24A: Venture Concept No. 1

Limited-item coffee shop that employs people with disabilities
Name: "Gainesville's best"
Opportunity: 

• The forces and changes in this environment that are creating this opportunity is the lack of jobs for people with disabilities. The workplace is an evolving place that is continuing to evolve, but not for people with disabilities. This opportunity is present because people with disabilities are going throughout grade school hoping there will be an opportunity for them to continue making a difference, but there isn’t.
• This market for my specific opportunity is Gainesville for people with ages between 18-23. But if you were to look at this issue at a national level, the market would be broader and would include almost all of the United States and it would contain all ages.
• Customers are currently satisfying this need by finding different activities and things to allocate their time to. These people with disabilities are left trying to find different ways to spend their time and different reasons to get out of the house. These people have different loyalty when it comes to a hobby versus a job. The hobby is what is filling up their time right now because they don’t have another option. When a job would become available to them, their time would be more efficiently used, and this job would cause them to find a place in the community where they belong.
• This opportunity is very big. As mentioned in prior assignments, if we could get other communities and organizations aware of this opportunity, it would be very successful. This opportunity has the ability to positively and tremendously affect this segment of people and how they are treated.
• Sadly, this window of opportunity may always be open until it is solved. This is an opportunity that won’t disappear or one day become obsolete, this is a very important and very instrumental part of these people’s lives and how they will be affected in the long run.

Innovation:

·      My service is incremental and radical all in one. In one aspect, my service is radical because there is a slim chance that anyone has put as much thought into this venture and its mission like I have. In other terms, this opportunity is incremental because this service is addressing a need in a market, this need may have been met and served in a different market, but not this specific one.

·      My opportunity is a limited menu coffee shop that people with disabilities would work at and run. The focus of this coffee shop is to help people with disabilities learn skills and be in situations that will help prepare them for the rest of their lives. Each worker would have a specific job that would allow them to fine-tune and critique their skills in a segment.

·      My opportunity works because the high schools in Gainesville have been preparing these students for this time, but the demand for these students to work in these places is not there. Throughout all of grade school, these individuals learn different skills and knowledge that helps them prepare for specific jobs after school. These skills are then underutilized and not look upon because these students are not look at as “important” as other students.

·      I will make money by marketing to the right groups of people and letting the community know the mission of this coffee shop and how it is helping these individuals have a part of society. These limited menu items, like pastries and coffee, would be sold for $3 each. I believe that this would contribute to a high success rate because people are more likely to pay more if there is a specific focus and mission behind something they buy.

Venture Concept:

·      My opportunity would solve this problem because it would give different individuals a job that would help prepare them for their next one. Sometimes people just need a boost of confidence and someone to believe in them for them to be able to keep going.

·      Customers will use my service because it has an idea bigger than just coffee. It is promoting a lifestyle change for people that may not have their life they would want if it was not for the coffee shop. These people would just switch from spending their time in a hobby, to spending their time in a job, so I do not think it would be too hard to get them to switch.

·      I would say there are no direct competitors. The only I would consider would be other coffee shops, but I think since the mission is different, it would not be too big of a deal. I think the only possible weakness would be the people we would employ and how quick turnover would be.

·      The customer experience as a whole defines my business idea immensely. Without support and experience, this business would fail. This business needs the support of the community and its customers to be able to succeed.

·      My venture would have about 5 employees. One at the register, two getting the coffee and pastries, one cleaning, and one speaking and helping the guests. Since my opportunity is a business that helps promote the success of people with disabilities, the production of this service is the name of the game.

Unfair advantage

·      The relationships that I have forged with people that have direct relationships with these people with disabilities would be hard to copy. These people have allowed me to expand my time and critique it to be the best it can be. Without these relationships, I do not think my idea would work.

What’s next?

·      This is the opportunity that I have decided to pursue, and it is one that I have decided to put all my resources into to make sure it gets accomplished. This opportunity to help people with disabilities find a job is one that is ongoing, the next opportunity would be finding a different sector on how and where to employ people.

What’s next for me?

·      In the next five years, I want to be able to open a different business that focuses on more hard skills for these people. This business would help employ these people with disabilities at a higher level and allow them to work in a more rigorous environment. This first venture has allowed me to find out what I am passionate about and it has allowed me to create valuable relationships.