Final Reflection

This semester, and this class specifically, has been a fun one. I've never really taken a class designed like this one before so it was a nice breath of fresh air. Obviously there were some struggles along the way. It took a little bit to get used to having everything due on one day rather than spread throughout the week. This ended up helping me with planning and organizing better, though. My main struggle with this class was a very dumb fault by me and that was forgetting to copy the URL for some assignments before declaring. Obviously I was very annoyed at myself but I think after that I've been able to overcome it. The main thing I think to take away from this class is really a mindset. It seems like that is one common denominator between all entrepreneurs, is the way they look at life and how they go about reacting from failures. This will last me well past college and in basically everything I do in life. This isn't the reason I took the class and I wasn't planning on something like this to happen, but I'm very glad it did. My recommendation to students taking this class is to have fun with it! Be creative and think of things you're passionate about. It will make the process so much better and it won't even feel like work, rather you building on a concept you can be proud of. And obviously adopt the mindset that failure is a learning tool and you'll strive in this class!

Venture Concept No. 2

Opportunity

I think the great thing about my product is that the opportunity lies within an already large audience that, if given motivation, can easily become even larger. The already existing audience being anyone who works out at all. In America, more so than anywhere else, there is an issue with weight problems and a lack of motivation to go to the gym. Everyday there are tons of people who want to go to the gym but don’t because they don’t want to have to talk to anyone face to face out of embarrassment. My product would alleviate that issue and potentially add those people to the opportunity audience. The people that don’t go to the gym simply because they don’t want to wait in a line or think that it’s too busy also join the audience. And, of course, everyone that already goes to the gym, whether they be a casual gym goer or a more hardcore dedicated one, are in the audience. Another smaller audience could be people who are afraid or nervous to go to the gym because they have to talk to people at the front desk. For people who are new to gyms this could be nerve racking having to actually face someone. This gets rid of that issue and could hopefully get some people who would not have gone because of this to go.

Innovation

The specific product I will be supplying is a mobile app used to make the process off signing in, and potentially out, of gyms much easier. The concept is to have a very localized location radius around the outer walls of any set gym, where when a customer with the app walks in, the app automatically signs them in, and the same thing for when they walk out. There are multiple options with selling the product. One of these options is selling it to individual customers who are also customers of the gym and maybe charging the gym itself a fee. The other option is to make the app free to the actual gym goers and require the gym to pay a price to use the product at their location. With both of these options there is also the choice of making the product a one-time fee or requiring a monthly fee to continue use.

Venture Concept

The product will meet a convenience desire for many customers but also increase competitiveness between gyms. In many cases if people are deciding between two gyms to potentially pay for a membership at, and all other factors are similar, the deciding factor could be whether or not the gym is a user of this app. For the gym goers, they see it as a way to get in and out faster and to not have to talk to anyone if they just want to mind their own business. For gyms, they see it as a way to attract customers, and a way to increase the speed at which people flow through the gym on busy days.

Three Minor Elements

I think the most important resource will be to maintain high passion and drive. At first the product might get shot down or rejected but I think once it picks up and the train gets rolling that gyms around the country will eventually be flocking to hop on.

The concept of an app being able to sign someone in and out simply based off of location could be useful in many other industries. For example, if a professor had his/her students download the app, they could take attendance without any extra time required.

Hopefully this can become a self-sustaining venture. It will probably require constant attention to keep up with competitors and the technological world since it is changing so fast. I think the important part of this venture, though, is the exposure to all the different aspects of the entrepreneurship world to help avoid some mistakes in future ventures.

The main feedback I got that stuck out to me was how this could encourage people to go to the gym in ways I hadn't thought of. One thing I completely missed over was people who don't go, not because of a lack of motivation, but because they have never been and don't want to be embarrassed by not knowing what to do. Facing someone at the front desk to sign in just makes this thought even worse. If I could potentially remove having to talk to anyone, it could encourage some people to go to at least try it out and hopefully eventually they would become comfortable. Helping people out mentally like this is a very cool aspect to me that I'm disappointed I missed.