29A – Venture Concept No. 2

by Cynthia Knauf

Venture Concept 

Opportunity

My opportunity exists because of the under-met need of sustainable architecture or parts in houses. My customer could be someone looking to buy a new house, or renovate parts of their house with new landscape/material. More specifically I will be working with the design of space to minimize electric costs. I also want to target large corporations and government buildings because it could bring a larger influence into climate change and harsh environmental changes. 

The nature of the need is not super apparent right now. The target that should have the highest need to entertain this opportunity is the government because climate change and changes to their country could have negative effects on their policies. The common person would engage in sustainable architecture because it could provide financial benefits long-term. Corporations should want to be involved because of the growing concern for social responsibility.

Changes in the environment creating this opportunity is the growing concern for climate change and social responsibility and care for our environment and our carbon footprint. These forces have already caused trends in the world of plastic and the education taught involving being more sustainable. Generations are becoming more and more aware of the dangers we are creating for our planet, and hence our living, so I know my product could only expand. The market is defined geographically by the price I can set, I want to target developed and under-developed countries, but the price and quality will differ.

Customers are currently satisfying this need by using solar panels and other products currently well known in the market, but my team will work on creating a first a highly effective layout of the building (so target mainly new constructions initially) to minimize the need to actually use electricity. This would be the most noticeable manner to substantially decrease electrical costs and waste. Later I could develop a product that saves more energy, and can target other areas other than simply conversion of sun heat into usable energy (which can be implemented into new and already constructed buildings).

They are somewhat loyal because they aren’t aware of the benefits they can reap, and implementation is still somewhat difficult. I want to make implementation of my product more stream-lined. I won’t be able to completely make it easy to implement because it could involve changing structures of buildings, but I want to minimize the implementation time. This product has a great growth opportunity as people are increasingly becoming concerned with sustainability, and technology continues advancing greatly. 

Innovation

My innovation would be incremental innovation because there are already people producing this product, in large scale. What I want to do is make it more accessible and well-known to people wanting to build a house (and corporations and government buildings). My first idea is to work with a group of architects and landscapers to create an innovative layout that can greatly minimize electric costs. I can accomplish this with research into how our natural world works, and how window, plant relocation and interior design layouts will maximize natural sunlight entry. 

I do not want to simply plant a solar panel on someone’s roof. I want to research and work with a team that can create materials that are sustainable and produce financial benefits to my customer (such as non toxic paint, new construction “bricks” made from plants and are sustainable for the geographic area located etc.). I will make money by selling at different prices to the market, I know government buildings and corporations have a greater sum of money than the common person, so I would have more technology involved and quality difference for a higher price. The common person would still have exceptional quality, but features would be dependent on their budget. I want to make this accessible to a greater number of people. 

Venture Concept

My innovation would solve my opportunity because I will have an exceptional team of people who understand my market (environmental and sustainable workers) and a team that is on top of technological innovations so I can implement that to lower overhead costs and upgrade my quality and innovation. 

People will buy my product because it will be different than what is in the market, I want to expand to construction materials and technologies that aren’t in the market, or that can lower waste by even more. They should see a greater benefit to my product. It should be a little complicated to switch people who are already familiar with sustainable architecture, which is why I want to target and market to people/corporations/government buildings that are not involved in it at all, and make them understand why pursuing my sustainable architecture could end up being highly beneficial to them.

The competitors are many, companies who sell solar panels, companies who already engage in sustainable architecture (many). Their possible vulnerabilities are in focusing greatly on the money, and the name they can declare something as sustainable, sometimes they fool their customers into thinking something is highly sustainable when it really is not that high. Price is important to the average customer, because in my interview price always came up with the question of how high the quality was. Price is a concern. Customer support is important because this is such a large scale project for the customer, so I know I would have to offer great customer service during the construction and after in case there are any questions/problems the customer might have to the new installation. I know this will be valued. I just have to make sure this doesn’t raise the price too much.

The three minor elements

I think my most important resource is my team of experts. I want to ensure a product that is differentiated from the rest in the market. The technological team should always be working to stay ahead. The environmental team will give knowledge to the team, the technological team in specific, so the collaboration would create something innovative. 

What’s next is something I still don’t have a physical idea of, but I know it should be focused on creating a more sustainable material. Sustainability should not cease to end, because many companies are still selfish and create a product that will give them the most profit, with little care for its carbon footprint. 

I want to be CEO. I want to be able to talk about sustainability and big environmental impacts and extreme knowledge and certainty. I want to have my voice heard because it is an important concept. And I want to continue expanding sustainable architecture. 

Feedback

Unfortunately I don’t have feedback. But the changes I made were specific to what I learned from my last interview. First that I could be working with ideas I have knowledge on and don’t need a super highly technical team, and that I can easily implement natural ideas into my venture concept that not only help my consumer but that also helps the planet (my ultimate goal). 

• Include plants! They increase shade for hotter areas. 
• My idea was somewhat broad still
• Didn’t show much how I am going to work with corporations and government buildings
• Include what exactly you are going to work on with new technology in the products

How I changed my venture concept

• I included that I first want to work on building layout and landscaping architecture to minimize electricity
• While I expand that I can bring in a team of technological experts to work on the new product I want that decreases electricity and hopefully water waste (still not a solid idea)
• Included plants
• Unfocused from water control at first -- focus on landscape for electricity, then for water