In this exercise, you will provide a revised venture concept description. This is the final iteration of your venture idea, at least for this class. If, after you leave this class for other experiences and journeys in the future, you want to take this idea even further and launch it -- more adaptation will be necessary! But that's just because life itself is constantly changing and adapting, becoming better, worse, different.
What a boring world we would live in if the business idea you developed earlier this year was exactly perfect and that it would remain exactly perfect forever.
Here's what you need to do for this exercise.
- Provide, again, your venture concept description, using this form . We understand it will be extremely similar to your first Venture Concept and do not expect you to re-write your entire Venture Concept. Don't worry about self-plagiarism for this assignment. However, make sure you do provide some type of change based on feedback and personal growth. You will describe this in part 3.
- Provide a summary of the feedback you received from your previous venture concept description. You certainly want to include the student feedback, but you may also include the feedback you received from others during the "What's Next" exercise. You want to summarize all of the feedback, but be sure to place an emphasis on what people recommended you change about your idea. (In other words, don't just describe the positive feedback.)
- Describe how you changed your venture concept, based on what you learned from the feedback.
- Include a picture (for illustration!).
Opportunity: The opportunity I saw in front on me was a demand for people buying houses, but the requirement to pay for realtors, title insurance, attorneys, and surveyors. People want to buy something from the ease of the computer and not have to deal with the much-needed headache of buying a house.
• What are the forces or changes in the environment creating this opportunity? Buyers and sellers are tired of the status quo for buying a house. They are ready for a change. They want a process that easier, faster, more secure with no fraud.
• How is this market defined geographically and demographically? We are planning to start domestically and work out to a global scale. The good thing is most peoples goal in life is to own a house so our industry is very large.
• How are customers currently satisfying this need? And how loyal are they to whatever they use now? They currently use websites like Zillow, but the problem with these current websites is they aren’t linked with blockchain technology. Meaning they aren’t a one-stop shop, they aren’t secure, and they are usually outdated.
• How big is this opportunity? The housing industry is one of the largest globally, plus we could focus on commercial real estate as well.
• How long will the “window of opportunity” be open? I think this idea is already being taken into effect now. Blockchain is quickly changing the future, and I think by 2025 it will be a normal thing.
Innovation: Real estate transactions built on top of the blockchain technology is a very innovative process. The technology is helping to secure documents, along with speed up transaction. When legal contracts are built on top of blockchain technology they will prevent fraud. Preventing fraud will prevent any issue with escrow deposits or commission fees. This company will make revenue by making a small percentage on each transaction, just like a normal miner with blockchain. The larger the purchase price, the more computing power needed which means more money paid out. The company will compensate the decentralized miners for keeping up the blockchain with crypto currency. This keeps all parties involved happy.
Venture Concept: People in today’s world want everything done ASAP, and they want to pay nearly nothing for. One of the downsides with real estate is the market is looked as illiquid. This means that it is hard to sell real estate fast. When the market was crashing it was nearly impossible to sell your asset (house), but if you owned stocks you could liquidate fairly quick. With real estate transactions linked to blockchain we can make buying and selling a house a lot faster and more secure. We would not have to wait to acquire title searches, surveys, hire a realtor to figure out a good value, or wouldn’t have to hire an attorney draft up a housing contract.
• What are the reasons to think customers would switch to this new product? How hard will it be to get them to switch? Just like with any new technology it will be very hard to get people to stop using the norm of buying a house. After a few years, any many successfully transactions the technology will quickly adopt.
• Who are the competitors? What are their possible weaknesses or vulnerabilities? The competitors to the company is any existing real estate housing website. They can introduce a blockchain technology on their existing platform, but I am starting from scratch with mine.
• What role does packaging, your price points, distribution, customer support, the customer experience or the business location play (if any) in defining your business concept? My company employees and the under lying technology is what touches all of these aspects. Once the program starts to gain traction we will expand, but for now we can run the company from an off site office.
• How would you organize a “business” to support the ongoing production of your new product, service, or process? How many employees? What roles are in the venture? I would need a team with about 5 people. Everyone would have to have some kind of programing experience. I would also need a strong one-man band marketing team. Getting our brand out is a must, especially on a budget. We also need hacker on the team because having our company hacked is something that could never happen. The best way to prevent a hack is to work with a hacker. I have finance experience so I can help run the company on that end.
Some of the feedback I received from my fellow students was a way to add in student housing to blockchain technology. When students look for college living they tend to never want to leave or do any research. Students also tend to be unorganized. The blockchain can make the process simpler, along with stream lining the process.
I changed my venture concept by adding a section for not only apartment and condos, but also a section for student housing. After getting advice from my fellow students I believe this is really going to help grow the company. Maybe it will be how we can beta test the technology.
