Venture Concept No. 2

Opportunity: All throughout life there is opportunities to spend more money than you expected to. A simple night out with boys at midtown can get financially out of hand quickly. With costs of pre-gaming, finding reliable transportation, and then buying drinks while out to keep the night alive add up quickly. Once under the influence sliding the card becomes easier and easier, never really focusing on the amount that is being charged to that card. The only way of finding out how much you are spending is by looking at your checking account the next morning and by then it is too late. Going on vacations with the family always have unexpected turns and expenses. The thought of not bringing enough cash forces you to bring you card. However once you start sliding your card you lose a sense of how much money you are actually spending. Again by the time you check your account to recap your expenses it is already to late. The opportunity here is finding a solution that make consumers constantly aware of how much they are spending before they go past the point of no turning back.

Innovation: CardBlock will be an app that allows people to put a limit on how much they can spend on their card on one night at multiple different places. You can allocate specific funds for transportation, pre-gaming, and the amount being spent on particular clubs. This app has the limits of cash but the flexibility of a credit card. This app will notify the consumer when 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% of their budget has been used up for each particular activity. The main issue is focused on what happens after being under the influence. When drinking it is easy to get carried away and be the person to buy a round of shots for their friends. Multiple times. This app will notify users when they are getting carried away and will eventually freeze their card at that specific place once the allocated money is spent. This simply means if you desired to spend $30 at a particular bar, once that cap is met, your card will be frozen from that specific place. This still allows you to use that $10 you set aside for an Uber that night. It also still allows you to go to a place and buy food if it was not given a specific cap through the app. This app will not freeze your card completely making it impossible for you to pay for emergency items. This app will help you not over spend at places you designated before going out that night.

Feedback: I only received two comments which was not much to go off of to revise my initial product. However the first comment raised the concern of freezing their card and not being able to get a spontaneous ride home that night. To be clear, this product will not completely freeze your card. It simply disables the use at specific places you chose that night. If you have a plan to go to swamp and have a history of spending excessive amounts of money on drinks you can choose to put a cap on the amount able to spend at that bar. If you have a cap of $30, once it hits that cap you will no longer be able to use your card at that specific bar for 24 hours. Therefore this will not prevent your card from being used on an Uber if plans have changed and need a ride home late at night.

Another concern I saw come up on one of my previous posts Napkin Idea No.1 was the risk of security through this app. Therefore when I revised my app I thought of the idea to make this app similar to apple pay. This feature takes out the need to swipe a credit card. Instead this app will have a passcode security feature allowing only you to use your phone to buy drinks. This prevents people from card skimmers that can steal your credit card information. Also this prevents the risk of you misplacing your card and being used by others. However if someone did steal your card people can only spend the amount you budgeted that night, therefore will not wake up to hundreds of dollars gone forever. If the comment was aiming towards trusting me with the consumer’s bank information then the reply is that I will have no information of their banking accounts. They will set up their banking information that remains completely anonymous to me. I have no interest in how much money is in your bank account that is between you and the bank. My app simply budgets the money it assumes you have in your account, not manage it.

Based on my feedback I tried to make it more clear in my innovative section that this card will not completely freeze your card, It just freezes it at the places the consumer specifically chose to not accidentally get carried away at.

Final Reflection

            1) The highs: My favorite moments through this course was doing the interviews in the beginning stages of my venture. Coming up with ideas are relatively easy and seem to be bulletproof. However once introducing your idea to new people who do not have a bias towards you, they can sometimes deliver a harsh reality. The first interview was nerve racking. When I actually got a multiple response from my first peer was the highest moment in all of this. An outsider reinforcing your belief that you have a good idea on your hands is an amazing motivational booster. This first sense of encouragement made me feel as if I had real potential to develop a successful venture. There will always be some people that will discourage you including yourself. Positive feedback from people who aren’t friends and family can be more motivational than I thought.

The lows: When being asked what the next step is to your venture can be extremely tough. I spent weeks creating an app that I thought was perfect. When being asked what the next step is, it led me to a creative wall. There are always areas that can be improved. Finding them was very difficult and constantly halted the progress of my venture which was difficult to accept at times. Also when reading comments on how to improve my product can sometimes be a little disheartening. However it led to me expanding my horizon and overall a new and improved product.

Fun: I enjoyed doing the elevator pitches the most. To create an elevator pitch I could not resist coming to realization that I am becoming a true entrepreneur. Trying to sell this idea of an app finally sold the idea to myself. I took this app from just an idea to a potential money maker and this is what excited me the most during this class.

Drudgery:  Finding potential users of my app to interview sometimes seemed to drag on. The interviews proved to be vital to the success of my product but initially felt like a burden.

2)The elevator pitch will always be my favorite experience in this class. This gave me experience in forming idea and trying to sell it to people. The skill of being able to explain an idea clearly to others is extremely valuable. There are many times people’s million dollar ideas never get recognized because they could not express their vision clearly to their peers. I have a long way to go but practicing in a safe, judge free environment was a good way to practice vital skills I will need in my future career.

3) Being able to fully invest myself into a product of my own helped reveal my entrepreneurial mindset. It is very easy to hop on board with the next big item or product out on the market. However creating the next big thing and fully believing in yourself is the mindset of an entrepreneur and I had to have this mindset throughout the entire semester to be successful. I always thought I had an entrepreneurial mindset and this venture reinforced that claim.

4) My strongest recommendation for future students is invest in your peers the same way you invest in yourself and your venture. The comments from fellow classmates as well as the interview responses were some of the most vital resources when revising my venture. Seeing different responses is key to crafting a perfect venture.