Venture Concept No.1

Opportunity

The opportunity I have identified is the unmet need of people between the age of 18-25 or college-age students that are first-time pet owners. Their unmet need is the need to own a pet. However, they have never owned a pet before and are usually unaware of the responsibilities required to raise one. The environmental forces behind this need are the students leaving home and possibly living alone in a new city. This need for companionship shows through the high adoption rates of college students and return rates. The market is geographically defined by being the highest rates of pet returns and abandonment being in college towns. Showing that college students are unaware of the responsibility needed to own a pet. Customers are currently satisfying the need by adopting pets to fulfill their need but our target is the first time pet owner before they adopt. I feel that this a fairly large opportunity, and will give the prospective owners the chance to be educated before adopting. This opportunity will remain open as long as it not addressed. 

Innovation

I believe my service is an incrementally innovative service. My adoption service will be different than other adoption agencies in that there is an educational service that provides the customer with added benefits, unlike regular adoption agencies. The program lends the customer an animal as well as an education class that provides them with all the information needed to effectively raise a pet while balancing their workload and life. The cost will be 40 dollars for the week that they have the pet. If the customer determines that they don't want to proceed with owning the animal. They can return the animal at no additional cost. If they decide to adopt, they will pay the 50 dollar adoption fee.

Venture Concept

My concept will fulfill the opportunity by giving the customer the opportunity to learn about raising an animal effectively while avoiding the requirement of keeping the animal if they so choose. It is a more cost-effective option and time effective than outright adopting a pet and giving it away. I think customers would switch to this method of adoption because they are receiving a multitude of added benefits. It may take some time to gain traction but I think the service will take off in especially college towns across the United States starting with Gainesville. There are no direct competitors offering the same service but the closest competitor would be pet rental services (none of which are located in Gainesville. But pet rental services are strictly for borrowing a pet for a limited amount of time. Keeping the cost to the customer low is critical in a college town market. Customer experience and support are also critical in the exchange and that is why we will have experts in the pet field as volunteers and staff. We will have 8 people as paid staff and the rest being volunteers that have work experience in the pet field to help with training, customer support, and pet care at our facility.

My unfair advantage is the low-risk of commitment to the adoption process. Giving customers the flexibility to see if owning a pet is something for them is critical to our venture's success.

I believe the next thing my venture has to accomplish is to create partnerships with existing pet agencies.

In five years I would like my company to be successful enough to be self-sufficient and have a good amount of market share in order to grow to different cities in Florida and beyond. As long as I am happy with what I'm doing with my work, I am content.