23A – Your Venture’s Unfair Advantage

Your Venture's Unfair Advantage

My resources:

1. Technological assistance
a. Valuable: very valuable in creating the application
b. Rare: not rare, but good to have for my company
c. Imitable: technology is pretty universal, so any company can use this technology
d. Non-substitutable: technology is absolutely necessary for my product

2. A team of passionate college students

a. Valuable: very valuable to garner attention for my resource

b. Rare: it is not often a company is run by college students, so this is rare

c. Imitable: this is not easy to imitate and be successful

d. Non-substitutable: since my product is made solely for college students, it is vital to be managed by people who understand the issue personally to create the best product

3. Funding

a. Valuable: this is very valuable to start and sustain a company

b. Rare: not really, all companies have to be funded

c. Imitable: funding is not something that can be copied

d. Non-substitutable: this is absolutely necessary to create and sustain a company

4. Market research

a. Valuable: this is very valuable in knowing if an opportunity is viable and worth pursuing

b. Rare: yes, not all start-ups conduct research before starting their company

c. Imitable: this can only be imitated by companies in my same market

d. Non-substitutable: no, this research can not be substituted as it is unique to my market

5. Strong company culture

a. Valuable: yes, this is valuable to keeping my company running

b. Rare: yes, not all companies have a strong company cultured geared towards their customers

c. Imitable: this is unique to my company and therefore cannot be imitated

d. Non-substitutable: no, this cannot be replaced with something similar

6. Unique product with little competition

a. Valuable: yes, it is very valuable to have a product with little competition

b. Rare: yes, it is rare to have a product that is unique in its market

c. Imitable: it would be fairly easy for another organizational platform to mimic the services I offer to my customers

d. Non-substitutable: no, this is necessary to succeed

7. University support

a. Valuable: yes, it is valuable to have support from professors as I will need their cooperation to make my product effective

b. Rare: no, I think most professors would be willing to support a service that helps their students succeed

c. Imitable: other companies could also garner university support but it would be hard to attain

d. Non-substitutable: this is absolutely necessary for my service to succeed

8. Flexibility for users

a. Valuable: yes, this makes my product useful to different customer segments

b. Rare: somewhat, most products have some flexibility in user capabilities but not all do

c. Imitable: yes, other products can copy my features and make their products flexible as well

d. Non-substitutable: I could make my product less flexible but this would make my product less attractive in the marketplace

9. Passion as an organization to help our customers

a. Valuable: yes, this is very valuable in making sure my company continues even through obstacles

b. Rare: yes, i think it is fairly rare for a company to be extremely passionate about its customers rather than making a profit

c. Imitable: no, it is difficult/nearly impossible to imitate passion

d. Non-substitutable: no, passion can not be substituted

10. Customer loyalty

a. Valuable: yes, having a loyal customer base is very helpful

b. Rare: yes, it is fairly rare to have customers that are loyal to your product over other competitors

c. Imitable: no, as customers can only be loyal to one product in a market

d. Non-substitutable: no, there is no substitute for customer loyalty

Top resource: I believe my top resource is the uniqueness of my product. My product differs from every other product in my market and therefore has no similar competition. This is very important to the success of my venture as it sets my product apart and offers a service customers cannot have elsewhere.