Jeffrey's Venture Concept 2.0

My product idea is essentially a coupon book and event calendar on your phone. It is an app. It is integrated with UF too, which means it becomes one’s sort of personal assistant in their pocket. The opportunity I saw here was that college is expensive and being a freshman I am doing a lot of things for the first time, whether it be trying out a new restaurant or going to a new class or building on campus I haven’t been before. This app is meant to streamline the college experience for freshman to graduate students. Also, many students are not in Greek Life so they have to find their own fun around the Gainesville and this app will help those students do that. The app will have an integrated event calendar for all of the student welcoming bars in Gainesville, so independents know what’s happening and don’t have to play a guessing game on the weekends. I believe this idea will work with the working adults in Gainesville with a slightly altered app landscape that does not include the UF integration and a few other alterations.

            The innovation that comes with my app is that coupon books and discounts have been around since the dawn of time, this is just the first app that specifically targets UF and works with the local businesses to deliver the coupons and promos straight to the consumers. It also has the UF integration with a full UF map and UF canvas integration. The app’s calendar is built around the local happenings and the student’s canvas schedule. It’s an all-in-one personal assistant app. Never before have you been able to see the availability of resources at South West remotely, or how many washing machines are available at your dorm. This would be updated automatically internally within the app each time a washer turns on or off.  I think there is so much that goes into this app that it would be in my best interest to make two separate iterations. The apps two iterations will consist of one that has the UF integration and one without for the older crowd or those students who don’t need it.

            It will not be tough to get students and older crowds to switch to this app. The basic reason for this assertion is there is no other similar app on the market at the current time. I also believe that Gainesville is not a very affluent area and people are looking to save money, regardless of age or UF enrollment status. I plan on using affiliate marketing getting the UF students who are most prevalent on social media to post of their social media accounts a series of ads and giving them codes for their followers to use and giving them a percentage of profits for everyone who uses their codes. For the older crowd, I will use a majority of ads on Facebook and physical advertisements down town and on Archer Road. My app will also have exclusive coupons and promo codes that will help with word-of-mouth advertisements as groups of friends brag about how much money they save using the app. The average person is egotistical and wants to think they are saving money because of them, in no advertisement will I say that my app will save customers money. I will establish and maintain the implication that my app is simply a vehicle for highly intelligent customers can use but at the end of the day the savings should ultimately be attributed to the user’s frugal and hustling nature.

The next thing to do in this app’s journey is finding a developer. I have quite a few friends I think are capable of constructing the app but I will sort of auction it off to see what the lowest price I can get the app built for. I think using royalties to pay the developer is the best way of going about it.

            After the app is developed I can see myself continuing to market it throughout its life and eventually once enough capital is built up, expanding to another college campus, or two.

            A huge part of my idea being innovative is that I am opening it up to do a lot within one app, and things that no other app does. This does not necessarily mean every feature will pan out, I plan on running with whatever sticks the most, and focusing the majority of the R&D on that while making a totally separate app or several apps to accommodate for the other minor things. It will eventually evolve into a network of apps, of which you can choose what to spend your data on as you wish. This is what I came up with based on my feedback for my initial venture concept.