What's Next?

Assignment 25A - What's Next?

Existing market:

1)    What I think is next:

I think that next I could either focus on athletes lives and trying to provide more support to them as that I what segment I focused on for this venture, and I found that I like thinking about ways to improve athlete’s lives in particular. Or I think that I could focus on developing more ways or apps that help people save time as so far my app is all about efficiency and effectiveness of planning your day, starting by saving time at a restaurant.

2)    Three customers in my existing market:

Jen:

Jen is constantly involved in sport, works out a lot, and used to be a dancer. She now works at Southwest Rec. When asked about what I could do that I wasn’t already planning on she suggested including Gift Cards in the app so that friends could gift it and then use them at restaurants. She also said that she really likes TapinGo and if I could replicate something like that, where you could order and then go and pick it up at restaurants, that she would be really interested in that. She really liked my ideas of sticking with athletes but said that it could be helpful to all people in general that do sport, so even if they are not competing, they can benefit from using my services.

Kelsey:

Kelsey is a student-athlete at UF. She said that something we could do that I’m not already doing is to expand the app so that it could include wait times for seating as well, not just wait times for the check. She also suggested being able to pre order, that way you can put it in your phone and then just walk in and sit down. She said as an athlete on a busy schedule that it would be cool if you could set up times for the food to be ready, say you knew you were getting out of class at 12.30pm, you could set up so that your food could be dropped of to wherever you are then. She liked by idea of sticking to athletes and introduced the idea that athletes want to know information about certain restaurants. She said if there was a way to show athletes that were on a “gain,” “lean,” or “maintain” diet which places and plates were the best for them then that could help a lot.

Amelia:

Amelia has just finished her collegiate eligibility as an athlete. She said that a good idea for what’s next is a way to reserve restaurants online, that way it would save more time. She said a lot of restaurants aren’t good with reservations and it is more convenient to do it with your phone. She said maybe it could even get to the point where you can choose where you sit. When I asked her about my ideas, she said that she fully supports the athlete route. She said something with weekly meal plans or saying exactly what was in each meal could help people with their different body types or goals. 

3)    What makes the most sense for my venture:

Overall, I really think that I should provide and expand on everything I can with the app I already have in mind. This means adding things such as being able to pre order food, adding reservations, adding in restaurant information on their menus.

For my market of students and athletic people, it makes sense to also focus on food, being healthy, and what best suits people. Therefore, I would then move on to focus on sports peoples lives and include things like nutrition plans. This would include adding to this app or creating a new one where people can focus solely on nutrition rather than just saving time. So I would base it around food and efficiency.

New Market:

1)    Market:

The new market that I identified is Grandparents. This is because they did not grow up in the same technological era. I wanted to get their perspective on my app and how it could help them.

2)    Value:

My venture concept creates value for Grandparents as the app also has a button for contacting the server, this way they do not need to get up or try and struggle getting the servers attention. It can also help them to calculate tips to add on to the check.

3)    Interviews:

Tim:

Tim said that my app can help with the efficiency and make the time shorter. One something to adapt, he said that my app could also help with embarrassment. He said that sometimes he feels a little slow when trying to calculate the tip, and this could help do it for him and prevent calculation mistakes. He said he would need to see the calculations for the tip so he knew to trust them though, because now at places it will just say “Add 15% tip?” and he likes to know how much that 15% actually is.

Kathy:

Kathy said that she is not as tech savvy so for the app to work for her, it would need to have a really simple lay out. She said she knows how to do about three things on her phone, pretty much just messaging. She said it would need to be something like “computers for idiots,” with specific and short instructions. Something “clean and simple” so that it is worth using the app. Kathy said for an adaptation that a way to contact for help, kind of like siri, would help a lot as she does not want to go to a help desk for something like this. Other than that she thinks that anybody would like it.

4)    Reflection:

I learnt from this market that my app needs to be very simple and straight forward and maybe not have so many components as if it were for just students that understand and know how to work modern technology. My assumptions were correct on being able to help them contact servers, and there was surprisingly more to it about the tips than I originally thought. The emotional impact of not feeling like “idiots” also interested me and made me feel like I could really make a difference to their lives if they feel that my app can stop them feeling like idiots.

This market is attractive as it means that I can help people cope with life more efficiently and in this case help emotionally. However, it is helping in a different way to the fast paced sporting lifestyle of my previous market. I think that these markets are both very different and that if I were trying to make an app to target both, I would have to make it simple.