Venture Concept No. 1

Opportunity

The need that my business idea will address is that some college students are forced to take online courses, and also take online exams. Most students who take these online exams feel extremely uncomfortable and dread taking them. Taking an online exam with someone on your computer screen watching your every move can become extremely nerve-wrecking. College students who take online tests via ProctorU will be the targeted potential customers of my new service. This need is created because some courses at the University of Florida, as well as other large universities, have extremely large class sizes and not enough professors to handle the overwhelming number of students. So an online class allows one professor to teach as many students as needed. Most students I have spoken to would love an alternative to ProctorU, and feel like an alternative would allow them to do better on their exams. This “window of opportunity” would be open for as long as Universities are still partnered with ProctorU.

Innovation

The service that I would be offering is an alternative to ProctorU to take exams for online courses. Basically, this service would operate just like ProctorU in the booking aspect, students would go online and book an appointment with a nearby proctor, including date, time and place. Much like the SAT or ACT, there would be a set number of exam locations and times. Students could then meet up with their proctor and take a pen and paper exam, rather than an online exam, depending on whether or not there are other students in the same city, other students would be taking the exam as well in the same place. Designated proctoring sites would be either a college campus in that city, or maybe even a high school classroom. Students have been taking pen and paper exams for their entire lives, and it is what students feel most comfortable doing. Especially once a student gets to college, and the exam material is much more difficult, it is extremely important that a students feels comfortable while taking an exam. This company would make money by partnering with large universities that have unhappy students taking online exams. It would charge a base fee per year, which would most likely be a little more costly that a partnership with ProctorU, because of the amount of proctors there must be throughout the United States. But, I feel like universities should spare no expense to have students happy because of the high price of tuition. 

Venture Concept

Most students dislike taking online exams because it makes them feel extremely uncomfortable. Myself, and many other students that I have spoken to would be more than willing to take a pen and paper exam in its place. The hardest part of starting this company would be getting universities to partner with it rather than ProctorU. I’m sure universities have multi-year deals with ProctorU already in place, so it would take a couple years for universities to be able to partner with this company. ProctorU would be my biggest competitor, and it is extremely vulnerable because most students despise taking online exams. There would be many employees, but not many full-time employees. Teachers, TAs or even some professors would sign up to proctor a specific exam and be paid per exam session that they proctor. 

3 Minor Elements

My unfair advantage would be the tremendous amount of work ethic that I would put forth to get this company going and start on the right foot. There is not much innovation for a business idea like this, the only one that I could really think of is mainly to partner with exams like SAT or ACT and have our employees proctor those exams as well. In 5 years, once this company has taken off and made millions, I would sell it and pursue my ultimate goal which is to open my own stock brokerage firm. 

Amazon Whisperer

The way that my company would generate revenue is buy partnering with Universities, and having the Universities pay a fee for these proctoring services. Much like ProctorU, a student would be able to arrange a proctored test about a week in advance, free of charge, but if the student reschedules the appointment within 48 hours, the student would have to pay a small fee. My company is a service-based company, so I can't really think of any product that these students would want on top of the opportunity to take an in-person proctored test versus an online test through ProctorU. A device that I think would be useful though, is a calculator that is a mixture of both a graphing calculator, and a financial calculator. As a business major, it is pretty annoying to have to keep track of both calculators and see which one I can use for a specific problem. I think a calculator that has the features of both, could be extremely useful. I can't find a calculator that encompasses both features on Amazon, but they have each individual calculator. The reviews of the graphing calculator, specifically the TI 84 +, are extremely positive and has an overall 4.5/5 star rating. The reviews say that is is extremely easy to use, and very convenient. Reviews on the financial calculator are not as positive. The Texas Instruments BA II + financial calculator, has a 4/5 star rating. The reviews say that it is not as intuitive to use as regular calculators, and people wish that it could do a little more. It is very intricate and use must use so many buttons to perform the simplest calculations. I would combine both the financial and graphing calculators into one calculator.

Week 11 Reading Reflection

The biggest surprise to me was how much effort, thought, and preparation goes into innovation and being able to keep up the the evolving market. The part that I found most confusing how how different technological innovation can be than business model innovation. I always thought that they went hand-in-hand, because technology affects your business model. I would ask the author, what is the best way to keep up with an evolving market? And also, what sectors do you believe haven't evolved much yet? I don't think that the author was wrong about anything.

My Unfair Advantage

10 Resources my venture has:
1. Customer base
-Many students dislike ProctorU, and which would create a large customer base. This resource is not inimitable by ProctorU, but it could be by other proctor companies.
2. Human capital
-Very easy to find potential employees, because this job is very relaxed compared to others. Somewhat inimitable.
3. Financial capital
-If I were to start this I could take out a loan. Very imitable.
4. Hard-working culture
-This company would be regarded as a very hard-working company, and always on top of their work. Imitable.
5. Friendly atmosphere
-The proctors would be extremely friendly to the customers.  Imitable.
6. Easy to get in contact with
-The customers would have the personal numbers of the employees and therefore could reach them at anytime.  Somewhat imitable.
7.  Management practices
-Management would mirror the great management practices of some of the top firms in the world. Imitable.
8. Research
-This company would research what environments students prefer to take tests in and would allow those students to take them there. Somewhat imitable.
9. Affordable prices - for the University
-This company's services would be cheaper than the services of ProctorU. Imitable.
10. Experienced workers
-It is very easy to find potential employees who have either proctored a test, or taught a class before.  Imitable.

