Assignment 11A- Idea Napkin No. 1

1. 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 Madison Burken. I just transferred to UF from Santa Fe and I’m a General Business major with a specialization in Event Management. I am talented in math. It has come easy to me since I was a child and I really enjoy doing calculations and working with numbers. I think this would come in handy when trying to start this business concept. I have worked at Hungry Howies for the past four years and have been able to develop my skills working in a team as well as customer service skills. I think this would also be very beneficial when starting this business as I would have to work with a team and work with potential customer.

2. What are you offering to customers? Describe the product or service (in other words, how you'll solve customers' unmet needs). 

·   I am offering both individuals and businesses a product that will prevent the chipping of nail polish and make nail polish last for four to six weeks. For individuals and businesses, the top coat will be sold in a bottle online at select beauty supply stores (I plan to offer it elsewhere if it sells well). Individuals will be able to use it as a top coat to any type of polish they use. Businesses will also be able to apply it as a top coat to any customers nails. I intend to sell it at $40 per bottle. I will go from there to see if the price needs any adjusting. 

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?

·   I am offering this product to businesses and individuals. The first group is businesses. This would include all nail salons. This would include any nail salon you pass on the side of the road and even upscale spas. They would be offered the top coat polish to use on top of customers nails. The second group is individuals. The product would be marketed mostly to women, although men get their nails done as well. They include high school and college students and all adults. The target age would be those 15 to 50. From my interviews I’ve concluded that these are the ages of most women who get their nails done. 

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. 

·   I believe that businesses will pay for this product for one main reason. This reason is that they will be able to charge their customers more for services. Nail salons will buy this product at $40 per bottle, starting out, then charge their customers roughly $10 to $20 more for the service. At this price, the salon will be able to generate more income, especially since one bottle will be able to service multiple customers. I think that individuals will also pay for this product. With this product, customers will be able to save a lot of money and time. Money will be saved in gas going to and from the salon as well as in the services themselves. Time will also be saved since customers will not have to take time to travel to the salon and get the services done. 

5. What are your core competencies? What sets you apart from everyone else? Also: what do you have that nobody else has?  

·   I think that my age is something that makes me stand out. With this product, I will be able to help a lot of women my own age. This will allow me to connect with them on a more personal level. I also have many connections who are becoming businessmen / businesswomen. These connections will help me build a team to help me run the business. 

6. In addition to these five elements, please spend a paragraph evaluating whether you believe these elements fit together or whether there are aspects of your business concept that are weaker / out-of-joint with the others.  

·   I think that all of these attributes would work well together. However, I do think it would be very tough to find a medium to sell this product to customers. To start out, the medium would need to be a popular site or store. Eventually (and hopefully), it would be able to work its way up into multiple stores and websites. I also do not have any connections with anyone who would be able to help me make and test this product. This product would require an abundance of experimenting. I’m not sure if this would be the most successful attempt at making nail polish last longer but I really think there is a great opportunity out there for something like this.