What's Next

Again, you'll need to hit the pavement and talk to potential customers. This time, you'll be armed with your "venture concept" description. Break your post into two pieces:
Existing Market
New Market

Existing Market.
Step 1: Talk about what you think is what's next. You may rely on your analyses from "The Amazon Whisperer" exercise (when you discussed what product you thought might come next.)

The first phase of the project is creating a green environment in Gainesville in the form of a sustainable cafe. The next phase of the project would be to combine a product and a service to make sustainability possible to incorporate at home as well; this would come in the form of A-line vertical gardening structures (they have already been prototyped) that can be purchased. 


Step 2: Interview three customers who are already part of the market you have identified, and ask them what they believe is next for a venture like yours. Describe to them your business, and simply ask "What should we be doing that we aren't planning to do?" Next, ask them about your ideas of what customers might want next. Video or audio record these interviews.

[INTERVIEW1:]

[INTERVIEW2:]

[INTERVIEW3:]

Step 3: Based on your own expectations and the feedback you received from customers, set a path for the future. In two to three paragraphs, describe what makes the most sense for your venture in terms of growing in your existing market.

New Market.
Step 1: Identify a radically different market from what you're currently planning to target. If you're currently targeting B2B, think about going after a B2C market. If you're currently targeting an affluent part of society, think about targeting a very poor part of society.

One of the biggest missions of this project is to leave the world a better place than how I found it (#lessonsfromaGermanmother... thanks, mama). One thing about leaving the world better than you found it is that when you get down to it, it's a lot more complicated than it seems. In this case, the "radically different" sector of my project's market actually aims to include individuals who are not typically considered to be a part of any market; the homeless of Gainesville.

Eventually, once the coffee shop is up and running, I would like to start a work/exchange program to employ the homeless of Gainesville. I don't see how in our forward-thinking university town there are not yet programs in place to encompass the entire community without excluding potential productive energy. I understand there will be challenges that come along with a venture like this, especially legal challenges, but when changing the world for the better, there are some things that are worth the challenge. 

Step 2: Once you have identified a radically different market, describe how you think your venture concept might be able to create value for people in that market. You may have to get creative with this -- that's OK -- and perfectly welcome!

Creative value would be contributed in the form of employment opportunities for individuals that may not be able to sustain themselves otherwise. Like I mentioned earlier, I know that there will be challenges that present themselves with employing homeless or unemployed people, and those challenges usually deter businesses from participating in activities like these, but this is also where I want to differentiate from other companies. I think that it is important to capitalize on opportunity, but creating opportunity for others is a form of capitalization that can hold much higher value in the long run.  


Step 3: Interview three people from this new market. Again, describe to each interviewee what your concept is. 

Then, ask them how they think your business might be help to meet the needs of the community. 

What kinds of adaptations to the product/service mix do they think you should make to be successful in this new market? Video or audio record these interviews.

[INTERVIEW4:]

[INTERVIEW5:]

[INTERVIEW6:]

Step 4: Reflect, in two to three paragraphs, on what you learned about this new market. What surprised you the most? Were any of your expectations/assumptions correct? Does this new market, on second thought, appear to be as attractive as your existing market? And so on.

Unfortunately, I didn't get the opportunity to interview some of the individuals I wanted to talk to for this exercise, although I did receive some good insight regarding moving forward with my current business ideas. The feedback I did receive was generally in line with my assumptions in that there were words of caution shared relating to the employment of homeless individuals, but that overall, it was a great idea with good intentions if executed the right way. 

The most surprising thing about the feedback I received was the different perspectives shared by the college students that reflected their own intended uses of the sustainability cafe.