Venture Concept No. 1

Venture Concept No. 1



Opportunity

On campuses nationwide, undergraduate students often transfer from dormitory housing to off-campus housing in apartment complexes within a 1-3 mile vicinity of campus. The needs for housing vary from student to student, but what remains unchanged are year-long leasing contracts. Leasing contracts run longer than many students’ time enrolled in their respective Universities each year. Undergraduate programs typically run in the Fall and Spring terms, or for specialized programs, such as the Innovation Academy at the University of Florida may run during the Spring and Summer terms. In their off terms, students typically depart their campus residence to go home or pursue internships and study abroad opportunities. Inevitably, what results is a need: the student must address what they will do with their leasing contract and place of residence near campus when they will no longer be living there for a 3-4 month period.

There are two solutions: continue to keep the residence and pay rent, avoid paying rent by subleasing the empty apartment to another student or individual for a term. Furthermore, there are students who will not remain on campus for a full year as they approach graduation. For students who may only need to reside in the area for a single semester, they may try to avoid committing to a year-long contract by searching for a local short-term sublease which fits their needs.

These dilemmas define my opportunity: There are undergraduate students who have needs housing for various periods of time, hundreds of which can attest to difficulty they have faced either successfully finding an individual to lease from them short term, or successfully finding a short term lease which best fits their needs. The need for short term leases and for subleasing contracts for short terms is greatest within the undergraduate student demographic: ages 18-23 who live within a 1-3 mile vicinity of campus.

At the University of Florida, customers are currently satisfying this need by utilizing Facebook groups created by students for students subleasing or apartment hunting. All of the students I have engaged in conversation with regarding subleases have identified this as the main if not only source they use to locate subleasing opportunities. The issue with this platform is that the posts do not all provide the same amount of information and there is no organization or filtering opportunity to find contracts that fit your unique needs. Furthermore, many posts get lost down the feed as the influx of posts is usually very steady. Your post is likely to go unread after a week or two has passed from your posting date. This window of opportunity to enhance the research experience for sublease-ees and sublease-ers is evident and may not be open for long if it is not pursued soon, but the need will persist until a better platform is created.



Innovation

My goal is to create a collaborative environment between those needing a sublease or needing to sublease their contract, and connecting them to the party or contract that meets their needs. Instead of creating a post and allowing it to get lost in a feed, hoping someone may eventually find it and respond, this service will do the work for you. This online service and mobile application will link to your Facebook to automatically sync your network while simultaneously utilizing your location to connect you to students in your area who are looking for a sublease that fits the amenities your short term contract provides; or vice versa: this app will provide you with listings that meet the criteria you desire from a short term contract. Simply, users can create an account, log into their local area, upload their short term contract to the database with all of the required information (price, negotiability, term length, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, location, furnished or not, pet friendly or not, etc), or simply search for a lease by using our filterable search engine to look for places that meet your needs. You can save these search settings and opt in for notifications, this way, when a short term lease is uploaded, you are notified that there is an opportunity that meets your needs. From the other angle, when you create your account you can choose to post your needs to a forum so that students leasing their place can find you. Students who fill out a post will indicate their rental desires and their negotiability for each item which are pre-specified and all required, (price, negotiability, term length, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, location, furnished or not, pet friendly or not, etc). When a new sublease-ee post is created, those leases in the area which match this criteria will be notified that there is a user who fits their contract, and give them the opportunity to connect. This platform will be extremely user friendly to facilitate communication between parties, so students can indicate interest in the lease, directly message the owner of the lease, or the owner of the lease may directly contact an individual who fits their contract. Furthermore, all posts can be edited and adjusted in case your needs change, and will repopulate your results and notifications to ensure you are always receiving relevant opportunities.

This service will be free to use for individuals to test at all times. Although, in order to connect to users and communicate with those who are posting their leases or posting in search of leases, you will need to purchase a membership. The membership is a small one-time fee of $5.00, half of which will be donated to a charitable organization which collects money to provide housing scholarships for students who have undergone extreme hardship, Take Stock in Children. We hope that this will encourage the purchase of a membership, as well as help other students who also have housing needs.



Venture Concept

This solution directly combats the issue of finding a sublease that fits your needs, or finding an individual that fits your sublease by connecting you specifically to those contracts or individuals that fit your criteria. The time spent researching for the right sublease or individual has now been expedited, minimizing weeks of research to minutes. Furthermore, we can do the work for you. Rather than spending your time searching, simply upload a post your needs as a sublease-ee, and we will send you notifications and a weekly or daily list of leases that fit your needs; or upload a post of your leasing contract and all of its glorious amenities, and we will send you notifications as individuals upload their needs that fit your lease so you can connect with them. Currently, there is no platform that does the work for you. We’re here to maximize your time as a student and make leasing a breeze. Branding will play a large role in the business concept. It will be necessary to gear this app to college students, and create a dynamic environment and culture of excitement (rather than anxiety), trust (rather than skepticism), and achievement. The business backing this concept and online service will consist of the following teams:

• Tech – programming, mobile application development, and website development • Marketing – developing strategies and materials to reach our target audience • Promoting – active advertisement of the business through tabling efforts, material distribution, and sustaining an active media presence • Customer service – ensuring that members receive aid by answering emails as well as sending emails to receive feedback, welcome members, and update them on news such as local listings if they subscribe • Management – overseeing the company flow, project flow, team development, and tracking progress to continually enhance the application and marketing strategies.



Three minor elements

No one likes to worry about where they’re living next semester or if they will find a place that’s just right for them. Customers will buy into our unique service to make this process less of a hassle. There are no other platforms on the market that offer this sort of personalized service for this demographic. With the network I possess as a current student at the University of Florida surrounded by hundreds of others with this need, I live and work within my target market. Additionally, our charitable effort serves to encourage the switch. Currently, the only competition on the market is Facebook, which is not aimed to provide this service and only exists because students who have this need found that this was the easiest platform to link their networks together and identify leasing opportunities. The focus simply has to be shifted away from these groups and toward this new platform. My most important resource is going to me my marketing team. While all other teams are vital for the creation and development of the service, it will not be successful unless we are truly reaching our target audience and convincing them to make the switch to this service. Without a large user base, it will be impossible to convince students to make the switch, as it will be deemed useless: there will be little to no leases or individuals that fit the criteria, despite how user friendly or well developed the service may be.

The next opportunity I would like to tackle with this innovation is relevant to the target market. I would like to develop another mobile application called “What’s the Move?” which will serve as a social forum for locals of all ages. This mobile application will also sync with your Facebook contacts to make finding your friends easy. What’s the Move will show you what’s hot and happening in your local area, and when parties get shut down, users can log in their Next Move to show where the party is headed.

I hope that five years from now I will be able to see that the profit from both of these applications have successfully funded scholarships for students in need. As an entrepreneur, I simply want to use my innovative ideas to benefit people’s everyday lives while also investing in education and opportunity for individuals who strive to pursue endeavors such as these. This will be the first venture of many that will contribute to the funding of other non-profits, and hopefully with time, my own.