23A – Your Venture’s Unfair Advantage

1.My social network: I know a lot of people who are in sororities and fraternities

Valuable: This is extremely valuable, because word of mouth will be key for this app

Rare: It’s not rare, however I believe my social network is stronger than a corporate executive in regards to the young adult market

Inimitable: This is easy to imitate, but also hard if you don’t possess a high degree of social skills

Non-substitutable: It can be substituted by partnering with a sorority or fraternity

2. My setting: I am in a town that has three colleges within 10 minutes of each other

Valuable: This is valuable because it means there is potential a large audience

Rare: Not extremely rare because college towns are all over

Inimitable: It can be imitated

Non-substitutable: To have such a large young audience it’s hard to substitute for something else

3. Lack of Competition: All apps that I can find have extremely poor ratings

Valuable: There are apps out there, which means there is a market. However, all the apps are poor quality

Rare: Its helps that competition is poor, however not having strong competition is irrelevant.

Inimitable: The app is easy to imitate as long as you have deep knowledge of coding

Non-substitutable: There are other styles of apps which could substitute mine.

4. Finance Experience: I have been investing in companies for years

Valuable: I know a lot of accounting and how to invest intelligently

Rare: Knowing accounting skills isn’t rare however it is useful

Inimitable: It’s not unique

Non-substitutable: Hiring an account could be a substitute but that means you would have to pay him/her

5. My father was an entrepreneur for years and now a general manager

Valuable: He can advise me, and provide insight no one else can get from him.

Rare: Experience cannot be duplicated

Inimitable: Its unique because every person can provide their own experience and knowledge to a problem.

Non-substitutable: It can be substituted with another entrepreneur

6. Strong attention to detail

Valuable: Being detail oriented is very valuable because that’s what makes premium companies different from others

Rare: Many people are detail oriented

Inimitable: Not really

Non-substitutable: This skill can’t be substituted; however, you can hire someone who has it

7. Know a lot of coders

Valuable: Since this is an app, however connections into the software word are important

Rare: Not at all

Inimitable: Because there are hundreds of thousands of coders it’s not unique

Non-substitutable: A substitute would be, being an actual coder or working for an app development team.

8. Have a lot of connections into the financial industry

Valuable: This will all me to find funding or potentially corporate backing

Rare: Not a lot of people have as strong relationships with financial companies

Inimitable: Not really unique

Non-substitutable: Having relationships with hedge funds or VCs.

9. Large target market

Valuable: Having such a large target market will allow me to expand and grow easier and quicker.

Rare: A lot of apps are extremely demographic focused; this app covers a large demographic

Inimitable: It’s not unique to only my app

Non-substitutable: My app is very subjective to only a specific demographic.

10. App development experience

Valuable: Extremely valuable because my company is an app, and having deep knowledge in the workings of it is a requirement

Rare: It rare because not a lot of people know how to code

Inimitable: Not extremely unique because hundreds of thousands to millions know how to code.

Non-substitutable: Hiring someone with experience

I believe I am the top resource. Just because you have a great product does not mean you will be successful. You need to have drive, connections, and knowledge of the subjective to be successful. That is why billionaires can’t just think up an idea and it becomes automatically successful. It doesn’t matter the amount of money you have, or how big your market is. If you are not successful as a person, then your company won’t be.