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?
- My name is Martha Jacobs. My favorite talent/skill is long distance running. I spent my freshman fall doing an internship program abroad, where I researched different companies and organized the data for the company I interned with. My aspirations for my business concept is to create a way of living where recycling and sustainability are not a burden but more of an everyday way of life.
2) What are you offering to customers? Describe the product or service (in other words, how you'll solve customers' unmet needs).
- My product, recycling chutes, offers my customers a way to implement recycling into off and on campus student housing.
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?
- The demographic of my customers is students who would like to recycle (because they will demand these to be implemented), those in charge of university housing, and contractors of off-campus student housing.
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.
- People care because more and more people are becoming more aware of global warming and it's effects and they want to do their part to help stop it. Builders and property owners may need an incentive from the government to implement these into their buildings. But the universities would use these in their dorms because it would increase their "green' ratings.
5) What are your core competencies? What sets you apart from everyone else? Also: what do you have that nobody else has?
- This is the only product that I am aware of that makes recycling for buildings the same accessibility as the trash for its residents.
Hi Martha, I think your idea is great! I had it for the Catalyst project I did this past summer. You need to do lots of research because my group got shut down by the campus for recycling chutes. We spoke to the head of recycling for UF and we interviewed several area desk supervisors for trash and recycling. They said that students who want to recycle need to bring it down to the cans located right next to the building. I am a huge advocate for recycling and would've loved the convenience of having a recycling chute. I think you might have better luck with contacting a bug apartment complex off-campus to see if they would implement something similar. Keep in mind though, most apartment complexes do not even have trash chutes. Keep researching and good luck.
ReplyDeleteHey Martha I have followed your business idea and believe this needs to be done. Most people do not understand the importance of recycling mainly because the public does not take the issue seriously. It is good to recycle for our environment and if there are no recycling chutes in apartment complexes and other student housing, this can lead to disastrous consequences. It is very easy to recycle but it also very easy to forget to recycle.
ReplyDeleteMartha,
ReplyDeleteI have found your idea to be really interesting and I try to follow every step of it. It may be because I like the idea of recycling and to help the environment. This is a serious problem that together as a society need to solve. I feel our generations and the the generations to come are going to have more conscious and help fix this.