29A- Venture Concept No. 2

Feedback Summary:

A recurring theme with feedback that I have received through several stages in the project is to investigate what I am already supplying and display benefits that I had not realized yet. The one that stood out to me first was to include in my venture concept and elevator pitches that not only would my solution be saving the consumers time, but it would be saving energy for the building. This was so clear once it was brought up, and I am so glad that my classmate raised this point. If I were to sit down and really look at the benefits that I am already supplying, there is so much more to market. If the conceptual “firm” were to be established with the resource of ten industrial engineers, we could go beyond just the programming of the elevators, we could improve so much more about an industry frozen in time because of the lack of dynamic thinkers. Going beyond there, we would not just be limited to quirky projects like traffic or camera sweeping, we could go into stagnant industries and streamline their processes.

Changes to the Venture Concept:

Some of the changes that I made to the venture concept were to make in an easier read, because I am very satisfied with the content. I also decided to make the difference between the consumer and customer more distinctive. It might have been confusing in my last post, but now the reader should know that because the elevator companies would be buying my program, they would be the customer. The people living or working in a multi-level building would be the consumers, because they are reaping the benefits of my program. The more the consumer like the elevators, the more the elevators company’s sales go up. I understand why this may have been confusing before and now know that the concept is more clearly mapped out.

Venture Concept

The potential consumers for this venture are member of the population that use elevators regularly in their daily lives. Anyone who lives in or works in a multi-story building. The need itself that these people have is a preferential need; people do not know that they have this need until they are in a situation where they feel it. If an elevator functions perfectly for a person, they will not think about the inefficiencies of the product. Once they are waiting for over 30 seconds or are in a rush, they then start to feel that pressure of the need, they would prefer that the elevator work as well as possible. This number is a statistic based on several interviews I did with segment members for assignments.

High-density populations of buildings and statistical rush hours create the problem of overflow for people trying to use an elevator in a multi-level building. The customers need to be able to get where they are going incrementally faster than they are now.

The market is geographically defined as typically people in cities because that is where more high-rise and multi-level apartment and office buildings exist. These people and buildings need elevators, so they do not have to take the stairs to their offices or homes. It is a luxury that most people take for granted. Demographically, the people are on either end of the income spectrum, as government sponsored housing can be multi-level projects or wealthier members of the population in luxury apartments.

For this venture, the customer and the consumer are two different sets. The customer that I will be selling to is the companies that manufacture and install the elevators, because the coding and programming process starts with them, not the real estate developers or the people that actually use the elevators. The customers currently satisfy this need with an outdated standard computer program that is fairly basic and has several fallacies. The companies are loyal to this program because there is not a lot of movers-and-shakers going into the elevator industry. If a new product were to come along, or their hand were to be forced into buying this new product, they would be incentivized to acquire it. The consumer will be the targeted segment, the everyday Joe living or working in a multi-level building. They cannot satisfy their current need, the only thing they can do it wait. Unless something is an emergency or the elevator is entirely not working, people would be unwilling to use the stairs to get up or down more than two floors from where they currently reside.

This opportunity is enormous for profit and changing people’s lives. Incremental amounts of time matter to people in a lot of ways, and this opportunity could help these consumers as well as the customers.

In terms of competition, if no one comes along with the same idea or the elevator companies have a new in-house creation of a line of code to make their elevators more efficient, this opportunity will be available.

The idea is for an equation that considers the number of elevators in a lobby and the number of floors in a building in order to best statistically operate and deliver people to their desired location and quickly as possible. The profit comes from selling the idea or delivering the code to current elevator companies’ elevators so that they will become a desirable company for real estate developers to employ for their elevator needs. A simple buyout could be sizeable but continuing to sell the product as a service on a subscription basis could prove more profitable in the long run, depending on opening offers.

There are only a few major players in the elevator industry, all fairly on the same level. Some are geographically separated so very few of the big ones compete in the same physical environment. In order to get an upper hand in marketing themselves to real estate developers, they would be incentivized to pay handsomely for a product that would put their consumers (the people using the elevators) ahead of their competition.

It would take time for people to realize the difference between our new innovative program and the current stagnant one, but that is not up to my firm, it is up to the elevator companies and the real estate developers to market their new “shiny toy” of efficiency. After that, it becomes the standard because no one will want to wait around for elevators any more than they already do.

The only competitors would be in-house engineers at elevator companies. They falter because being inside change in a company is hard, and they have no power or profitability over their invention because in some contract cases, anything they create will be the company’s property, so with no profitability for them, there is no incentive. The beautiful part of this form of business is that it can all be done remotely and with an email or a USB drive to succeed. A business would consist of about 10-20 people, mostly engineers at first, to develop the product, followed by more business relevant employees to turn the concept into a real, profitable business.

Minor Elements

Secret Sauce: The most important resource for this venture is that the solution is simple. If I can just sell the idea to the companies, and end my involvement there, it would be fast money with some reward and minimal risk.

What’s Next for the Venture: If selling the idea does not receive the acceptably profitable bids, creating a firm to work in efficiency projects would be the obvious next step. Having assembled a group of engineers to make the equation and code for the elevators, we could work on other important projects like traffic streamlining or security camera coverage.

What is Next for Me: Hopefully, in five years after this venture, I could have sold the idea or still working with the firm using our established social capital of contacts within the technology industry from the elevator project to profit and improve people’s lives further.