Idea Napkin No. 1

1) Innovative, resourceful and flexible. Able to flourish in a collaborative environment or independent setting while maintaining a positive attitude and strong work ethic. Furthermore, I am detail oriented with effective communication skills and an enthusiasm for leadership, creativity, and technology. My identified strengths (via Tom Rath's StrengthsFinder 2.0) are achieving, relating, learning, focusing, and analyzing. With my proficiency in a variety of computer applications including the Microsoft Office, AutoCAD, Windows Visual Studio, Google Drive, and NGP Van, I have undertaken several different internship endeavors. My experiences include researching and publishing for the American Society of Civil Engineering and Transportation Research Board under the Engineering School of Sustainable Infrastructure and Civil and Coastal Engineering Department here at the University of Florida as well as a Teaching Assistant for the College of Engineering and an Office Manager for Americans for Gabriel Rothblatt. My short term goals are to coordinate a competitive conference through the Innovation Academy Ambassador program and to develop my project engineering skills during my internship with DPR construction this fall. I hope to apply my knowledge and experience with these projects to best construct the project cost, schedule, team, resources, and outline for my business concept. If I were to start my business (particularly the opportunity for constructing a mobile application for a student housing/sublease platform) I believe that it would tie me very closely to the Gainesville community and enable me to advise and inspire other students to pursue their business ideas.

2) What I am offering is a unified conglomeration of student housing options at the click of one mobile application. I want students to be able to create a profile, describe their housing needs to a search engine, and gain access to hundreds of listings from a variety of platforms which meet their needs within the local area, and also directly to the owners of these residences for ease of communication.

3) While my targeted demographic is college enrolled students who seek short term subleases and long term leases, I would ensure that my app can also be of use to the general community. Any individual seeking a lease of any term or residence type will be able to utilize my mobile application.

4) Unfortunately, there are a variety of search engines, housing agencies, student forums and Facebook pages in each city (specifically college towns) which subject users to a large volume of unorganized listings that aren't specific to their needs. Often, the individual seeking a lease wastes time scrolling through forums to locate specific needs which the listing may not fully serve, or utilizing multiple search engines and contacting a variety of real estate agencies without procuring any success in their searches.

5) My core competencies are detail oriented organization and experience. With my background in project management, experience with local start ups, having applied knowledge of marketing and mobile app creation, and being a student who has the network to promote this application to my target audience, I believe I have an edge that can propel this application to success in college towns throughout the nation.

While I am a very goal-driven individual with the motivation and tools to bring my vision to life, I do believe that it will take more than myself to get this mobile application off the ground. My business concept requires extensive research, knowledge, and information gathering of real estate companies and current housing forums, as well as models similar to mine which have failed and succeeded. In addition to the development of a large database of information, it is necessary to recruit those with the technical proficiency to code and those with the marketing ability to promote the application.