Happy Gators - Venture Concept No.1: Assignment 24

Opportunity

There is an opportunity on UF’s campus to create a better option for mental health resources. While technically the students have the ability to go to the current on campus facilities, I believe that there should be a remote option for students. Given the current state of the world due to the pandemic, telemedicine should be become more accessible. This will allow students to continue seeing the same counselor regardless of where they are geographically. The window of opportunity is the biggest it’s ever going to be. Right now, the concept of contactless interactions is becoming widely accepted. As a young person, I can say that in general, if I have the option to text or email versus go in person or even email, I prefer to text. This creates a huge opportunity that I think we should be able to harness.

 

Innovation

I would like to create an app that allows students to talk about whatever they want, whenever they want. In a perfect world, getting mental health help would be free. But everyone needs to make a living. So, I think that the best way to utilize this app would be if the cost of using the app were included in tuition. With more than 50,000 undergraduate students, I think that it’s reasonable to consider having each UF student pay an additional $5-10 in tuition per semester. This app would have a variety of people working around the clock. I think it should be considered volunteer work for some of the “lower” levels of interaction: for example, the people that respond immediately and are there more to just listen than really give advice. These could be students with an interest in mental health counseling or just people that are passionate about helping other students. In the next level of people, there would be more experienced counselors that are able to give advice and hold more of a conversation. These people would have specific hours, perhaps nine to five, and have a wage.

 

Venture Concept

Students would want to use this product. First, the college would have to approve it. But I think that students would express enough interest in this product that the college would take notice and look into it. As a young college student, especially during the pandemic, I only leave the house when I have to. I’ve missed appointments for my mental health because I couldn’t get myself out of bed. This app allows you to talk to someone from the comfort of your own home. I don’t believe that we have any resources that competes with this app. The current resources aren’t able to see an adequate number of students. I’ve been told that there is a 2 week wait before, and given that wait, I decided not to make an appointment.

 

Three Minor Elements

I honestly wouldn’t mind if someone were able to copy my success. I view it similarly as Tesla does (with open sourcing). If you can make a better product, it’ll better the market and better the world. That being said, for the sake of the assignment, I think that my passion for this product makes it hard for competitors to copy. I have such a deep connection with mental health and suicide that it gives me unique insight on how I would want to receive help. The next venture would definitely be to grow the business and expand to different colleges. In five years, I hope that this would be a product that is available nationwide on every college campus. I want the app to become so well known that people are applying to work for it as soon as they’re admitted into the college. I want to know that I made a difference in the fight against the mental health stigma.