Venture Concept No. 2

1)    Venture Concept:

 

Opportunity: My opportunity is that the adult families of senior citizens need help caring for their elderly relatives. The adult children of these seniors have the need because they cannot balance their careers, their families, and their parents. They need help making sure that their elderly parents are not struggling with medical issues, loneliness, or basic tasks (like driving, cooking, and cleaning). Their parents may need help running errands, managing appointments, or figuring out technology, which allows them to stay connected to their families. Some seniors may also struggle with medical issues that impact them physically and/or mentally.

 

The change in the environment that is creating this need is the rising number of senior citizens in the United States. As the population of the US continues to age and the number of seniors in our country grows, the “window of opportunity” for this service will continue to be wide open and the size of the opportunity will grow. Right now, this is a fairly large opportunity, as only 3% of American seniors live in nursing homes. Currently, most customers (the adult children of seniors) fill this need by assuming the burden of care and trying to help care for the seniors by themselves. This leaves customers tired and stretched thin, as their jobs and nuclear families also require significant time and energy. It also means that most of their time spent with their elderly loved ones is not quality time. Because of the strain that trying to meet these needs causes, most customers are not loyal to the current situation, where there is no comprehensive solution.

 

The market of this opportunity can be defined as any adult with an elderly relative who needs assistance. A prototypical customer would be an adult who has a career and children of their own but also helps care for an elderly parent who lives independently. The prototypical customer would also have sufficient income to afford a care service. There is no specific geographic boundary to the market.

 

 

Innovation: My innovation would be a service that offers personal care to seniors, which is individually tailored to meet each senior’s specific needs. This service would help seniors who still live independently and would offer a multitude of services such as cooking, cleaning, driving, help with errands, help managing schedules, help with technology, and more. The business would also offer companionship services, but it would not offer medical services. One unique feature of this service is that each senior would be matched with one employee. This fosters a close relationship between the two for companionship and helps prevent the seniors from becoming socially isolated or lonely.

 

Once hired by a customer, the service would be scheduled to assist a senior for a predetermined number of hours per week. The employee would record their time and the customer would be billed. The base rate for this service would be $25 an hour, with increasing rates based on the services that were performed. For example, driving and running errands with a senior would cost $35 an hour.

 

 

Venture Concept: This service would exploit the opportunity by providing personalized basic care and assistance to seniors, so that the customers no longer assume the burden of care. The adult children will buy this service because it will reduce the strain of trying to provide everything for their elderly parents. They will be reassured that their loved ones are being taken care of, and the time they actually get to spend with their loved ones will be quality time, instead of everyday errands and chores.

 

Customers will switch to this product because it is the first comprehensive care solution in the industry and because it will be the simplest, most streamlined option. It will not be hard to get the customers to switch to this product because of the current lack of comprehensive care options outside of nursing homes. Other competitors include services that provide qualified medical assistance (like in-home nursing care) and services that provide help with specific needs, like grocery shopping (Instacart) or cleaning (maid services). One collective weakness of these options is that they only provide one service. In order to receive more comprehensive help, one has to work with and coordinate multiple services, which can be very complicated, expensive, and time-consuming. While my service would not target the market of medical assistance for seniors, it would provide a simpler, one-stop-shop alternative to the many individual service options.

 

The price point of the service does help define the business concept by excluding some customers who cannot afford the service. Since the proposed service does not provide medical assistance, it is not set up to work with insurance, which eliminates some potential customers and further refines the target market. The business concept is also refined by the dual needs of both the adult customers (who are paying for the service) and the seniors (who are directly receiving the assistance). The business will have to succeed in fulfilling the needs of both parties to create a positive “customer experience”. Customer feedback plays a key role in the business concept, as communications of needs will be vital, and the nature of the required needs of each customer will likely evolve over time.

 

The business would start with a small (less than ten), thoroughly vetted, and qualified group of employees, who would directly provide the service. The service would be launched in northeastern Florida, expanding first regionally within the Southeast, then nationally. As the business grows, more employees will be hired and several administrative roles (like scheduling, marketing, and billing) will be added to support the providers.

 

Additional Elements:

 

1.     The most important resource to my business will be my personal experience helping seniors with basic errands and chores. This firsthand knowledge will help me anticipate the wants and needs of my customers, helping the venture establish a niche in the senior care industry and giving my business an edge over future competitors.

2.     The next steps for the venture would be expanding. First we would geographically expand our footprint, then we would expand into related services our customers may need, like medical assistance and hospice care. This expansion will be done slowly and deliberately, as expanding too rapidly may weaken the quality of the service (and thus one of the competitive strengths of the business).

3.     Five years after launch, I would hope to be working on the administrative side of the business. Currently, I plan to move on from the venture within about ten years, either selling it to another venture in the industry or personally stepping back from active management to pursue other opportunities (which will hopefully be funded by this venture). If I develop a passion for the industry and want to remain in it, I may alter this plan and continue to run the venture with the intention of passing it down as a family-run business.

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2)    I am still awaiting peer feedback on my first venture concept description. However, I did receive feedback on my “What’s Next” post. The feedback was mostly positive, agreeing that expanding my service relatively quickly should allow me to stay one step ahead of any competition. However, it also cautioned against extremely rapid expansion, with the thought that expanding too quickly could be detrimental to my venture.

 

Based on my own self-reflection of my initial venture concept description, I think that I over-explained some aspects of the assignment (such as why customers will buy the service) and barely touched upon others (like what was next for me personally). However, I think I did a good job explaining the core opportunity, innovation, and venture concept behind my business.

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3)    Based on what I learned from the peer feedback I received, I further clarified that I did not intend to quickly expand the business. I added that rapidly scaling the business may weaken the quality of the service provided, which in turn would weaken the venture as a whole. Based on my own reflection and personal growth since the last assignment, I better explained several aspects of the venture concept, like what was next for me personally and the weaknesses of the competition in the industry. I also made several points more concise, like why customers will buy the innovation.