The Idea Napkin

The Idea Napkin

1) You.

My name is Parker Bird and I tend to work great when it’s a project I’m passionate about! I like to work on things that have meaningful solutions and can see that my effort has brought about some sort of beneficial change, whether that’s in myself or my community or maybe even just my team. I find a lot of school work very tedious and rather dull even though it might be in something of my interest but it’s because it’s all in theory and lacks a certain reality that I need to feel like my work and effort is needed and worth my time. 

I currently am working on two shopify stores with another on the way; I sell mainly offroad components such as light bars and fabricated parts such as bumpers but am chasing new markets towards other things that interest me such as tie bars and the fashion industry! Along side these ecommerce businesses I also run a small consulting agency called Social Sequencing, a company I started in high school with my best friend who currently attends UVA aimed at helping local companies improve and leverage their social media presence into better sales and higher volume traffic! I’ve dabbled in lots of other things too such as crypto/ alt coin trading, owning a lawn and landscape company, holding political internships, etc. I believe that in order to find something worth doing for the rest of your life you need to experience lots of different types of projects or work in order to make sure you’ve found what you like hence why my history thus far is very diverse in different types of business and employment! 

I think the culture at all of my companies I have been a part of has been the culture of the self starter. I can’t stand the idea of working for someone else but mainly someone getting rich off of my ideas or hard work, so If you want to be the CEO why not just start at the top and build down! 

2) What are you offering to customers? 

Dorms By Design is aimed at allowing students to skip the hassle of hunting for days on end for dorm decorations that fit their style and skip the frustration of having to pack all of their gear into the car and then have to unload it up in the dorm. I think the main premise of what we offer here at the dorms by design is the ability too easily customize your dorm and express your true style without spending every bit of your summer shopping for your dorm. Our packages are designed to provide a solid platform it encompasses all things needed for your first dorm or apartment.

3) Who are you offering it to? 

I think that the one core element that all of our customers have in common is College students and all looking for ways to express themselves in terms of living situations. All of our customers are geared to be mostly first-year college students moving into their first dorm, but another side of our market is that group of students is moving out of their first dorm into a bigger apartment. For myself and many of my friends time is our most valuable asset, and spending time hunting and shopping for dorm room decorations is not an effective use of this asset. Having a service it allows you to fully customize and create in dorm decoration package would free up lots of time during college and before you even come to university allowing for more time with friends, family, doing things you enjoy, and maybe even studying. 

4) Why do they care? Your solution is only valuable insofar as customers believe its valuable to them. Here, explain why customers will actually pay you money to use your product or service. 

Why should you care? Having doing decorations's suit you are, makes your apartment or dorm feel like home. More importantly being able to obtain this homelike essence without having to spend  hours and hours hunting and picking different decorations frees up your time for more important things in your life. 

5) What are your core competencies? What sets you apart from everyone else? Also: what do you have that nobody else has? 

The major aspect of our dorm decoration bundle service is the ability to completely customize your set to your exact style. Every college has pre-made packages that you can order straight to your dorm that already exist, but what the lack is quality and customization. We understand our customers mindset, we know that no two students are the same that every student has different tastes and preferences and we are able to cater to those needs through our service. Our online based design platform we'll use a similar software to that of a car customizer where and you can see live previews of what your items look like in a dorm room but it won't be just any dorm room, it will be your actual dorm room. We want to implement an AI software that will allow for graphic illustrations to appear in a real world environment with the implementation of augmented reality Technology. I hope I'm explaining this kind clearly, but if you have one Takeaway the core principle of our website in service is the ability to customize and purchase individual pieces create and build your own bundled dorm kit that we than package into one piece and shipped directly to you. Many companies already exist that offer dorm decorations in different bundles but they only allow for minor customization and most severely lack in quality or are far too expensive. We want to be able to build supplier relations that allow for great quality but will enable a low cost, this combined with our amazing customization capabilities gives us an undeniable edge over our competition. 

How they fit together... 

In my opinion I really don't think there are many weak points in my business strategy. I believe that we have a solid idea, salsa big gap in the market; this combined with my previous business experience, Digital advertising and social media know-how, and the opportunities and resources available here the University of Florida, I think that this business model is extremely viable and something that could easily work. I think that the only area in which I need help in would be the technological aspect. I've the lots of websites in my past, but it never had the opportunity for the skill to implement technology such as AI or augmented reality into my concepts. However although I may not know the skills now these are things can easily be outsourced or things that I could assemble a team to help me implement. In addition to both technical and physical skills for myself, I think that being here at the University of Florida in building an idea based around the college student weren't great opportunity in and of itself. Not only am I able to seek direct customer feedback, but I have a pool of about 60,000 students all with a common problem that that I believe that I have a solution to!