24A – Venture Concept No. 1: Gatorganize

Venture Concept No. 1: Gatorganize

Opportunity:

As college students, we balance a rigorous course load, involvement, and employment along with our own personal activities (working out, studying, hobbies, etc.). Often times, the amount of work that needs to be done in a day can be daunting; if you are not organized you can miss an assignment that affects your grade tremendously. I think we have all been there before, where if we were just a little bit more organized we wouldn't have missed a deadline that hurt our grade. College students without a organizational platform that works for them have my need. This need is created by the lack of organizational platforms that combine all types of involvement into one platform, and the unreliability of Canvas in posting accurate deadlines. My market is specific to the University of Florida, and can apply to students in any stage of their education (undergraduate, graduate, etc.). My customers are currently satisfying this need with Canvas, a planner, an app on their phones, etc. They may be loyal to their platforms, but I believe when they see how cohesive and all-inclusive my platform is they will be convinced to switch how they stay organized. This opportunity is large, and will remain open for a long time as this opportunity has been an issue for students for years.

Innovation: 

My innovation is an online platform that organizes student assignments, deadlines, and events into one cohesive site. The platform will be both online and a phone application. The class assignments, exam dates, etc. will be provided by each professor individually and updated by them as well to ensure they are absolutely accurate. Additionally, student organizations will be given the opportunity to add their own date events to the platform.  My customers will simply have to log into my platform and subscribe to the classes and student organizations they are a part of; these dates will automatically auto-populate both a calendar and to-do list. The dates will be presented in two separate formats to accommodate to the different ways students may prefer to view their schedule. On top of all this, students will also have the ability to add in their own personal events so they can individualize the platform to include their work schedule/hobbies. I will sell my platform for a yearly subscription price of $10, a more affordable alternative to a planner.

Venture Concept: 

My innovation will solve the opportunity I have identified because it organizes all aspects of a student's schedule into one platform. No longer will students have to cross check their Canvas calendar to their individual class announcements, to Facebook pages for involvement, to work schedules, etc. Everything will be synced onto one platform with dates added in by the people assigning them to you. Students will want to buy my innovation because it is guaranteed be accurate, as your dates are given by the university/student organization. Additionally, it is very affordable and flexible in its display and accessibility. My competitors are Canvas, physical planners, and online agendas such as Google Calendar. Their weakness lies in that users have to manually add in their deadlines and/or not all deadlines display or are accurate (Canvas). Since my product is digital, no physical characteristics will affect the success of my product besides app design.

My most important resource: My team of college students working to make this product a success.

What’s next for the venture: Having full involvement of all student organizations registered for my service.

What’s next for me: I will not be pursing this venture, but if I did I hope it would open doors to more opportunities in this industry and serving students academically.