25A - What's Next?

Existing Market

The next steps for the service my firm would be providing would likely be tackling traffic inefficiencies in major cities where in we would be profitable. Local governments could dish out for the firm to come in, observe the traffic patterns, and suggest ways to manipulate traffic lights, road closures, and detours that could streamline driving patterns to avoid accidents and holdups.

The three people that I interviewed are my current roommates, who had strong and insightful opinions on the elevator idea. I asked them each what I should pursue as my next venture.

Roommate 1: Go beyond working outside of the elevator companies and work in one. Good ideas like the previous venture would set me up for higher level positions in a large corporation. He thought that the traffic pattern studies would be to widespread and hard to do all over the country/world.

Roommate 2: He recommended staying open as a business and installing the programming in the current elevators ourselves because it would string out our involvement with the profitable elevator companies and lead to long-term employment, as well as the opportunity to travel. He disagrees with the traffic pattern idea, sticking with elevators could be more profitable and easier.

Roommate 3: He is an engineer and believes that tackling new projects with a team of competent engineers would be great for the company and those their work benefits. The traffic idea would be hard but would keep workers employed profitably and help the communities.

Growing the existing market from those who operate in multi-story buildings to those affected by inefficiencies makes for a more profitable market to which visible change would be beyond helpful. If the firm were to be successful, leaving a part of the firm in each industry we touch would make the business large and well-connected. I believe this is the best course of action based on my interviews and time spent working on this concept. Not staying put in one market but reaching out and affecting many.

New Market

A market that I have not tapped into is the opposite of the segment that I have identified for my opportunity. Those who do not live in or work in multi-level buildings regularly. I spoke with two of my friends who have a house together behind midtown. A one-story property, both working and having girlfriends who live in different multi-level apartments. After talking to both guys about my elevator concept, they agreed that it would affect them favorably. An easy way they described it affecting them is for picking up their significant others by car. If he texts that he is downstairs and his girlfriend is ready to go, the only thing stopping them from leaving immediately is the time it takes to get from her room to the lobby. Should they be in a rush, a slow or ineffective elevator could agitate either or both of them by being late and presenting the illusion of delay, ruining whatever plans they had. They also had the last-minute idea that this could be applied to short-term transportation like the trams within Hartsfield Jackson Airport in Atlanta. Those are on a timed course but changing the programming to be based on rush hours and connecting that program to flight times would make people’s days a lot easier for the same reason they mentioned in picking up their partner.

What my friends suggested in adapting my technology to trams or similar transportation vehicle would be harder than anticipated. Instead of programming based on a single formula and altering that formula and the subsequent code every time, building a competent and learning program would be better. A supercomputer like IBM Watson could calculate the best way to divert elevators amongst the 3 different elevators in a 40-story building during rush hour, but that might not be efficient for our firm’s purposes. This market is not nearly as attractive as our first because it is just those affected by the change that we cause in our original segment.