Based off of comments and feedback, here are my "napkin" ideas.
1)
You. Who
you are. What your talents are. What your skills and experiences are. Also:
what are your aspirations? Specifically regarding your business concept, how do
you see this business (if you were to start it) playing a role in your life?
I am a journalist. My
skills involve learning the truth by gathering the facts, and making it
readable. My skills are also people-skills, because I’m able to ease a
conversation in a direction that I need. My aspirations include shining light
on the truth, but also making the lives of people easier. My business concept
involves creating a sustainable parking lot for students at UF. Sustainability and
construction don’t really go hand-in-hand, but I’m determined to create
something new and modern that combines them. This business could help improve
my life and the lives of others.
2)
What are you offering to customers? Describe
the product or service (in other words, how you'll solve customers' unmet
needs).
I’m offering stress-free parking. The
service is still being developed, but basically, it would allow off-campus
students the chance to park in a local place, close enough for them to go grab
their cars, but they’d ride a kind of tram system that would bring them to
campus from the parking lot and vice versa.
3)
Who are you offering it to? Describe,
in as much detail as possible, the demographic and psychographic
characteristics of your customers. Think especially of this question: what do
your customers all have in common?
I’m offering a way to
get to campus. My product will be aimed at college
students who don’t want to pay $80 for a one-semester long decal that doesn’t
even guarantee them parking. This lot would guarantee parking at a cheaper
price. It would only sell the number of decals equivalent to the number of
parking spots. If the need is great, algorithms and math would be involved to
ensure that anyone who wanted to park there would be able to. I think my
customers will all have in common a need to find a haven for their cars, their
babies, to go to school.
4)
Why do they care? Your
solution is only valuable insofar as customers believe its valuable to them.
Here, explain why customers will actually pay you money to use your product or
service.
It’s valuable because
we care. Here at Your Next Destination, we care
about the needs of students... Because we are students too! We care about your
needs, because they’re our needs too. We want you to use our service so we can
incorporate them in other places. We want to combine sustainability for growing
populations, but also the world. Creating eco-friendly parking spaces would not
only be popular, but good.
5)
What are your core competencies? What
sets you apart from everyone else? Also: what do you have that nobody else
has?
We want sustainable
parking. Some people would consider that sentence an
oxymoron. But that’s our mission, because we care about our futures and yours. We
want you to get your education in a timely manner, which means avoiding circling
the parking lots for 20 minutes and aggressively stalking people pulling out of
spots. We’ve all been there. There’s no shame. But now, if we make this
possible, we can all create a less-stressed campus and happier students.