19A - Idea Napkin No. 2

1. You. I am a junior at the University of Florida in the Masters of Finance combined degree program. I am 20 years old and I am a male. My talents are finance/accounting and communicating effectively with others. My skills include the Microsoft Suite, the Bloomberg terminal, and understanding the markets. Experiences include JP Morgan working with companies and a previous accounting internship. My aspirations are to work in finance until I get enough personal capital to invest in entrepreneurial ideas. I see the business I want to start as fitting in well to my desires because I will understand the finances really well and will have enough capital down the road to fund it. 

2) What are you offering to customers? My company will sells products and services to make cars more comfortable. My main product is an automatic sunshade that will automatically go down and up when you lock and unlock you car. This product will sell for $200-500 depending on the shape of the window and how much work it is to produce. I will also try to partner with a car manufacturer to put it in their new automobiles offering customers a better alternative to buy a new car. I will also offer a service through an app where it will connect to your car and you can set timers to heat or cool your car in advance of getting in. Another product I thought of is actually a non automatic sunshade that would stay in place on the top of your window and you could manually slide it up and down to click it in place. This opens up my market and I could sell it for closer to $50. That is also why I changed my company name to EasyShade from AutomaticShade. 

3) Who are you offering it to? My target market is ages 30-45 (male or female) with cars worth more than $20,500 (new or used). I assuming this market will be willing to spend $50-500 to help make their cars more comfortable and to stop the elements from making the car less valuable over time. My customers value ease and the use of technology to improve their lives. They understand the value of making their car luxurious. My customers all have the desire to feel and be innovative and young. 

4) Why do they care? Customers will pay to use this product because it is helping them in a variety of ways. First off, the sunshade makes the car much more comfortable temperature wise. Second, the app makes this even better will pre timed heating and cooling. And lastly, it protects the value of the car over time (i.e. the cloth lining of the car melting off). 

5) What are your core competencies? I am an ambitious young 20 year old that understands finance very well (going to work on Wall Street). However, I lack engineering experience and experience in starting a business. What nobody else has is my unique network of connections which include entrepreneurs, people with money to fund ideas, and engineers. I would rely on this heavily. 

I believe these elements fit in together for the most part. The weakest part is that the founder of the business (me) has no extensive automobile experience, engineering background, or any idea how to start an actual business. Overall though I feel like I could make up these shortcomings with my network of friends and that I can get through with my basic understanding of business. 

Feedback Memo: 

I received one comment on my original idea napkin. The two main points that I took away were to flesh out the desire of why customers would want this and to better explain what I am offering. I incorporated this in numbers 2 and 3 by adding more detail.