What's Next?: Assignment 25

Existing Market

1.     What’s Next? The business would start small. At first, it will be focused on undergraduate students. Eventually, it would expand to graduate students and professional students. It will continue to expand (both internally and externally). We will employ more volunteers and counselors as the demand increases. But as it moves to other campuses, students at those respective campuses will work for the company.

2.     After interviewing three customers in my current market, they all seemed to agree that once the product is excelling on UF’s campus that the next step is to move to another campus. One of them brought up the financial aspects of the business. How will it continue to make money, especially as you move to another campus? The startup plan would be similar to the one implemented on UF’s campus. I would pitch the idea and see if I can get the college to approve of it and then have it be included in the tuition for an additional small fee.

3.     After being successful on UF’s campus, I would like to move south and see if this is something FAU could use. I don’t know much about their current mental health resources, but my brother was a student there and I know he didn’t get the help that he needed. I think that these two schools are the ones that are closest to my heart and one’s that I believe I could impact the most. Growing my existing market would mean continuing to expand to different colleges all over Florida initially.


 

New Market

1.     My main demographic that I would be targeting is students age 18-30. A different age group would be people in their 50s and 60s.

2.     Mental health is something that everyone struggles with, regardless of age. So, I’m sure that my app is something that this age group could utilize. It’s something that I feel the older generations don’t fully understand either. It could be used as a source of information for them as well.

3.     I interviewed two people from this market, and they brought up some interesting points. One key aspect that may prove to be a challenge: the technology required to use the app. One of the people I interviewed uses a flip phone because he said it’s easier to use. Obviously with a flip phone, a business concept that is provided through an app is useless. The other person brought up the question of “peers”. In the original market, students would be able to talk to people around their age that understand them. Would the business use older people in order to maintain that same level of familiarity? I thought about this for some time, but I think that having young people that are able to listen to the older person is still beneficial to the older customer.

4.     This new market was very interesting to interview and think about. I have a semi-colon tattoo on my hand and when I try to explain Project Semi-colon to “adults” that ask about my tattoo, they smile and nod. People my age don’t ask about my tattoo—they just already know what it means. There’s something about mental health that I don’t think the older generations understand. The stigma is much, much stronger for older people; and that thought makes me incredibly sad.

 

Some of my assumptions about this market were current. I assumed that the technology might prove too complicated for some in this new market. This new market is attractive; I don’t think it’s as attractive as my existing market, but it could be worth exploring. More than anything with this market, I would like to educate them. Growing up, I remember my mom rolling her eyes at the idea of going to therapy. While I understand the idea of “grin and bear it”, I don’t think that my generation is satisfied with that as a coping mechanism any more.

Comments

  1. Sophia PinedaJuly 26, 2020 at 7:41 PM

    Hey chaplin, good job at hitting everything that was asked for in this assignment. You were very informative and well thought out. It shows what your business will be capable of and how it will help your customers. The benefits the customers will receive will be a push to keep using this service. Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jonathan RodriguezJuly 27, 2020 at 11:05 AM

    Hi Chaplin,
    You seem to be extremely educated on your service already. The people you have spoke to as well also are people with honest criticism. Despite the few walls you are hitting in order to get this product moving on the market, mental health is prevalent in all ages whether people are aware of it or not.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jackson GoreJuly 27, 2020 at 11:19 AM

    Hi Chaplin,
    Expanding your business concept's age demographic is a great idea. My business concept focuses on recent grads, but I wanted to expand to current undergrads seeking out internships, so I like this idea a lot. Expanding to other campuses also seems pretty manageable once it has been executed successfully on one campus first. Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete

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