Happy Gators - Venture Concept No. 2: Assignment 29
Opportunity
There is an opportunity on UF’s campus to create a better alternative 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 prevalent and 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 currently have any resources that competes with this app. The existing 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 (and by extension my users).
The next venture would definitely be to grow the business and expand to different colleges. I’ve said it before in other assignments, the first campus I would expand to would be FAU. My brother went there and was awarded his degree posthumously. It’s my opinion that that campus also doesn’t have the best mental health resources.
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.
Changes Made Based on Feedback
The feedback that I got was great! The thing that I changed was the “three minor elements”. I changed the structure so that it was more readable and included a little more about my family’s history with mental health. The feedback that I got seemed to really support my venture concept, so I didn’t change it much of it.
The picture that I've included is a picture of my brother, Zander at 2 years old, when he was adopted from Russia.
Hey Chaplin,
ReplyDeletegreat venture concept, i can see how much effort you put into it, and i like how you organized it. I like how you have a long term vision on where you want to expand it next and how much passion and connection you have to you product. Hope you keep working on this and wish you success in the future. Thanks for sharing!
Hey Chaplin,
ReplyDeleteGreat job with this post and thanks for sharing another, revised venture concept with us. I think you did a really great job of taking your feedback from your peers and implementing that into this business concept. If we have learned anything this semester, it is that it is so important to receive feedback from others so that we can be successful. If we do not listen to others and create change within our business, things probably will not go as smoothly as you want them too. Overall, I think you did such a great job of tweaking your concept.
-Morgan Mowery
Hi Chaplin,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your venture concept, especially the three minor elements. I do not think it is common for entrepreneurs to encourage product improvement or imitation from rivals, but maybe it is something that should be encouraged more. Not only would it help society by giving consumers access to more product choices, but also encourages producers to keep striving for the best possible product and avoid "phoning it in" later on. Being passionate about your product in my opinion is the only way to find success so that is a great distinguishing trait to have. Thanks for sharing!