Above are the links to five college students I recently
interviewed who have admitted to the same unmet need me and dozens of my
friends are facing currently. I tried to pick an interesting and relatable
topic for you guys I hope you enjoy the interviews.
Opportunity Identified: A majority of the students participating
in a social life find themselves already on a strict budget waking up the next
morning not knowing how they spent so much money going out to dinner and clubs.
The Who: College students who go out weekly as part of the
social aspect for the “college experience”
The What: They set a budget for the night and frequently
spend double if not triple the amount they intended to.
The Why: The effects of alcohol, peer pressure, and lack of
awareness leading to an outstandingly high credit card balance.
My Hypothesis: I am not saying the only way to have a social
life in college is to go out, get drunk, and party the night away but I think
we all can agree there is a large portion of students who do use this activity
as a way to distract themselves from school and spend time with friends. If you
don’t believe me walk through Mid-Town on a Friday or Saturday night and you
will experience for yourself the large target market I am trying to help. The
opportunity I am wanting to pursue is a way keep it convenient to spend money
on a night out but also a way to prevent money being spent carelessly. I
believe having an easily accessible app that people could use to put a “limit”
on the amount of money their card will allow them to use at specific bars, restaurants
or services (uber,taxi,etc), as well as having notifications sent to their
phone when they are nearing the limit would allow consumers to still have the convenience
of a credit card while having the limitations of cash.
Testing the who: Although I am only currently interviewing
college students due to the fact they are easily accessible on campus I am
confident grown adults are also struggling with this problem. Alcohol and peer
pressure affect us all the same and can easily lead to big financial mistakes.
Testing the what: I am focusing mainly on the night life
aspect of this unmet need but I believe people are always over spending
accidently on vacations, beach trips, or even just going out for a bite to eat.
There are multiple different situations that can occur and they all end in the
problem…. How do we keep track of all the spending when we are caught up in the
moment?
Testing the why: This has been going on ever since our
parents have been going to college and is probably currently happening when
they are going on family vacations or a night out on the town with some old
friends. My train of thought is that there are so many distractions happening
every minute in our lives we sometimes lose track of how much money we are
spending and how quickly we are draining out bank accounts. Maybe some of us
are loose with cash, maybe we are under the influence or peer pressure or
alcohol, or maybe, plain and simple just lack awareness of how much we are
spending in certain situations.
Side Note: Even if you do not participate in going out I would like you
to at least try and brainstorm a time you have gone on a trip and not realized
the amount of money you spent until you checked your bank account and it was
already too late.
This was one of the more challenging assignments we'e had so far in this course mainly because it involved a lot of components to accomplish the goal of understand the hypothesis of your opportunity. I watch a few of your videos and I feel like you conducted these interview effectively by hitting all the important points of testing your hypothesis. The opportunity you chose to look further into seems very exploitable, great choice.
ReplyDeleteYes! It is so tough to wonder where did all that hard earned money go! Who knew a single beer could be 5$? Might as well get a six pack and drink it at home. The interviews you conducted were thorough and I felt that they adequately addressed what you were testing. Sometimes we definitely lose track. You did a great post!
ReplyDeleteCollin, this was a great post! Even though I do not go out much and hate the taste of alcohol, therefore rarely drink, I can definitely identify with the problem. I am horrible at keeping budgets I make in my head, a trip to Target alone for milk will end up in $100 in things I did not need in the first place. Your interviews were great to listen to as well and talked about the topic thoroughly.
ReplyDeleteAs a financially struggling college student I think this is a fantastic idea. Not wanting to spend money often discourages people from going out and experiencing all of the social opportunities that living in a college town like Gainesville has to offer. Particularly when alcohol and girls are involves, it's easy to get carried away spending money. Even if this app had an upfront cost, the savings over time could prove to make it a noble investment.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your post Collin, I find your idea very interesting to solve the issue with overspending on a fun weekend night. I don't know if this is something maybe the credit cards companies can install and they may prevent you from spending too much money. Definitely, a very interesting idea but I do see some challenges with this app as well.
ReplyDeleteI think that you have a great opportunity presented here. I have related to this multiple times before and it is a terrible feeling. I do not know how this could exactly work but I think that some type of app that is extremely secure could definitely work. Students would love this type of idea because I constantly here about fellow peers wake up the following morning after going out and immediately regretting how much they had spent.
ReplyDelete