Forming an Opportunity

1.  In my experience there are a lot of needs in the world right now.  One of the most glaringly obvious is a making sure you are up on time.  I would like to focus on finding out if people agree with me that there are better ways than the current system.

2.  In my opinion, a major problem that exists for both me and a lot of my friends, is the struggle to wake up in the morning.  This is definitely true after going out the night before or being up late for any reason.  This need exists for anyone that has to wake up early for school, work or any other reason.  The need to wake up on time has always existed, and will for as long as society exists.  It is currently being met using alarm clocks, often on phones.  This solution is alright, but leaves room for adjustment.  It is simply to easy to roll over in the morning, shut off your alarm clock and go back to sleep.  The world needs a way to prevent this, and I am about 80% certain that there is a large group of people that feel this way.

3.  The prototypical customer is anyone that needs to wake up in the morning. It can be narrowed down to more specific such as people that tend to go out a lot, people that have trouble sleeping, people that need to wake up very early or at weird hours and anyone that requires a lot of sleep.  I feel that this problem is particularly prevalent among teenagers and young adults.

4.  Well interviewing people I discovered that a lot of people have the same problem as me.  They are unable to wake up in the morning.   One person said that it happened almost every morning, two people said that it is on and off, and the final person said it has only been a problem during this state of emergency.  The main problem that I ran into was that people were already satisfying the need.  The person that said this has only been going on during the pandemic did not see this as a problem because he had no reason to stay awake.  Two people said that they set multiple alarms and that usually works.  There was however one person that said even when setting multiple alarms they struggle to wake up.  This type of person would be my target consumer.

5.The main thing that I learned about my opportunity is that there is an audience for it, but it is not as large as I expected.  People have a product that while not 100% effective, they are pretty happy with.  Especially with alarms on phones, it makes things far more convenient, and I do not think many people would want to stray from that.  I now believe that there may be a different opportunity to create an app for a phone.  This would allow people to solve their problem, while not having to buy a new product or inconvenience themselves.

7. My new opportunity has changed, but is still similar.  Before I was looking for a new product to help people wake up, but I think a new technology would perform much better.  The idea of my original opportunity has stayed the same, but my platform has changed to a more realistic solution.  I think it's important to be able to take feedback into consideration.  You do not want to completely uproot your entire project, but if you receive feedback to make it better you should certainly adjust.

My Entrepreneurship Story

Growing up my mom always loved to bake. My dad worked full time and she stayed home with us and often had a lot of free time.  Whenever she could she would fill this time with baking.  Whether it was cookies, cakes, brownies or anything else you could imagine, our kitchen always smelled great.  As we grew older, friends would try her cookies and of course love them.  They would then start to ask her to make cookies or cakes for birthday parties or other events.  She charged a small fee depending on the size of the order, but mostly it was just a favor. This went on for a long time and eventually as more people tried her cookies she began to network.  It has gotten to the point where she makes cookies almost everyday of the week for random strangers.  She now has set prices and her business is profitable.  She is currently in the process of getting a commercial kitchen and growing her business even more.  My mom, the owner of Patty's Sweet Life, is an entrepreneur.

                                                       

Bug List

1. It's hard to have conversations on zoom calls because too many people talk at once.

Why: The app is set up in way that makes it difficult to address a specific person and allows everyone to speak simultaneously.

2. My dorm at school is has stray cats living all around it.

Why: The dorm is built directly adjacent to the woods where all the cats live.

3. When I fill my car with gas, often times my hands smell like gasoline.

Why: Residue gasoline drips onto the pump so when you touch it it gets on your hands.

4. The WiFi in my bedroom is pretty weak and makes it hard to stream on my laptop.

Why: My WiFi router is on the opposite end of my house so it doesn't strongly reach that far.

5. Even when it's warm I get cold riding on scooters.

Why: I dress for warm weather, but then with wind and resistance on the scooter I am underdressed.

6. When you call customer service for most companies you get put on hold for a long time.

Why: Large companies face a lot of problems and don't hire a reflective amount of customer service workers.

7. I love white shoes, but every time I own a pair they get ruined quick.

Why: Dirt and debris sticks to the shoes and is easy to see on a white color.

8. Every time I dress up I find myself wearing the same couple of ties.

Why: I only own a few ties and I am not going to buy more because I don't wear them all the time.

9. I constantly have to buy new chargers because mine break or get lost.

Why: Chargers are made very small and fragile and they are used so often that they go through a lot of wear and tear, and it's easy to forget where you last had it.

10. Apps like Ubereats and Doordash sometimes arrive too late if you do not have much time.

Why: The estimated arrival time changes, so when you order it it may not get there when it originally says.

11. In the Graham Hall dryer I have to run my clothes twice before it is done.

Why: The dryer is not strong enough to dry all clothes in one cycle.

12. I struggle to wake up for alarms, especially if I didn't get much sleep.

Why: It's very easy to hit the snooze button or to turn of the alarm and go back to sleep.

13. My roommate and I were on very different sleep schedules and it was hard to do stuff well he was asleep.

Why: Since I stayed up later than him I couldn't make noise or have lights on while he was sleeping.

14. I constantly have dog fur everywhere in my house.

Why: I have a very big dog that sheds a lot so it is hard to always keep the house clean.

15. When I am home I can never see my friends from school and vice versa.

Why: I live in Michigan and go to school in Florida so I can't make the commute easily.

16. There are never enough machines available at the Southwest gym.

Why: Too many people go at the same time and the machines are not organized to make sure everyone can get one.

17. I can never find my keys when I need to leave.

Why: They are small and there is no service like find my iPhone to help me find them.

18. My sister and I share a car at home, and she uses gas, but I have to pay to fill it up.

Why: My sister never fills the tank so when I get in it's always on empty and I have to fill it.

19. My cat brings small animals, such as chipmunks, into our home.

Why: She is a hunter, but instead of hunting animals inside she brings outside animals in.

20. My mom is a professional baker, but we do not get to eat the cookies.

Why: She makes cookies for clients, so if we ate them she would be short on orders.

I found it difficult to come up with twenty things that bug me.  I feel like I get annoyed a lot but when I had to specify it got hard.  Also, even after I came up with the things that bother me, it was hard to explain why they happened.  I began to observe things in my life more and realized specific things that bother me.

Test

Hi I am Michael.