4A - Forming An Opportunity Belief

1) I definitely have a strong conviction that an opportunity exists in the Gainesville area. The nature of Gainesville being a small college town allows for it to serve as the perfect micro-environment for testing products that should be ripe for the market. Think of it this way. Gainesville is packed to the brim with college students who can't wait to become a part of the next craze. The environment is essentially an incubator for fresh ideas coming from the innovative students that call the local Gainesville area home.

2) The most eye-opening unmet need is a need for a form of public transportation that allows for students, teaching faculty, and campus workers to get to and from the various apartment complexes in a timely fashion. Simply put, the public transportation around Gainesville suffers from lengthy wait times and a lack of space to accompany the bulk of people who intend to benefit from the services. The need has essentially always existed and has been an age-old problem for Gainesville as it struggles to sometimes keep up with the transportation policies and technologies already present in larger cities. New York City has an alternative version of Uber called Via that is a ride-sharing app that allows for high discounts in exchange for a monthly subscription plan. Given that students, faculty, and campus workers most likely have schedules, a subscription to a reliable ride service could eliminate wait times and aid in overall productivity. What people are doing to meet this need now essentially results in either using different modes of transportation altogether or taking part in carpooling between friends. In terms of percent, I am maybe close to 60% sure that this opportunity exists.

3) Prototypical Customer: Student

4) Iteration No. 1: Most students agreed with me on the fact that a persistent need was not being sufficiently met by the public transportation system already in place. That being said, they experienced the need only sometimes, but still stated their interest in learning more about the potential opportunity and were engaged enough to understand the exact nature of the need which is to get from point A to point B in a reliable fashion. Most were addressing the need already through independent solutions such as biking or skateboarding to class.

5) Reflect:  This discussion allowed for me to understand my fellow student population better and seek to understand how needs change amongst the various levels of the market. Your customer base is very important in terms of gaining support or even exposure of your product, so definitely have a good sense of customer outreach if you want to maintain a healthy business.


3) Prototypical Customer: Teaching Faculty

4) Iteration No. 2: From the information I gathered I was able to understand that even though I thought there was a significant need for this product amongst students, older teaching faculty mostly had their own methods of transportation and were able to find their own way of doing things. This proves that both populations that were interviewed had fundamental differences that resulted in different views on the exact nature of the need. This population for instance, rarely had a need for the potential business opportunity I was proposing and thus, would not consider my product as a viable one for them to actively pursue.

5) Reflect: I was correct in my previous observation where I stated that the faculty would have different needs when compared with the student population. This is essentially due to the fact that the two customer bases are in different stages of life and essentially have differing views on what constitutes a potential need.


3) Prototypical Customer: Campus Workers

4) Iteration No. 3: After conducting an interview to better understand the various prototypical customers, I realized that the third group of "Campus Workers" reacted similarly in terms of awareness and satisfaction for the need of a subscription-based ride-share system. The awareness for the need was non-existent from the get go since most already were set in their ways for their transportation expectations and did not believe the need was personally substantial enough to necessitate a second thought or general consideration. Ultimately, the exact nature of the need fell upon deaf ears so to speak.

5) Reflect: As with the "Teaching Faculty" group above, the exact nature of the need was not felt necessary to fill. Thus, they never really became aware of the need necessarily. This means no potential market exists even after probing questions were asked. They did not seem too satisfied with the solution given the fact that the need was not present in general


Summarize: In this activity, I was able to closely examine an opportunity belief I expected to be a valuable one to pursue. After deliberation and interviewing prototypical customers I realized that there was little original opportunity still there due to little awareness and little concern for an innovative alternative. This leads me to believe that the new opportunity is definitely less accurate of a possibility than when I first started. I thoroughly believe entrepreneurs should learn to "adapt" their opportunities based on customer feedback because this process allows for continuous innovation to take place and companies to outsource innovation as a means of maintaining customer interest and satisfaction.