29 A - Venture Concept No. II

ENT 3003: Venture Concept Write-Up Guide

   As part of ENT 3003, I was asked to come up with a product or service based upon an opportunity I saw within my surrounding community. Based upon this, I will create a venture concept write-up as to my experience throughout this semester in regard to my initial idea. 

   The three major elements that I will include within my write-up are the (1) opportunity, (2) innovation, and (3) venture concept. I will begin the write-up with detailed descriptions of each of these elements.                                              

 

Opportunity.

My opportunity was at the Heavener School of Business, as companies come in for Heavener Career Week, they are simply provided slotted times, and some students miss out on chances to hear from or speak with those recruiters if they do not show up in time for that particular session on that particular day.

I see a way this opportunity could be fulfilled through a school-sanctioned service that allows companies’ sessions to be live recorded similarly to the lectures recorded and put on the Warrington Mediasite for students to go back to later. This way, there would be a way for students to access company information while also able to balance all their other demanding commitments because classes and other organizations do not stop for this week each semester. In order to also allow recruiters to have access to students viewing their session online, they could also have access to this platform, working towards having a temporarily open communication after HCW with those who viewed it online and still have questions. 

   The Key 3 Elements to be Tested: 

·      While the ‘who’ revolves around the students within the HSB, Heavener would actually be the one who would receive the service for the opportunity since they are the facilitator of this event. 

·      Would there be particular funding/room within the HCW schedule for this opportunity to be accommodated? 

·      This would allow for more transparency of information and access to it for students who would otherwise be unable to attend. 

Innovation. 

The intended service is a internet-based platform that would allow students who were unable to attend in-person company speakers/recruiting events on campus to view the information sessions on the platform. We would be able to work with the data that the schools collect on popular speakers to upload prominent and popular companies, rather than bombarding students with all possible information, which can be convoluted. At the same time, the viewership and a comment/ Q&A portion per college’s site would be linked to recruiters, who would also be able to work with those students and utilize this data to better improve their recruiting tactics/ expand their own reach. 

While designed for the purpose of helping students, the service would be offered to business colleges, since they would have to assist in the live recording of these companies and approve the compatibility of their website to ours. With business schools already acting as the gatekeeper between recruiters and students, we have to target the liaisons rather than who we truly wish to benefit. 

Venture Concept. 

With technology becoming more and more prominent in every aspect of a company, this allows for an additional point of contact and data point both for schools and companies. Teaching students that not everything will be face-to-face and learning to be comfortable with that fact allows for greater adaptation later on in the workplace.

                  Our service is set apart by its core purpose. Just as Southwest and Apple have aspects of their company with allow them to remain at the top of their competitive fields, ours is about promoting positive connections that will lead towards successful, long-lasting jobs rather than a check-in-the-box for both recruiter and student. This service is looking to better connect a generation of workers to transformative jobs rather than to make one institution prominent or to provide a competitive edge. 

Because it is an internet-based service, we are up against hundreds of thousands of websites vying for user attraction and retention. There has to be specific needs and purpose marketed to customers in order to demonstrate relevance and need rather than just the service itself. Like apps, there are many throughout the market that have great ideas but little traction. The focus must be on marketing the “why” rather than the “what.”

The Three Minor Elements

I would argue that the top resource happens to be my personal strengths in regard to human capital because they check off each of the VRIN aspects. Because I would be the general spokesperson and foundation-layer for this venture, it would make sense that my personal strengths, why, and overall persona differentiating myself from any other person who would come with a similar competitive idea to my own. 

As next steps for the company, I would like to expand this platform to pair with LinkedIn in order to reach more connections and create additional bridges between interested students and recruiters. 

For me, I may build off this momentum – if successful – to form a complementary B2B, I would switch from serving in the academia industry to acting as a medium for those interested in presenting their pitches on products or services to companies looking to expand their R&D department.  

I received only positive feedback from my venture concept, and with that, I did not make any changes to the concept other than changing the picture since it did not seem to show up properly the first time.