Best Deal in Town

Assignment 24 – Venture Concept No 1 - Best Deal in Town

Opportunity:

•        There are roughly 120 million Americas age 18 to 44. Millions of those Americas enjoy going out to the bar on a Friday or Saturday night, and drink with their friends. However, this demographic is notorious for spending more money than they have.
•        They want to save money, but feel the cost of taking the time and energy to find ways to reduce expenses, outweighs the benefits. Combing their lack of effort to save money and ambition to drink as much as they can, creates this opportunity.  
•        Several forces have allowed this opportunity to exist. The main opportunity is the introduction of the smartphone. It has allowed social media to thrive, online advertising to boom, and boosted our society into the next evolution of technology.
•        Social media is the second force. Prior to social media TV advertisements, the radio, and billboards were the only way to show off a hot new bar; or be able to promote an establishment. However, now anyone can create buzz around a company. Especially when they have a strong and loyal following. One tweet or Instagram post from a celebrity can change a fleeting bar into a major success.
•        The last major force would be online couponing. Anyone can easily search the web and find a coupon. Prior to the internet, people had to rummage through the newspaper, cut them out, and remember to take them to the store. It has become second nature to most, when standing in line to quickly look and see if there is a coupon on the internet.  
•        This market is quite large, consisting of mainly college students and adults under thirty. However, it includes anyone who goes out to the bar and is on budget. According to the 2010 Census, there is 38,345,337 Americas age 20-29. An additional 20,510,388 Americans age 30-34. This would be the target market for this venture.
•         There is a list of different solutions, most of which are second rate. Consisting of using a whiteboard on the fridge, their memory, or the notes app on an iPhone. From my market research, I came to the conclusion that all of these solutions were only temporary and they are waiting for a better solution.
•         This opportunity will always exist unless there is another prohibition. The biggest thing with this opportunity will be if my venture can capitalize on it.  Whoever takes dominate market share will be mountains ahead of the competition.

Innovation:

Customer:

·      This is an app that will act very similar to google maps. The customer will download the app and once opened, they will be promoted to allow the app to use their location. Once accepted the app with search a specified distance of either 5, 10, 15 or 20 miles in order to locate all the bars or clubs in that region. They can filter down the results to styles of bars/clubs or types of promotions. They can even filter based on a rating system.

·      Once they select the bar/club they want to go to, a map will pop up showing them how to get there. When they arrive at the bar, a QR code will pop up on the screen. In order to get the deal, they must have that QR code scanned by the bartender.

Businesses:

·      This app is perfect for businesses of any size. It is a marketing asset that needs to be in every businesses balance sheet. There will be different payment options in order to fit everyone’s needs. Basically they pay in order to have their bar promoted on the app.  When they partner with us, we will post their promotions under their bar name instead of leaving a n/a. That way customers will know what deals they are having. We will also have daily “hottest bar in town” promotions. Every night when a customer opens the app, a specific bar will pop up on the home screen. There will also be a series of other promotional events going on.

Making Money:

·      There will be several different revenue streams coming through this app. The three main will be: a partnership program, a subscription service, and through monetization. The partnership program will not require any up from capital from the business. However, every time a bartender scans the QR we will split the profits. For example, the customer buys three drinks for a total of $18. We will get 10% of the revenue, or $1.80. The subscription service is a flat yearly fee. Lastly, the app will have advertisements throughout. That way we can maximize all revenue streams.

Venture Concept

·      Due to the fact that my product does not cost any money to the consumer, anyone who believes in saving a few dollars will be interested.

·      Business owners will buy my service because it allows them to market on a much more mainstream level that will advertise directly to their target audience.

·      Since there is not a premium app that does an expectable job filling this need; people don’t need to decide between choosing between the apps.

·      Initially I only plan on having one other employee. I will go around convincing bars/club as well as fraternities/sororities to start using this app, while my partner works on any bugs in the app. Eventually I would like to add a social media expert and several other coders. On top of that, hiring a marketing specialist is a priority.

·      Initially this app will only be for bars and clubs, but I hope to expand into several other markets.

       Important Resource

·      The most important resource would have to be myself. I have a motivated mindset with social connections that most wall street executives dream they could have for this market.

·      Once this product is successful, I plan on launching into the events business. Helping promote hot events in town. Eventually we hope to be the hub for anyone looking to have a good time.

·      5 years in I plan on dominating the Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale and Miami market. Then working up Florida into Daytona, Tampa and Orlando. 5 to 6 years in, I plan on being the leader in marketing for all of Florida. Once we hit 10 years, I want to be in every major city and working on new apps completely different from marketing in order to diversify our portfolio.