24A - Venture Concept No. 1

Venture Concept #1: YouEat!

Opportunity

While brainstorming about this idea, it almost immediately dawned on me that I should target a group of customers that I know from personal experience, young adults. A key component of my business plan is the notion that often times, people are busy and preoccupied with other life events to the point that they will leave little to no time to cook and prepare meals on their own. Based on my own life experience, I know that this demographic has an unmet need for healthier, affordable meal options that require little to no time for preparation and can be cooked very quickly. Individuals in this demographic need meal options that require minimal time, effort, and resources to produce. 

The forces in the environment create this opportunity as a result of the fact that young adults in the United States typically work or study very hard while also having to focus their attention on a variety of other areas, including their social life, romantic relationships, and familial relationships. In addition, the majority of the time these individuals have little to no experience with preparing and making meals for themselves. This market is defined, demographically, as essentially being anyone between the ages of 18 and 25 that is currently living in the United States, particularly if they are currently enrolled in college or university. For the time being, I would like to stick to the American market at least until the business grows further.

Currently, many of these customers are satisfying this need by relying either on bad quality, frozen or ready-made foods or expensive and often unhealthy delivery options. They are likely somewhat loyal to this manner of consumption as it is quite easy for them and requires very little time and effort. If executed successfully, this could be a pretty large opportunity as individuals in this demographic across the country likely have quite similar needs. This window of opportunity will be open until consumer habits change or until another app or service enters the market and successfully attracts many customers. 

Innovation

While this idea is not quite radically innovative, it is in fact incrementally innovative as I seek to redefine what a meal means to individuals in this demographic. Essentially, the idea is that when a young adult is hungry and is wondering what to eat, instead of reaching for a premade meal or tapping on their “Postmates” app on their smartphone, they will instead tap on our app and check out what they have the potential to make today, based on their dietary needs and experience. In the app, the customer will then be able to set a difficulty level based on their past experience in the kitchen as well as whether or not they have any dietary restrictions or needs - for instance, if the customer is a vegetarian or if they are on a diet. 

Once a week or whenever the customer purchases groceries, they will input all of their food into the app and the app will sort through every ingredient and create meal options for the given week. As this may be seen as quite a time consuming and frustrating process for some, customers will be encouraged to input their food choices while shopping in the grocery store. While inputting food to their list for the week, they have an option to select that they are currently in the store, which will prompt the app to suggest other ingredients based on what the customer has already decided to purchase, their dietary needs, and their expressed culinary preferences. The suggested ingredients will emerge based on what the app has in mind for the customer’s meal choices that week. 

Once the customer has inputted their ingredients for the week, they will then be prompted with several choices when launching the app in preparation for cooking a meal. First of all, the app will prompt the user to input how much total time they have to cook the meal. Next, the app will ask if the user is in the mood for a specific type of meal at that given time, for instance, some of the options could include: Italian, Mexican, low-calorie meals, etc. 

In terms of actually making money, I plan to offer two versions of the app - a light version and a premium, subscription-based plan. The light version will be free but will only provide app users with a taste and preview of what the app is capable of, as it will only allow them to use certain functions, a scaled-back version of the full service. The premium version will either be 9.99 a month or 4.99 a month, based on whether or not the user is a current college or university student. I decided to price it quite low as otherwise, a high price would make users very reluctant to try the app out, considering what my target demographic is for this service. 

Venture Concept 

My innovative service addresses and solves this demographic’s unmet need to have quality meals that require little time, effort, and financial input. This app will provide them with meals that are easy to make, require little time, and are very affordable. Of course, this will all vary based on what the user inputs for their preferences. Customers will be interested in this product because of how much it will improve and simplify their lives; I hope to appeal to them with a strong and strategic marketing campaign and great in-app design and functionality. Current competitors are much less skilled and comprehensive in their approach to meet customer needs, they may cover one or two of the services this app will cover. 

I think the most important resources will be a very strong app functionality, interface, and marketing campaign. Assuming this goes well, the future would see expanded subscription offerings to draw in more revenue and expansion to other countries. For me, in the future, I hope to combine my passion and skills for strategic business and marketing with my passion for civil rights and the environment.