we were to receive enough business where we needed to start hiring projects out, we definitely would.

After writing this entire thing... I can see why people would get confused about writing about the same thing over and over. It is easy to get mixed up and just put them all together. I made an effort not to confuse all of them and I still ended up doing it a bit.

The three final elements that I am going to cover are the most important asset or resource that I have, what's next for my venture and what is next for me personally. My most important asset as stated in my last blog is having my connections that I do. I have connections with my parents who would be willing to financially support me (as a loan of course). I also have connections with many contractors from all over Florida. This is awesome because I have all of these people willing to help me. When you're young and creating your business, everyone wants to help. As soon as you're competition, they don't want to help as much anymore so now is the time to take advantage of those opportunities.

Something that I really look forward to is graduating from college and getting into the real estate business. This painting gig is something that will help me get financially prepared for the big moves I want to make when I graduate. This relates to asking me what I want to do too with my future. I see myself building homes and renovating homes and never stopping. Even if it was to the point where I just managed a lot of it when I am physically unable to do the labor anymore, I would still do it. I love the work and i always want to continue to grow and build.


So if you don't count the first introduction paragraphs, I am right around 1,000 words! I hope you liked it and I can't wait to hear your feedback!