Idea Napkin No.1

1.) You: I am a 4th year Information Systems student which I feel like definitely influenced the business idea I have come up with from  my opportunity assessments. Because of my major, I have been fortunate enough to acquire both technical skills such as computer programming and designing systems, as well as the soft management skills needed to operate a successful business. I hope that if I were to start my online textbook platform service, I would be able to provide a very popular and cheaper alternative to expensive textbooks. What I would hope is that the business is able to gain popularity across college campuses, become larger and more profitable of a platform for me to be able to focus on that solely rather than another career. 

2.) What are you offering to customers? What I am offering customers is a cheaper, entirely online platform that can be used to access textbooks. This platform could be used across various devices, including mobile devices so that students would not have to carry around their books but can always access their books when they need it. Students would be able to download a online PDF ver sions of their textbooks also and save it to their personal devices. 

3.) Who are you offering it to? This service is most useful for the demographic of college students because they are expected to spend hundreds, sometimes even thousands of dollars on their textbooks. These students usually do not have as much disposable incomes to allocate to their textbooks so a cheaper alternative is imperative. 

4.)  Why do they care? Students care because they do not have as much money as adults with higher paying jobs. Many students are either working part time for meager hourly wages or are unable to work at all because of classes. They would want to find a cheaper alternative to buying their expensive textbooks, especially when many of them know they won't use the books once the semester is over, which is a huge waste of hundreds of dollars. So a cheaper online alternative would absolutely be better than that and students would be willing to pay a fraction of the price they would otherwise have to. 

5.) What are your core competencies? I believe my biggest advantage is that I tend to be overly analytical which, while it does cause making decisions a more lengthy process, I am able to come up with sound decisions. This is essential when starting an entirely new business venture like this. Additionally, I am very driven by tangible results meaning that I do not just want projections and estimations. I want to see actual efforts of my labor and I will continue to work until I do. 

I truly believe that all of these elements come together to form a cohesive and functional business concept. The fact that I am analytical and result-oriented, along with the existence of a very prevalent need among a large demographic means that this is an opportunity that can be successfully exploited. Due to the fact that my service is an online portal and I have a background in Information Systems will also be advantageous to my business goals.