4A- Forming an Opportunity Belief

Elevators go too slow. My beginning point is that elevators could not possibly be optimally programmed to pick up passengers. In my apartment I can see where the elevators are at any moment when I am in the lobby, and the extra time the elevator takes gives me time to think about how inefficient they are. Everyone who uses an elevator, people who live in apartments or work in office buildings face this challenge more than once a day. The realized inefficiency of current elevators has only recently become available to me through living in an apartment building but has existed since the invention. There is no current action being taken to rectify this issue, people accept the timing of the elevator or take the stairs. I am 80% sure that this problem is realistic and practically significant in people’s minds. A prototypical customer is someone who lives in an apartment building with limited elevator access or someone who works in an office building. An available customer to talk to about this are people that live in my apartment building.

Customer 1: Relaxed college male working part time

The problem is annoying, but not too detrimental. The issue only becomes present whenever the elevator programming does not work out in his favor. This has been an issue all his life. It was first noticed when seeing the elevator stop for other floors but not the floor he was on. The change makes sense and would be very satisfying, more so if the first person to hit the button gets priority. In reflection of talking to this consumer of elevator use, I understand that he has a certain idea of optimization that is not the same as my own.

Customer 2: High-strung college student living on the ninth floor of an apartment

This customer has similar viewpoint as the previous one. He believes, however, that if the tenant of a floor is paying more, it should favor this more important floor. The other suggestion by this tenant was for floors like the lobby or amenities to be set in priority. First floor going up should have a priority over every other floor, would be his ideal solution to the problem. Otherwise, he finds this just as upsetting as Customer 1. In reflection of talking to this customer, he believes that there is a different solution to the optimization of the elevator programming than myself or the previous tenant.

Customer 3: College male student with all online classes

Customer 3 had another unique opinion about the solution to elevator inefficiency. Since no one really has a rush getting home, floors going down should get priority. You are more likely to notice and be upset about being late to something outside of your home than being late to getting to your home or office. People rush to get OUT of places, not really to get in. This difference in opinion really goes to show the variety of consumers on the best way to solve a problem.

Summary: While all the consumers identified the issue as bothersome, they all had different solutions of how to solve it, without communicating their ideas to each other. My belief is still that the statistical optimization is the best solution, not prioritizing floors based on activity or pricing. I do not believe that my opportunity is more accurate than the in beginning of the exercise in the sense that I now know what consumers want, but in that I know that the issue is prevalent in society. The goals of entrepreneurs should be to solve problems; if they do not hear customer feedback on those problems, there is no way to determine the effects on society of the product or service from the endeavor. In short, entrepreneurs need to receive and learn from customer feedback to succeed.