Venture Concept No. 2

The time has come to revisit one of my old posts about my venture concept. This time I will be adding at the end of my original post some of my thoughts about the feedback I received and my vision on how I plan to change my venture given the feedback and my considerations on it.
My idea first arose from observing; as in many cases, when one observes the world around, it becomes easier to identify things that aren’t being fully taken advantage of and therefore improve them. Another common occurrence is the identification of a problem and the subsequent creation of a solution. Well my venture concept is based on the latter, as I one day observed a pet owner frantically search for her missing dog. This event reminded me of my younger days, where I would chase my dog around my neighborhood every time it ran away and sometimes I was simply unable to find it. This motivated to find pet owners and simply ask questions; through such simple inquisitive means I was able to generalize that there is no current means for a pet owner to properly and reliable locate its pet. This generalization was able to bring to light an issue that many local pet owners suffer from, thus creating a target market for me. This newly found market consisted of young adults ages 18-30 that owned pets. In a geographical sense, this audience was mostly local due to my confinement and limitation to the city of Gainesville. The fact that pet owners value their pets so highly translates to immediate demand for any means of locating them if lost; yet while this opportunity seems to present itself locally, it is only logical to extrapolate this situation to any town or city with a big enough population of pet owners, thus allowing for the creation of growth for this venture. Thus began the process of creating a solution for this newly found opportunity. The creation of a solution isn’t always as easy as some might perceive it to be, rather it is a meticulous process in which many ideas are subjected to trial and error more times than I’d care to count. Nevertheless what really seems to drive a good venture is a reliable innovation that appeals to a certain market, in my case, local young pet owners. In due time, I came up with an idea which can be considered incrementally innovative as opposed to radically so. I thought that there are current ways to locate lost pets, through installation of chips and other devices that allow for localization of an animal. This process, however, has a cost drawback as not many young adults have the means to afford such an expensive process. This is where I decided to take advantage of a currently popular means of interaction, social networks. Through the modification of a basic network plan, I would in theory be able to create an interconnected social structure dedicated to pets, whether it is finding them or simply interacting with other pet owners. This way I am not creating a drastically new idea, but rather modifying an already successful one and repurposing it to fit the needs of pet owners, my target market. Through the creation of this application and possibly a website, I would attract the attention of many businesses who provide services as well as products to pets and pet owners alike. This source of revenue would be highly marketing based, with some side revenue collected from selling data such as user preferences and interests. With the creation of this new application, users will be able to easily access a network of similar individuals with common goals besides simply interaction. The original goal of this venture is to allow for pet owners to easily and accessibly engage in the finding of their lost pets. What makes this venture especially attractive is the simplicity of access and usage; the user interface will be as simple as some of today’s leading social networks. This venture will be organized as a tech company, driven largely by programmers and information technology employees as well as marketing personnel in order to spread the brand, thus ensuring appropriate staff is in charge of tackling any issues or problems that might arise. My most important advantage going into this venture is the untapped market I will be exploiting, as I am the first to enter this market, I will hold a large market share with virtually no direct competitors. My next target opportunity will be to spread the usage of my network to a national scale and firmly grasp bigger cities and major metropolitan areas. The feedback I have gotten has been overwhelmingly supportive. I cannot express into words how helpful the students in this class have been; whereas I initially thought many would simply type in vague comments that wouldn't be much help, the feedback proved to be vital in shaping the way that I conduct my venture. This being said, I plan to expand to larger markets once I prove that my venture can be sustainable and profitable in a local one.