24A Venture Concept No. 1

               For my venture concept, an opportunity exists within students here at the University of Florida. Coming to college whether the school is within your state, hometown, or out of state, the transition is scary. It is the first time kids are on their own taking care of themselves and being on top of their own responsibilities. Although many students have friends from their high school go to the same University as them, many do not. Making friends is difficult and at such a large school with such an immense campus initiating the new relationship is intimidating. I believe formulating a service here on campus connecting students with similar interests for incoming students with no other affiliation to campus organizations would benefit a wide range of people. The market is defined geographically within the 6 mile radius of campus. It is also defined demographically through similarities between peers. Customers are currently satisfying this need by going to class, if they can, or joining campus clubs and greek life. This opportunity is fairly big and has a long life since the University recruits new students every semester.
               My innovation would be the buddy system. Through surveys and interest categories students could relate to and form connections with other students based on their similar personalities. Every student willing to participate would receive a buddy for a certain interest category and would go on to pursue the activity with. The buddies are constantly changing for each category so everyone would be able to meet tons of new friends. The service will constant of both a membership option or individual fee option. Members would pay a monthly amount like $15 that would grant access to participate in the activities offered for that month. Customers who do not want to commit to a membership price would pay individual fees for each activity they are interested in.
               My innovation would solve the problem of not meeting or making new friends. It is a cheaper way to connect and get involved with the school than greek life but would still present many social opportunities. People would be willing to buy my service because it is a unique way to affiliate themselves with people similar to them. With over 50,000 students at UF, this service makes the campus feel much smaller. The competitors would be different clubs and organizations on campus. My service is vulnerable because it is not free and there are free opportunities on campus. Also it requires my customers to initiate business so if no one is interested then I could not succeed.
               Really what sets this business apart from others is that I want it to help the students on campus. I'm not solely focusing on generating money. I know for myself the transition to UF was difficult because the people I was closest with went to a separate school from me. I was also online and lived far from campus my first year making it tedious to come to campus. If this only benefits PaCE students I think it would still have a huge opportunity of succeeding because there are so many students in that program. Eventually once this service generates more attention I could extend it to other schools across Florida, or even to everyone in the community of Gainesville rather than just the students. This would benefit far more people on a much larger scale.