Different idea

Dear readers,

I have switched my idea. I am now going to create a parking app that allows you to book a parking space when you need one. You can even book a parking space months in advance!  This app gives you the exact coordinates/address of your parking space. This app takes care of everything. You will never be ticketed for an expired parking meter again! This app makes sure that the fee is taken care of  until you leave! Its the cheapest and easiest parking option out there.

Grocery Store

We have now established our group and created our idea. We are all very excited about the idea of an all store (Costco, Target Etc.) map app. It would help shoppers who want to get in and out of stores fast and efficiently by providing a map that has the items on your shopping list listed. A problem that we could possibly face is within our group, none of us know how to design or start an app. Our goal is to create a survey to ask people if they would use the product. We have a concept logo below.
Would you use this?
Matt, Griffin, Sean, Chris

What's for Lunch prepares for launch

What's for Lunch, an app dedicated to providing healthy lunch box ideas, has begun the initial planning stages. With Harrison working on the prototype iPhone application and other business type duties, Brandon and Adam have researched nutritional options to high-fat and unhealthy snacks. We plan to advertise our business in elementary schools; either at the Flint Hill lower school or other surrounding public ones. By handing out flyers and pamphlets that describe the purpose of our business, we hope to generate publicity and clientele. Eventually, if we are able to grow large enough, we want to take our app to a supermarket and pair our healthy meals with specific products that can be purchased. We are working diligently to achieve our goal, as can be seen in this picture of Brandon researching low-fat snacks.

What do you plan to do?

Currently, our class has only been in class for about 3-4 weeks. During those weeks we have worked on how to create ideas for products that people would need and not want. We created a padlet of multiple business ideas and eventually "shaved" it down to about 16 ideas that we believed could really take off in the business world. We will soon be choosing teams on who we would like to work with. Ideally the people who we work with will have similar ideas to ours and they would be people that we believe could bring different perspectives to make an idea grow.

Pet Service

Dear readers,

I plan to build my own pet service company. I would love to build a building with three stories. one story has an open grass field in which dogs play with either their owners, or trainers, one floor is a body of water, and another floor is for pet service such as cleaning, hair cutting, nail cutting, surgery if necessary, etc.

Deciding on a Business Idea

After brain storming for several weeks, I have narrowed down my business ideas to two possibilities. The classroom environment, and being able to confer with others about ideas, really helped during this process. Still, even after I have narrowed down potential ideas that I’m interested in working on, many questions remain. One idea is centered around a mobile app. I have no background and previous learning in this area, so I would need to contact someone who does. Although my idea is slightly different from others, how will my idea stand out from the rest of the bunch? My other idea poses a simple question: would enough people buy it?

Idea #1

For my business, I plan on perfecting and creating the first water balloon cannon prototype. I feel like it will not be such a challenging thing to prototype. This might be a risk however because there are other things out there that are close to this so it could be a challenge. I plan on mass producing these cannons, and being able to sell them for lower prices, as supposed to selling them for a high price and low amounts. A goal for this business is to make a successful prototype and be able to have a good startup and appeal to many customers.

Business Blog - Michael Brown

My group and I are still in the process of choosing our business. We have not yet decided on a definite idea that we are completely set on. Two of the ideas that we are thinking about doing are the water balloon cannon and the camera that detects movement. I believe both of these ideas have potential, but we are not yet completely set on either of them. I am still going to consider other ideas and try to think of one that we are for sure about. We do not have any failures or success yet, but we will once we decide on an idea.

Starting A Business: Making Ideas Into A Reality

Hi! My name is Pranav Ravikumar and I am a senior at Flint Hill School in Oakton, Virginia. I have been taking a small business start-up course for the past few weeks, and am excited to start my own business soon. So far, we have come up with a lot of ideas that could potentially be viable businesses. I believe that when starting my own business, I should look to work in a team because I think that one of the fundamentals of running a business is working with other people. 

Recently, I came up with this idea of a business based around a “labor exchange” platform. I like this "labor exchange" idea because not only is it my own idea, but I think it is a viable project for one semester. In this day and age, a lot of people are not equipped with a lot of skills and therefore end up paying professionals hundreds or even thousands of dollars to provide services. I believe that through this business platform, people can enhance their own skills by offering themselves as forms of “labor” in exchange for a service. This is will be very cost-effective for participants. Revenue will be created when people pay for the service; essentially, it’s Match.com but for people that want to work in exchange for work. This is not illegal; in other words, no illegal forms of labor will be allowed. I'll have to research this idea and see if it already exists- if not, I may have stumbled on something really cool!

Note: There are already programs that dub themselves as a "labor exchange" as seen below, however, I actually don't think too many people have envisioned what I'm thinking of. 

As seen above, there exists a "National Labor Exchange"; however, this is a jobs platform, not a services network.

My second choice would be a tutoring business because I like to teach (especially subjects such as English, Spanish and History). This would be more centered around students at Flint Hill and their academic needs. Revenue would be at a rate per hour, depending on the subject. Who knows, I could branch out to YouTube and be like CrashCourse!

Regardless, I am excited to start a business and can’t wait to see how it turns out!

Everyday is a Challenge in the World of Business

Over the last three weeks the biggest thing I have learned is starting a business is not easy. It takes creativity, passion, hard work, and dedication. Going into this class I was convinced that I'd be able to find an idea that I loved and really wanted to turn into a business I could keep up once the class was over. But after spending weeks going over the challenges of starting a business and countless ideas I am far less confident in my ability to start a successful business and my ability to come up with an idea. That being said I have definitely learned a lot being in this class and am still hopeful and excited for what is to come.