Venture Concept No. 2

Consumers love to eat out. It's just part of life these days. The convenience factor is there. We live in a society where often times people would rather go somewhere and have a sit down meal. On the other hand, they may choose a delivery option or a drive-thru option. The convenience factor of having food served is something that many consumers love. A great example is the current Chipotle craze. It's simple yet consumers do not want to take time out of there day to prepare their own meals. I thoroughly believe there will always be a decent market for restaurants, especially one of my caliber. However, it will be a competitive market at that. I trust that I've laid down the foundation to ensure success.

In my mind, I can break down restaurants into several categories. There are the restaurants where you have a sit down meal. There are the restaurants where you can order through the a drive-thru and then take it to go. There are also the restaurants that offer delivery service. It's common to see restaurants try to incorporate one or two of these elements to make consumers happy. However, how many incorporate all three? McDonald's doesn't deliver. Chipotle doesn't have a drive-thru. These are just a couple of examples. However, the pattern holds true. Consumers need more options. It's only right that a restaurant offers all three.

As stated in recent assignments, my target demographic is primarily college students. For this reason, I believe that the business would be most successful in college-towns, such as Gainesville or Tallahassee, where the primary demographic is students of the university. I personally believe that this opportunity is enormous, due to the sheer size of college campuses. This is especially so, if we can work directly with the universities to incorporate our restaurants to be on campus, and even better included in meal plans that the students buy. While the market is large, it will be very important to get the name of the company out there with creative advertisements and special sales in the early stages of business.


I also have an interesting idea to incorporate customizable pancakes to the menu. Meaning, if someone likes something specific of another company, I'd like to incorporate that into my pancakes for a slight up charge. If it can be dreamed it can be made. Even something as crazy as a McChicken pancake is possible. It's ideas like this that take a restaurant to the next level. If something like this could become possible, it could potentially negate competition as the demand for our customizable products would make various foods of competitive restaurants complementary goods, strengthening business relationships and opportunities. For example, though it is a wild one, if McChicken pancakes became highly demanded, McDonald's business would increase due to the need for McChickens.

From a business perspective, I've got a pretty decent understanding on how the financial aspect of this business will work out. We would have the benefit of many of our workers working on a tipped-basis. This meaning, we wouldn't have the burden of paying many of our workers more than minimum-wage for tipped workers, because they will be making much of their money in the form of tips from customers. On the receipts we will put suggested gratuity to encourage that our workers make a fair wage. Likewise, costs may stay down if we stay located in college towns as the radius of delivery wouldn't necessarily be that large. For this reason, our delivery boys can use bikes for many of the deliveries, keeping costs down. The only costs that would be high would be initial start-up investment. However, this is not a single person venture. I've decided that I would like to do this with three close friends, all of which have significant savings and are ready to take on the challenge of starting a business.

I think that customers will love the convenience factor of our restaurant. Whether or not they want to dine in, pick up via a drive-thru, or have food delivered, any of their needs can be met. The convenience factor with my restaurant is far greater than what others can offer. Also, living in a college town right now is very helpful, as the first restaurant can be something of a test subject to see what needs to be changed or improved. Also, I think that customer's can have something of a personal experience with the restaurant, due to it being specifically geared for college students. With college classes constantly graduating and entering, it will be a revolving door for the business. As stated before, the first restaurant will be the test subject and we can see where to go from there. I am aware not everything will be perfect. And that's okay. We will constantly improve.

Summary and Changes to Venture Concept:

I got a few great comments that ultimately led to me adding to my venture concept. I was told that I'm a step ahead due solely on the fact that my friends and I have established a great financial backing. While it is just one step of the process, it is an important one at that. I was also told that I shouldn't be discouraged if business starts out slow, as the market can be very competitive. I also had to address a question about tipped workers. Someone implied that it won't work out well for employees because not everyone is necessarily a great tipper. I've countered this idea by putting suggested gratuity on the receipts, in an attempt to kind of passive aggressively let customers know that tipping is the norm. My new venture concept is in essence the same as the original, aside from addressing some of the comments made on my original post (about start up and financial capital).