Assignment 19A - Idea Napkin No. 2

• You. Who you are. What your talents are. What your skills and experiences are. Also: what are your aspirations? Specifically regarding your business concept, how do you see this business (if you were to start it) playing a role in your life?
• My name is Izzy Chigurupati. My name is Izzy Chigurupati. I am an Accounting major here at the University of Florida and I hope to be doing my Master’s in ISOM starting next year. My skills and talents have stemmed from my experiences thus far. I usually must do a lot of things by myself and I would say that this has caused me to be very driven. When I talked to the people closest to me, they agreed that I am a problem-solver and very driven. 
• These qualities make me want to have every aspect of my life planned out. This is what led me to my business concept. If there was a service that paired UF with off-campus housing that resulted in flexible leases for us, the student body, a lot of financial stress would be alleviated. I would be able to not worry about finding a summer sublease and could use that money to pay for the next step in my journey which is my master’s degree. 
• What are you offering to customers? Describe the product or service (in other words, how you'll solve customers' unmet needs).
• This did not change. I am offering a service in which UF partners with off-campus housing. This can result in flexible leases for us. This solves many unmet needs such as international students who only need housing for a semester, parents who are worried about their children being homeless during Summer C finals week, and those who have trouble finding sublets and face a money deficit (i.e. end up paying two leases at once).
• The only feedback that I have received in terms of improving my idea is regarding cleaning the apartments. I think this would solve itself because any housing that pairs with UF would have to have higher cleaning standards. 
• Who are you offering it to? Describe, in as much detail as possible, the demographic and psychographic characteristics of your customers. Think especially of this question: what do your customers all have in common? 
• This aspect might change in the future. Currently, I am offering this to UF (and possibly Santa Fe) students who are not Gainesville-native. This entire category has the fact that they need housing (and thus flexible leases) in common. Another category which may substitute the students would be the parents/guardian of the students, if they pay for their child’s housing. According to some feedback I received, this is a problem for other institutions so I may be able to expand my service to other college towns.
• Why do they care? Your solution is only valuable insofar as customers believe its valuable to them. Here, explain why customers will actually pay you money to use your product or service.
• The customers would pay to use this service because of the convenience. For instance, an add-on fee of $200 for a flexible lease is still substantially less than having to pay for months of unoccupied rent space and it beats being homeless. Even the feedback I received was regarding how people personally have been victimized by the housing problem. 
• What are your core competencies? What sets you apart from everyone else? Also: what do you have that nobody else has? 
• What sets me apart from everyone else is the novelty of my idea, as well as the statistics I used to support my idea initially. For instance, I cited in my elevator pitch that over 70% of undergraduate students live off-campus which means that they face these problems regularly. It also means that there is a huge untapped market for UF. The only part that I feel that my business concept is weak is that my service depends on cooperation from UF. I know that UF is spending money renovating dorms right now as admittance numbers go up and we trek to a top five public school, but convincing UF to pair with off-campus housing might need lucrative support and could take a while to implement.

Feedback Memo: 

• One piece of feedback that I incorporated into my idea is to address the cleaning issue. Apartments currently don’t do a thorough job of cleaning between lessees, but this is something I am hoping will solve itself when apartments pair with UF housing. If not, I will attempt to address that directly. 
• Another piece of feedback that I have including is expanding the market. As my idea launches into effect, I would like to keep my market small (aka just in Gainesville). That being said, I think there is true potential to expand to other college towns in the future.