Dogs love other dogs. For most dogs it is fundamental to their
health and well-being to have interactions with other dogs on a regular basis.
Unfortunately there are many people in Gainesville who only have one dog. I am
one of these people and I am always thinking of ways to improve the quality of
life of my dog. I wish there was a way for us to meet fellow dogs and dog
owners in our neighborhood. That’s how I got the idea from my app. This app
will allow you to locate and meet up with fellow dog owners in your
neighborhood. I think this is a fairly new opportunity since as a society we
are really just getting started in the way that we interact with apps and use
them in our everyday life. The market for this product is limited
demographically to people who own dogs. Geographically, I would probably start
off the app only in Gainesville because it is a community I am familiar with
and it would be easier to increase awareness for my product in a small
community that I have prior knowledge of. If the app ended up being a success
in Gainesville then I could likely expand its range to other towns in Florida
and maybe even across the country. I would try to expand the business very
rapidly if it was a success in Gainesville, once it was established I would
sell it, hopefully coming out with plenty of profit to use on my next venture.
I think that customers are currently satisfying this need by playing with their
dogs and going to the dog park. However, this is not an ideal substitute
because playing with your dog is not the same as letting him or her interact
with another dog. And there are many dogs that don’t do well at the dog park
and find it stressful. Also dog parks often transmit diseases, and in my
experience, fleas. I think it would also be good for people with elderly dogs
or dogs that don’t do well at the park.
My app would function almost like a platonic dog tinder. It would
show you profiles of dogs and owners that live in your area and allow you to
swipe left or right depending on if you think they would be a good match for
you and your dog. It would be a free service available to anyone with a smart
phone and would make revenue off of ads on the app. I believe that it would
greatly benefit the dog owner community by bringing together the people and
dogs of a neighborhood.
I think people would switch to this product because it is clearly
better than just going to the dog park and hoping that someone is there. It is
also better than having your dog just be sad lonely in your apartment by
themselves. I think the biggest hurdle in getting people to switch to my app
would be getting enough people to use it initially. I don’t think there are any
direct competitors to this app because it would be a new service and because
all of the revenue would be made off of ads. Customer support would be very
important to this app. It would require constant monitoring to make sure that
people aren’t misusing the app or using it for illegal purposes. I think that
the biggest financial hurdle in making this app a reality would be the cost of
designing the app as well as initial advertising costs to increase awareness of
the product. After that, there would be few costs associated with running it.
It also would not need many employees. Just enough to monitor the online
environment.
I think the most important resource to this app would be the
online community fostered on it. If people are making friends in improving
their lives on this app then they will be loyal to it. These type of
connections are very valuable and are not easily imitated or substituted.
If I were to go forward with this app idea and try to make it into
a reality I think the next step would be trying to find an app designer who
could meet my needs for this app.
Assuming that I did launch this app, in five years I would really like
to have expanded it to many cities. I’m not sure this is the venture I’d like
to put the rest of my life into so I may have handed over control of many of
its aspects so that I could focus on a different business.
I changed my venture concept by adding a long term strategic plan
that is in line with my exit strategy. I also added a piece about how my
product would be good for dogs who would prefer hanging out with one dog friend
to going to the dog park. It would also be good for elderly dogs to connect.
