23A- Your Venture's Unfair Advantage

1)    Good Knowledge of Consumer Boundary                                                                

We have done several exercises aimed to help us figure out who is our target consumer.  I think this is invaluable from a marketing standpoint.  I know who to target, and how to target these consumers.  I think this gives me an edge over some retailers who maybe haven’t done the research I have.

2)    Trust

The main goal of my website and service will be to help consumers make smart home product decisions.  I think that I will be able to be successful in selling the right products to the right consumers.  This will build a trust by showing consumers I am out to help them.  Trust will help us establish new customers, and keep old ones.

3)    Good Inter-Company Relations

My plan for this company is to buy in bulk directly from smart home suppliers.  This will require good relationships with big businesses such as Amazon and Google.  I think I can establish these ties by being representative of a mutual relationship.  My company brings their products closer to consumers, and helps consumers understand the product.  The return will be good prices on their products.  I am already in contact with the COO of SimpliSafe, and hopefully I can leverage this relationship into others.  These relationships will help cut costs and make the stocking process easier.

4)    Good Knowledge of Entrepreneurial Self

I think it’s really important to understand yourself and how you think in order to work effectively.  The book I read for my last reading reflection, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, tied this all together.  It made me think about how I thought and how I worked.  I think this kind of knowledge will allow me to create a successful work environment for myself and my employees.   This will allow the company to be more productive.

5)    Speed and Efficiency

I’m the kind of person who doesn’t like to waste time.  I think that my company would be very efficient because of my mindset.  I would create a culture of hard-working people who want to take advantage of all the time that we have.  Whether this time is spent thinking up new products, shipping products, or working on the website- it would certainly accelerate our growth.

6)    Creative thinking

I think that a key piece of my human capital are my creative thinking skills.  I often am able to come up with multiple solutions to problems.  In the business world, it is inevitable that you run into problems.  I think that my ability to workshop creative solutions to problems will allow me to hurdle some of bumps that many like businesses encounter.

7)    Distribution knowledge

For the past five months I have been running an Ebay store.  While the store doesn’t receive very high quantity orders, I think that this has given me some experience on the distribution end of things.  I have to ship orders on time to the correct recipient.  I have to make sure the packages have the correct labels on them and that the shipments are well packaged.  While this isn’t a vast knowledge, I think it will give me an edge.  Most CEOs don’t have much knowledge in distribution.  I think I can perform better if faced with a distribution problem than most other entrepreneurs.

8)    Product Knowledge

My company will be led by me, a college student in his early twenties.  I think that many of my employees will also be young.  The great thing about this is that on average, more young people know about smart home products.  I think our base knowledge of the products will be high, and with some company-wide training, I plan to have a very knowledgeable staff.  This will give us an edge because it will show other people how much we care about our products and our customers.  Also, if ever anyone has a problem or a question about our products, any one they ask will be able to answer it.  This will boost our credibility.

9)    Convenience

I think that the main thing my company is selling is convenience.  The individual will no longer have to search for hours trying to find the right products.  They will all be on one website, with information about use and connectivity.  This will save consumers time and headache.  Our website will be easy to use, which will be a huge pull for consumers.

10) Cost

My plan is to buy in bulk directly from suppliers in order to get the best prices for our products.  It’s my believe that buying in such large amounts will be able to drive down a lot of the normal price points.  This will make it possible for me to sell the products at discounted prices.  While the consumers will have to buy the products in bundles, I think that the prices will seem much more attractive than my competitors.

I believe that my greatest resource is convenience.  While my competitors try to make their websites easy to use and their selection as wide as possible, I believe they come up short.  I believe that my company can do better than them.  I believe that we can bring the most sought after and helpful products directly to the consumer.  I think that we will be able to do it in a very transparent way, to make life easier for the consumer.  This will be through our website, which will explain every product we carry in great detail and so the costumer can understand exactly what they do and how they work.  I believe that our installation service will be a huge convenience to customers.  This way they don’t have to worry about connecting and installing the products.  These products are supposed to make life easier for the individual.  I think that the buying process should be just as easy.  This is the idea that our company will work towards.  In this way, I hope to save the consumers’ time and sanity.