11A Idea Napkin

Thank you for reading my idea napkin post. I hope all is well!

1)    You. 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?

I am Christopher Champine, a first-year business administration student. I am a hardworking and motivated individual who has developed through years of leadership roles and working. I have played the role as president in multiple nonprofit and honor society including Phi Theta Kappa, National Honor Society, and Generation Legacy a volunteering group that operated in Duval County Public Schools. My aspirations are to one day own my own company so I can provide my benefit to society and provide for my family. I hope that this business will be something I do on the side with best friends and hopefully it will eventually turn into something larger that will sustain my family.

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

My product is an indoor hydroponics garden that will allow people in apartments or houses with no yards for gardening. This will allow my customers to add a lively nature feel to their home as well as create a way to grow their own food for a few meals. With the right design I believe that the garden would be very low maintenance and easy to operate.

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?

My customers will most likely be healthier individuals who have a little extra time to fit this into their to do list. Vegetarians, Vegans, and people who do not like GMO’s would most likely find this an attractive product because their food would be organic. Also, older people who have less mobility would now have an outlet to get back to gardening.

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. 

My customers pay for this product because they have been put in a position where they love gardening but no longer have the option to. My customers care about the product because it’s something they can grow and watch their living things grow. They care because there are people who are interested in knowing the source of their food and get to confirm it came from a healthy place.   

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

My product is different from everyone else’s because it will be designed for different plants. Certain plants require different needs and even certain mixtures to grow at its full potential. I want to have a standard model and then also I want to offer this specific design to grow foreign plants.

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.

The biggest weak point for my business is that I have not been able to the product’s production costs due to the fact I have not had the chance to discover what materials are capable of being used and how difficult assembling them will be. I also don’t know what the actual duration of time will be needed to maintain the garden will be because I have not produced my single prototype unit for testing. When I do that, if it turns out maintenance is too much, or I takes too long to grow that will pose a large issue to the product. Also, people who are conscious enough to realize that there food could be coming from underpaid workers in a foreign country which is why they might purchase my product, I need to ensure my materials or sourcing wouldn’t come from outsourcing to a place where people could be miss treated.