Testing the Hypothesis

Step 1) Opportunity: I believe there exists an opportunity in college towns to provide an online service that gives students a cheaper online access to their textbooks compared to buying or renting textbooks from university bookstores and other sources.

Step 2) The Who: College students across the country who need access to their textbooks for classes.
            The What: They are unable to find a cheap option for their books that they need for their      classes.
             The Why: Textbooks are known for being very expensive, often being over $200 while        college students are known for not having a lot of disposable income and have to rely on                    their  parents for financial support.

Step 3) Testing the who: any student who needs textbooks could have the need but most public    schools provide students with textbooks from kindergarten through 12th grade so the                           majority of the target consumers who will have this need are college
  Testing the what: Are only certain kind of textbooks more beneficial to have on the service                 or are all textbooks needed? Do all college students have this need for textbooks or is it just                 a  certain portion of them? Most college textbooks would be useful to provide for this                           service  as students need books for almost all of their classes. Additionally, almost all                          classes have a textbook that accompany the course so most college students could benefit                    from this service.

Step 4) These are the questions that were asked every person that was interviewed:
Would you say that your university's bookstore fairly prices the textbooks?
How do you currently obtain textbooks for your classes?
How do you feel about an online access to a textbook over a physical copy?
Would you be interested in a service that provides you textbooks for a fraction of the price your university or even Amazon charges?
What would be an optimal price you would be willing to pay for your textbooks?

Step 5) Summary: I found from my interviews that I have stumbled upon a very real and existing need among college students. There is an overwhelming opinion that the UF bookstore charges extremely high prices which majority of students feel are unreasonable and should be lowered. A similar sentiment was found in students who attend USF. What this tells me is that the opportunity is very real and could be exploited if acted upon quick enough. Additionally, students do not have a preference towards physical copies of textbooks anymore do to the advantage of having an online textbook that can be accessed anywhere. Students are also willing to pay more for their textbooks than what I had initially expected as the average price a student gave for what they were willing to pay was $50 which means such a service could be very profitable.