Idea Napkin No.2

The answers below will be similar to what I stated in my previous "Idea Napkin" post.

1. Who am I?

My name is Sean Pruitt. I am 22-years-old and a senior advertising student at the University of Florida. Ever since high school, I have been working in the customer service industry and I continue to do so at my current job. Along with that, I am experienced in ticketing software from working at my university performance arts box office. In regards to my major in advertising, I have become skillful in using digital design software like Photoshop, InDesign and Premiere Pro.

Like I stated before, I plan to join the U.S. Air Force as a Public Affairs Officer upon graduation in the spring. I have also looked into becoming a freelance graphic artist and editor with the experience that I have received from courses during school. It is important for me to continue improving in the design field so that it could be an additional income source in the future.

Similar to what I posted before, I am proposing to the Gator Student Ticketing Office that handles football tickets for the student population a "service" or feature in their existing software that can solve the issue of students losing their tickets after claiming them from the office.

2. What are you offering to customers?

What I am offering to the customer (Gator Student Ticketing Office) is a program feature that will allow their customers (students) to be able to recover lost or stolen tickets after they have been claimed at the office. Currently, the ticketing office scans your card to see if you have tickets reserved under your name. Once they see that you do, they rip you a ticket from their stacks and hand it to you. However, the issue presented is that it will only show that you claimed your ticket. The system doesn't track which exact ticket you claimed. This leads to the solution of the ticketing office scanning each ticket under your account before it is handed off to you. Now, if you were to lose your ticket prior to gameday, you would be able to stop by the ticketing office and ask for them to reprint it for you.

3. Who are you offering it to?

After going through my previous post about the idea napkin, there was something that I noticed that didn't quite add up when reading it. Previously, I stated that the primary demographic of my service would be the students on campus that have either had a ticket lost or stolen after claiming it. However, my opportunity is more directed to those ticketing box offices (e.g. Gator Student Ticketing Office) around the country that lack software allowing for students to recover lost or stolen tickets without having to buy a new one. The students that I stated before are more like a "secondary" customer to my service than a primary one.

4. Why do they care?

The main reason that my service will be more valuable to the customer that I stated above is that it improves on the business-customer relationship that is formed by the Gator Student Ticketing Office and the University of Florida students and their guests that purchase tickets through them. The ticketing office will be able to improve on the customer service aspect within their office that could increase traffic that gets from students that are purchasing tickets. Speaking from experience, I have lost a guest ticket that was meant for my dad this past season. I spoke to the ticketing office about possible remedies to the situation and responded back with that I would have to buy a new ticket. Luckily, I found the ticket I lost on campus, but I didn't particularly feel good about buying tickets through them again because of my experience with them.

5. What are your core competencies?

What sets me apart from everyone else is that the service doesn't exist for the ticketing office as of now. If you were to lose one of your tickets for a football game, you would either have to buy a new ticket or find the one you lost because you wouldn't be able to get it reprinted from the ticketing office. The ticketing office lacks the feature in their software that I am proposing and there is an unmet need by the students that have lost tickets in the past. Along with that, I have the networking capability from working at the performing arts box office that contains the software to track lost tickets with ease and reprint them without an issue. I work with this software on a daily basis and I work with the people that have developed, deployed and maintained the software that allows us to solve the issue at hand.

I believe the core competencies work well together. Like I stated in my previous post, there is a clear unmet need by the ticketing office with the lack of ticket tracking for students that purchase football tickets regularly. The proposed solution can help solve it by importing a set of features and protocols that will allow for lost or stolen student tickets to be tracked and reprinted for them. While I lack the actual skill set to develop the software feature, I think networking with colleagues from my time at the performing arts center on campus could help me work with someone that does possess the skill set to make this opportunity a reality.

Feedback Memo

The most important piece of feedback that I got about my previous idea napkin was from Reece Porath which states:

Sean,

I am enjoying seeing your progress in the development of your idea. I have been intentional in reading and commenting on the majority of your posts because I am very interested to see how you continue to develop your idea.

If you do choose to actually pursue this entrepreneurial venture, networking of people will be a great asset to you. Often, its not what you know but who you know. As you stated, you do do not have the skill-set to develop the actual software feature that could solve this unmet need. Perhaps by networking, you could build a relationship with someone who could partner with you in this entrepreneurial venture.

The first takeaway that I got from his feedback about my previous idea napkin was definitely the topic of networking. Like we both recognized, I don't possess the skill set to develop this feature myself, but networking could allow me to find someone that is capable of doing so and opening the door to do this for other ticketing offices around the country.

Another takeaway I got from his feedback was that he continuously comments on a lot of my posts and he brought up a question about my customer in a different post. From my "Create a Customer Avatar" post, he pointed out that my actual customer might not be the students attending the football games, but the actual ticketing office. The main point that I'm trying to get across is to go through my progressions when looking at this business opportunity and clearly identify who I am trying to target with it.

I incorporated his feedback by making changes to the 'who' and 'why' sections of my previous idea napkin by adjusting my customer from the actual students that have lost a ticket to the actual Gator Student Ticketing Office as they are my 'true' customer in this case. Not only that, but I included the idea of networking with my colleagues at work to figure out who I could work with to make this opportunity come true for the customer.