The top resource in this business would be the access to the customer base, because so many students dislike ProctorU. All of these resources could potentially be imitable. But once this company is already running, it would be difficult for other companies to take the customers that it would already have, because this would be the first of its kind.

Week 10 Reading Reflection

Nothing was really surprising to me about this reading because I am a finance major and I have already taken courses on this subject. I didn't find any part of this reading confusing, but I can see how someone who hasn't taken a finance course would be confused. I would ask the author if a finance major has an easier path to become an entrepreneur than people who don't major in finance. I would also ask what the easiest way to gain capital to begin a business is. I do not disagree with anything he said.

Growing my Social Capital

Domain Expert
The domain expert I spoke to was Andrew Dubbaneh. He is a TA for a business class that I am taking and he proctors the tests. I just emailed him about my business idea. He has proctored actual exams so he can give some more insight as to how the process goes.

Market Expert
The market expert I spoke to was Chris, a tutor or "study expert" at Study Edge. He tutors some of the classes that I am currently taking. My business is a proctoring company, and a tutor is the only thing that is somewhat close to a proctor. He just let me talk to him about my business idea. He can help me reach out to more people that I couldn't reach out to alone.

Supplier
My business idea doesn't really require any supplies. So the closest thing that I can think of is actual proctors who would supply their time. I spoke to another TA in one of my classes, Kamil. I emailed him as well. He currently is in the proctoring business because he proctors some business class tests.


This experience allowed me to reach out to people that I normally would not have. It allowed me to gain a little more insight into the proctoring business.

Elevator Pitch No. 3

There were a couple things that stood out to me from the comments on my last elevator pitch. I needed to help explain how terrible ProctorU exams are because the investors that I would be speaking to may have never taken an online exam. I also needed to try and remove the filler words in my pitch and make it flow together a little better.

My Secret Sauce

1) Describe five ways in which you think you have human capital that is truly unique.
I am an extremely dedicated person, once I set my mind so something, I don't stop until it's done. I am also an extremely caring person and I feel like that helps me build lasting relationships with people. I feel like I am also pretty smart and I excel in the classroom. I am very perseverant and try to overcome all obstacles that are in my way. I also think that I have a very entrepreneurial mindset. 

2) Interview the five people who know you the best.



My key takeaways from these interviews is that people think that I am a very hard-worker and that people can depend on me to get the job done. Most people also believe that I am a pretty caring person. 



3) Reflect on the differences.
I think that the people that I interviewed described me almost exactly as I would describe myself. For the most part, they all agreed that I was a very hard-worker and that I was very dedicated to what I do. There are not that many differences to how I see myself and to how others see me. I think that it is a very beneficial thing to not have clouded vision of yourself. 

Week 9 Reading Reflection

What surprised me about this reading was how the author explained how recently, marketers changed their focus and made their marketing efforts more customer-oriented. That surprised me because it got me thinking: what was their focus before? The marketing strategy that confused me was how some marketers believe that penny differences in prices attract customers. I have never even noticed how prestigious items end in an even number while commonly available goods end in an odd number. A question I would ask the author is: why haven't marketers always focused on the consumer, why is it just recently that they did? Another question I would ask is: does he really believe that penny differences in prices attract customers? I didn't really disagree with anything the author wrote, I just question a couple things.

Idea Napkin No. 2

My name is Tristan Whittingham and I am an extremely motivated individual and one day I would like to open my own stock brokerage firm. If this business concept were to materialize, it could give me the startup money that I would need to eventually open my own firm. My business concept is a proctoring service which could be an alternative to ProctorU, I could start it, and eventually sell it in order to follow my dreams.

Online students at the University of Florida have to take their exams online as well, on an online proctor service where there is a proctor watching your every move and can be very nerve-racking. My business idea would solve this problem and would allow online students to meet up with a proctor in whichever city there are in, in order to take a pen and paper exam, like they are accustomed to doing.This process would be much like taking an ACT or SAT test, you select the location, date, and time that you would be willing to the exam. The proctors would then score the exams themselves and send the results to the professor. My customers would be any online student at any university in the United States that does not feel comfortable taking an exam via ProctorU. Taking a pen and paper exam is what most students are used to and prefer, so this alternative to ProctorU could allow students to do better on exams. I am a hard-worker and I believe I can make anything successful if I put my mind to it. I believe these concepts fit together nicely and would allow for a very profitable business.

I did not change this post much from my original napkin idea. I did include a couple sentences that made the process easier to understand by referencing the SAT and ACT testing procedure. The comments I received mainly focused on how students love this idea because they despise ProctorU exams. I can't really say 5 things that I took away from the comments because there were only two changes that people recommended, and I implemented those into this post.