Venture Concept- Know to Grow

Opportunity

I identified an opportunity with motivated, low-wage workers. These are most likely people that didn’t go to college, or didn’t finish their degree for a variety of reasons. They are unsatisfied with their current job, and want to gain a promotion, or a whole new career path. They are most likely young (in their twenties or thirties) and come from low-income families. I decided to particularly target low-wage workers in a college town, so Gainesville is where I will start.  Economic and social forces have created this opportunity. The wage gap in the U.S. has been increasing over the past thirty years, and while society forms the motivation to have a successful career, it doesn’t leave much opportunity to achieve it. I think this group is currently satisfying this need by simply working hard and applying to new jobs, but there isn’t a service they would be extremely loyal to. They could be part of a job search website, or be a customer of a staffing service. It’s a large opportunity, but the challenge will be to get people to believe that the service will be worth their time and money. I believe this window of opportunity will be open for a very long time, since the wage gap does not show signs of decreasing.

Innovation

The service I am offering is workshops for these low-wage workers who want to improve their job. I will use high-achieving undergraduate and graduate students from the University of Florida as the coaches, and they will lead the workshops and offer individual meetings with customers. The customers will receive skills such as resume building, interview preparation, negotiation, and career planning. They can either pay $20 per workshop, or attend unlimited workshops for $50 per month.

Venture Concept

By attending these workshops and gaining mentorship, customers will gain the skills they need to increase their salary level. This will aid in decreasing the wage gap, the opportunity I have identified. I believe customers will purchase my service, because they want to improve their life situation. Once some customers receive higher salaries following the use of my service, the word will spread and many people in the Gainesville community will want an opportunity to increase their pay. I think the main challenge in getting people to start using this service is convincing them that it will work. If they believe in it, then they will switch. To do this, I will offer an introduction workshop people can attend for free. By attending, they will gain information on the sessions and learn how beneficial they will be. I think my main competitors are job-search services such as ZipRecruiter, Indeed.com, and Linkedin. However, these services do not provide skill advancement, they simply show you job options. Our service will not only help you find the job, but will prepare you to obtain it. Since college students will be our source of employees, they will provide the customer support services. They will be in charge of answering calls, providing promotions, and collecting customer information. This is another reason that starting in a college town such as Gainesville is so important. It’s imperative that customers experience a safe, friendly, and supportive environment during their sessions. They need to trust us, and feel that we are competent enough to give them career advice. In this way, organizational culture will be crucial to our success. The employees will need to feel competent, trusted,  and valued in order to transfer those feelings to the customers. I think starting out with five to ten employees will be enough to run the workshops, act as mentors, and do customer support.

Minor Elements

1.     My most important resource will be my human capital. The college students will be invaluable to running the business, because they have the knowledge and experience to serve as mentors, and don’t have to be paid a large amount of money. They have current knowledge in career planning, resume building, interview prep, and other skills required in the job search because they are doing it for themselves now. They are also motivated to gain leadership and mentorship experience, as this is something recruiters and schools look for on every resume. The University of Florida provides a strong community of potential employees that competitors will find it difficult to replicate.

2.     Ideally I would like to create a “one-stop-shop” for career services, offering advice to people in current jobs, providing wardrobe for interviews, and hosting networking events for workers in the Gainesville community. In the long run, I could attempt to open other branches in college towns such as Tallahassee or Orlando.

3.     In five years, I want to be managing this venture from a birds-eye view, while also investing in other ventures. I think starting with this target group of customers will expose me to new ideas and opportunities to solve unmet needs. With exposure to this group, I can build a loyal relationship with them and use it to convince them to buy in to my future ventures.