Venture Concept No. 2

Venture Concept No. 2

Opportunity

My first venture concept was mostly well received and praised for its thorough attention to detail. I completed my first ENT3003 blog post pack in January, nearly 3 months ago. However, the seeds of my entrepreneurial journey, so to speak, were planted back in June when I noticed some flaws in the University of Florida’s SNAP (Student Nighttime Auxiliary Patrol) system. This is a application linked to a van service that all UF students can use to get around at night for free. The problems I noted can be separated into two main categories, all of which have been experienced by my fellow students as well as myself.

The Incomplete Application (TapRide)

*Across multiple devices and Apple/Android operating systems

- Slow or nonresponsive loading screen
- Inability to see the van on the map
- Inaccurate ride ETAs
- Unexpected ride cancellation glitch

Unreliable Vans

- Students being driven ‘in circles’ at the convenience of the driver
- Disregard for the individual student wait times (as a result)
- Drivers cruising past stops and ignoring the one minute grace period

As I mentioned before, all students who leave their dorms (particularly at night when buses are scarce) have access to the SNAP service. The user demographic spans across all ethnic, gender, and national identities. As long as they pay tuition here, the service is available from 6:30pm-3am. Their desire for safe, reliable, free transportation is not being fulfilled properly. Students are not necessarily ‘loyal’ to SNAP, but its established campus presence leads me to believe that rebranding the system would be foolish.

Innovation

Although my adjustments to the SNAP system are relatively easy to implement, the innovations I proposed are definitely huge improvements. Currently, UF Student Government, UF Police Department, and Student Traffic court fund SNAP. More specifically, from “the transportation fee generated from student tuition fees and the University of Florida Police Department through contributions from their own annual departmental budget.”

Venture Concept

To solve TapRide issues, the application update would include

- Ability to see all vans on the map at all times
- More accurate ride ETAs based on location
- Revitalized coding in order to eliminate loading and canceled request glitches

To solve van issues, the improved SNAP system would include

- Automatic ride prioritization based on time of request, not driver discretion
- Enforced grace periods with GPS based timing and proper driver training
- Encouraged user and driver review/feedback loop

It would take no effort for consumers to switch over to the improved version of SNAP, the update would require a push of a button on their smartphone. Uber and Gotcha might seem like competing services but that would be a false comparison since both of those services require a fee and/or a tip. These changes might incur a one time nominal fee for the sponsors of SNAP, but wouldn’t require an increase in employee numbers or affect the budget otherwise. There are no drawbacks or negative aspects to my idea because there is no tradeoff involved.

Final Notes

1. My most important resource, which is practically impossible for competitors to replicate, is my pre-existing marketplace presence. The fact that almost every student at UF already knows what SNAP is gives my business idea a huge advantage. The name is engrained into the brains of anyone who has ever needed a ride at night. SNAP’s existing niche is therefore extremely valuable and will give my idea an advantage over start-ups. My idea would be tough to articulate and work out the details if I didn’t at least have a present benchmark (today’s SNAP) to compare it to. Not only that, but the demand already exists for the service and will only grow with improvements.

2. The next logical step in implementing these changes would be to get the written support from a few hundred students or so and schedule a meeting with administration and/or Student Government to discuss them.

3. In five years, it would be cool if my improvements became a reality. Hopefully students and drivers would use the feedback system and come up with new ideas I didn’t even think of. In the next decade, I would like to be a successful entrepreneur or intrepreneur in a business or law firm. My experience in pitching this idea to strangers and friends alike has given me increased confidence to pursue further venture concepts for opportunities that arise later in life.

One thing that I have learned from my venture concept feedback is that this truly is a problem plaguing the student body and is most definitely under ‘covered’. Anyways, that feedback can be summarized as follows:

- My decision to use the existing brand name and infrastructure as leverage to propel my concept was a solid one

- Coding and rebranding isn’t as simple as it seems and it might take a lot of effort. However, this doesn’t really seem like a big issue to me because as I have stated before, I have tons of resources when it comes to the debugging process. The fact of the matter is that starting a new business isn’t supposed to be easy- it’ll definitely take a lot of work!

- Educating students on the service’s updates is a crucial aspect of my plan in order to immediately increase consumer confidence and identify start up issues as soon as possible. The feedback loop for drivers and users will expedite this process and ensure that both parties have a positive ride experience.

As I sift through dozens of comments on my blog, I have received overwhelmingly positive feedback. I understand that scheduling a meeting with administration, specifically President Fuchs seems ambitious. I have faith that with enough student support and obvious demonstration of student demand, my opportunity for an improved SNAP can become a reality. To alleviate growing pains and minimize the shutdown period (due to recoding), I will have to expand my network of tech savvy friends. All this would really involve is a quick Skype call and sharing of code lines; communication is key. Once the bugs have been identified, I would incorporate beta testing before a general re-release of TapRide on the app store.