Venture Concept Write Up – ShoeIn
I. Opportunity
There is a segment of the population who has trouble finding shoes that fit correctly when shopping online and would like a solution that will reduce the time drain that is produced. The issue is particularly important to those who go through shoes faster than average, which tends to be athletes. This need has been brought about the rise of online retail in the 2010s which has increased further because of the push to avoid indoor public spaces created by a global pandemic. This market exists globally but my focus would be on North Americans, particularly those in more populated areas. Currently, this need is being satisfied by return policies or by purchasing in store but can easily be improved upon. This is a big opportunity because it could mean moving a lot of in-store purchases online and reducing the need for large returns handling in a ~15 billion-dollar industry. I think now is an especially opportune time to enter the market, however, so long as online retail continues to grow the opportunity should remain.
II. Innovation
My application, ShoeIn, will likely come in two forms, as a responsive web application that can be accessed on both desktop browsers and mobile browsers, and as a mobile application. The ShoeIn application will have two parts to it, data collection and outputted recommendations. Users will make an account and enter information about the shoes that they currently wear and the shoes that have fit them well in the past. The entered information will be stored in a database and used to recommend the user shoes that have a similar fit. The recommendations will show in a grid view for the user to scroll, filter, and sort through. Options to filter and sort for color, ratings, and price will be available to the user. When a user views a shoe in the application, they will be shown an image of the shoe, a confidence rating of how well it will fit, its price, color options, ratings, and partnered retailers they can purchase from online. The application will make money through these partnered retailers, for each purchase made through the application the partner will pay a commission fee. This way the application can stay free to the user which gives it a greater chance of being advertised by word of mouth. With enough data collected a long-term goal would be to get a machine learning algorithm trained to process images of shoes from certain angles to recommend shoes for the user based on those photos alone.
III. Venture Concept
The ShoeIn app will draw users because of its usefulness and potential to be extremely effective with enough data. It will not be difficult to get users to use because it operates at no cost to the consumer, and there is not much to lose in spending a few minutes making an account in comparison to the potential time wasted by having to go through returns or try shoes on in-store. Getting them to implement my application will depend on the amount of exposure I can get it. There are no real competitors, the next best option is to go into a brick and mortar retail store and try shoes on there. It is inconvenient in comparison to online purchasing which gives my solution the advantage if it works well enough. Making the application free to use plays a major role in defining my business concept as does the user experience. By making the app free it will allow users to essentially crowdsource the data necessary for it to function, and only to their benefit that it does. I could see a policy of giving credits to users who had a bad experience with the app to encourage potential dissatisfied users to give it a second chance. In terms of organizing a business around the application, the biggest needs would be in development and advertising. I would probably hire 2-3 developers and 2 for marketing and eventually take on a more managerial role in the business. There would not be a need for much else aside from maybe someone to manage customer support but could probably be mostly automated, and I would just scale up the number of employees in each role as the business grows.
IV. Three Minor Elements
My most important resource is my personal connections. I know a podiatrist through Boy Scouts and can use that relationship to get advice on how to make my application more effective and what factors should be considered. I also have connections to people who have gone through the startup process themselves. The next opportunity for my venture would be to expand to other types of online clothing retail. I think shoes are a good starting point because there is less variation overall between manufacturers than in shirts for example. Once there is reasonable confidence in my business it will be easier to expand. I think how long I end up working on this venture would be determined by the amount of interest and success I can acquire in the first few years, likely I would either end up selling it or sticking with it and continue expanding to new markets. I hope that it can be a successful venture and solve a lot the issues consumers face when purchasing online.
Feedback
The feedback I received on my first draft of The Venture Concept Writeup was entirely positive feedback/encouragement, I received some constructive feedback on my exit strategy which made me think more about where this venture could go after a few years. I did reconsider the structuring and decided I would probably need to hire more people to support the service as it continued to grow. I also included the name that I decided on for the venture which I forgot to include before and fixed some grammatical errors.
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