My Venture Concept No. 1: 2 BUS-y 4 U

Opportunity.

 An opportunity may be defined as a group of customers with unmet or under-met needs.

For me, this group is anyone who depends on the public bus system for transportation. This can 

range from students to elderly people and anyone in between. I am personally included in this opportunity group, and this is how I came about realizing that there was a need. I have often found myself depending on a bus to get to class but when it arrived, it was already full and there was no room left for me to get on. Despite the fact that I checked my bus app and knew when the bus would be arriving, I was still left waiting for the next one, hoping that it would have space for me and would get me to class in time. If I had been able to see on my app not only when the bus would be arriving but also if it had available space, I would have had time to plan accordingly and arrange for an alternate means of transportation if necessary.

·         This opportunity is created by a dependence on public transportation and an increasingly fast-paced society that always has somewhere to be.

·         This market, while inspired by a college town environment, can extend internationally and to any person with a smartphone.

·         Currently, people are using existing bus apps that indicate when a bus is coming but not its vacancy or lack thereof. There are not many bus apps available, so I feel that any loyalty is just by default, not because they specifically want to use one app over another.

·         This opportunity is large in the sense that it has a wide market reach.

·         I believe that the “window of opportunity” will exist as long as people continue to own smartphones and take public transportation, assuming no one jumps on this opportunity before myself.

Innovation.

An innovation may be defined as a new or creative service, product, or process that may be applied in the marketplace to address customer needs.

Upon realizing my opportunity and what the current bus apps lack, I developed a new bus app concept which will provide incremental innovation above the existing apps. My bus app, 2 BUS-y 4 U, tells its users not only when the next bus they desire will be arriving, but also if that bus has availability/space for them to board. This will not be difficult information to obtain as bus drivers are already required to log in each person that boards their bus.While the current app is free, this app would cost a one-time purchase fee of $3.99. Concerning profits, this app will work in the same way as other apps that charge a purchase fee.  A user will simply have to log into the app store on their smart phone, purchase and download 2 BUS-y 4 U, and they will then have access to the routes of all buses in their area, their current locations, and their current capacity levels. Additionally, while other bus apps are city-specific, such as RTS, 2 BUS-y 4 U is a universal app that, if location services are on, will adjust to whatever city within the U.S. that the user is in to inform them of the area’s bus routes. As far as I am aware of, this is not offered with any other bus service app.

Venture Concept.

A venture concept may be defined as the application of a specific innovation to address a specific opportunity.

As previously stated, I identified my opportunity when I have attempted to take buses that turned out to be full when they actually arrived at my stop. If I had known that the bus was full, I would have planned to take a different bus, walk down to another bus stop, or arrange for an alternate form of transportation to ensure that I still get where I needed to be on time. By indicating not only where the bus is located but also what its current capacity level is at, 2 BUS-y 4 U addresses the opportunity and unmet need. Customers will want to purchase this app because in today’s world, people are willing to pay for added convenience and reliability, particularly when it concerns a service that they use frequently and are heavily dependent on to accomplish their day’s tasks.

• Customers will want to switch to this app from an app they are potentially using currently because it provides all the necessary information that a frequent bus user would want to know, as opposed to other apps which are provide limited information. I do not believe it would be difficult to get users to switch/begin using this app, as it will greatly increase their ease of bus use, is inexpensive to purchase, and has no monthly or recurring fees.

• The competitors are anyone who currently manufactures a bus service app. Their weakness is that they do not offer the same features that my app does and are therefore a lesser, incomplete service.

• As it is an app that is simply downloaded onto a user’s existing smartphone, my product does not require any packaging, distribution, physical retail location, etc. Rather, my business concept is simply centered around the user’s ownership of a smartphone as well as their use of public transportation.

• To support the longevity of my app, I would start small, assess the success of the app, and then determine levels of expansion from there. I believe that it is best to start out on a smaller scale and then grow as demand warrants. By doing the reverse, one could potentially waste a lot of money, time, and resources.

The three minor elements.

In my venture, I believe that my “secret sauce” will be customer loyalty. As a user will have already paid for my app, which has all the features necessary to a bus user and can be used in any location they go, there would be no need to switch to a new app with the same features. By charging a fee, it will cause the user to want to keep using the app and “get their money’s worth,” rather than incurring the switching costs necessary to try out an alternate app.

Once my venture has an established user-base and has created a name for itself, I could then use that to create other types of apps that also focus on increasing ease of travel/transportation, such as a similar app for planes, trains, taxis, etc.

With this venture concept, in five years I would see myself having expanded internationally so that the app is not only available in the U.S. I plan to move to Italy in the near future and if I could take this venture abroad with me, that would be a wonderful way to get my start in a new place – with something successful and familiar.