Is This An Opportunity?

Is This An Opportunity?

I believe that there is room for improvement in the field around dorm decorations and a great opportunity lays unturned. 

When evaluating the current solutions to this problem, I've broken the analysis into three main questions... 

1. What is the unmet need?

There needs to be a way for college students and high school seniors to effortlessly shop and customize dorm decorations without expelling hours of valued time. 

2. Who has the need?

I believe that while many assume that cute or dapper dorm decor is limited to women but as a male perspective, I feel that having a good looking "home away from home" is something not only visually pleasing but something essential to helping new and returning college students feel right at home from the get go!

3. What are our current options in the market? 

With today's options being limited to bed bath and beyond or other really pricey apartment boutiques or the horrid "package" design provided by many universities, opportunity lays in the ability to offer a service that allows people to customize and order stylized decorations in a one stop shop and spend their time on things much more relevant to their rapidly changing lives. 

What percent sure am I that this opportunity exists? I am 99% sure that this field has room for improvement and my ideas could just fit the bill!

So Who Is Our Ideal Customer? 

It's really not as complicated as it is probably expected. Essentially anyone who is moving into a college dorm or looking to upgrade their dorm or small apartment decor. Male or female doesn't matter but we are hunting for people around the ages of 18 to 24. We prefer that our customers be preparing for or already at university but I don't want to limit or with hold our market of non college students looking for general apartments. As long as our customers are between 18 and 24 we can cater them trendy and well put together product assortments and be of immense value to them. 

Iteration No. 1: 

My first interview this with girl named Gabby, a high school senior from my hometown of Virginia Beach. After explaining the premise of the idea to Gabby, I asked her a few questions to try to get an idea of whether or not my problem was actually a real problem or just one that existed in my mind. When questioning Gabby she told me that one of the most time-consuming things is having to go to multiple different stores and try to align multiple colorways and product types and not being able to visualize the layout of all the products combined. She said currently her and her mom are spending weekends going from store to store trying to find cute and trendy decorations that all blend perfectly with the look in her mind. She said this was a big hassle because as a high school senior trying to juggle college applications, schoolwork, extra curricular activities, and other family matters finding the extra time to do something as important to shop for college was nearly impossible.

Iteration No. 2: 

For my next interview I decided I need to talk with a male candidate; a freshman at the University of Virginia named John. Now John is your typical "bro", he was an Allstate lacrosse team captain, played every major sport in high school, and is currently rushing a fraternity. Now I wanted to interview John and pick his brain simply because his views and input are bound to be different than many of the other women that I could've found to interview. I wanted to make sure that other men felt the same frustration that I did coming into college and especially the frustration in decorating a dorm. After talking with John for about 15 to 20 minutes I gathered from his statements that his biggest frustration is not being able to find enough sources for men's dorm decorations; he claims that 90% of the decorations on the market were frilly and tailored for your typical college girl. He said that having a place where he could find manly decorations that are high-quality but at a reasonable price would be an awesome solution. I then explained to John my idea for a one-stop-shop dorm decorations site, and he went wild for the idea. This served as my proof that the need exists in a male suited environment. 

John made me aware of another opportunity that I hadn't even considered prior to my interview; he suggested using an AI based software to allow users to use the front camera of a device such as an iPhone to project a simulation of the product in their real life dorm room, similar to many interior decorating apps already existing in the market. This would allow students already living in the dorm to test and check out how a new decoration or product would fit and look sitting in their exact dorm room. A feature like this would give me a clear advantage over every company in the dorm design industry and would be a killer feature sure to draw many new customers. Having the ability to visualize what a new picture or chair would look like sitting in your current room is something I'm confident would appeal to lots of potential customers!

Iteration No. 3:

For my final interview with this project, I wanted to interview another girl but this time one that was already in college. I decided to reach out to one of my friends from high school named Ashley who is a freshman at the Virginia Polytechnic institution. Again I had to explain the basis and premise of the idea to Ashley before I could really get into what problems I could solve for her, but once I got passed the basis of the explanation she had some really insightful things to propose. Ashley, a self-proclaimed frequent online shopper, brought to my attention a site that existed called dormify- a site that allows users to purchase full sets of dorm and apartment decorations as a "low cost" solution. I was curious about this website so I did some research of my own, and then got back to Ashley and asked her a few questions about site. The site essentially sold dorm kits and allowed users to have the sample room essentially boxed up and shipped to their door. Pretty cool concept from the surface right? Now Ashley, thinking back to her time in high school when trying to shop for dorm stuff, said that this was an average solution to her problem but where it lacked was in the customization and ability to express your creativity. She said that she didn't want to have the same dorm decorations that hundreds of other people had exact copies of, she wanted something that was unique to herself. Ashley claimed that there were lots of designs and setups on the site that she was intrigued by but didn't like that there was no way to add custom options or insert different variants of products. At this point in the conversation I saw that another opportunity existed. Adding the ability to customize different items such as throw pillows or wall art based on an algorithmic sorting feature similar to that of the filtering option on a massive online marketplace, giving Shoppers the ability to customize a room with pieces that were truly unique to them but sorted based on matching color profiles. Having these advanced customization options would open up the opportunity for thousands of new combinations making it far more unlikely for people to have mirrored setups of their dorm room right down the hall from them. I think that using similar design features to that of a car customizer, you know, the ones you use when building out and "designing" a new car for example on Ford's website, in which all of the options look good with the other options but allows the opportunity for you to "make it your own". Implementing an element like this into my business or website, would add a lot of value over existing options in the market.

Iteration Reflection: After talking with Gabby, Ashley and John for about 15 minutes each and explaining my ideas more thoroughly and proving how my ideas simplify their lives, I realized the opportunity does truly exist. Having one store or website makes for the perfect solution to all of their problems especially if it means being able to visualize, design, and ultimately purchase the perfect storm decorations all for a fraction of the time and energy it would take to gather individual pieces. More importantly from these conversations I gained insight into what the current market lacks, something that would've taken me years to figure out on my own. These new ideas, if implemented correctly, could you give me an incredible edge in the existing marketplace.

Summarization: 

The problem that I have discovered, is that students desire full customization but also want convenience and a "ready to roll" delivery. After assessing the current marketplace, it's clear that these features are not yet available or at least all in one place, but this is where our opportunity lies. It's people like Gabby, John, and Ashley, who provide me with the insight that allows us to reach millions of other students just like them, and help solve similar problems that everyone of them face. I believe that through my iterations I was able to uncover new problems and confirm my pre-existing opportunities. I think that doing market research and surveying potential customers is key for small businesses and startups as it helps confirm existing ideas but can also uncover potentially advantageous features or product sets. Adding new features or listening to customer feedback and adapting to these demands is essential in my eyes for all entrepreneurers, assuming they want to keep I head of the market. Getting feedback from you're ideal customers means that you can tailor products towards your ideal customers, therefore filling any gaps or opportunities left in the marketplace.