Putting it all together

Opportunity

Most consumers use some form of web based service to find local events and directions to these locations. The background of these services are based on large directories of information that is provided in part by the users or patrons and the remaining information is provided by direct stakeholders.

With the growing web services and evolving markets, new business come and other businesses close leaving the directories in flux with accurate and stale information. Consumers are in need of relevant context and up to date information about locations within a radius of their influence. Whether traveling or at home they use these services to get to where they want to go.

Mobile devices are driving the consumer’s expectations for businesses to have a wider range of information online and updated nearly in real-time. Additionally, large online retailers are changing the face of many towns and cities due to the increased competition for brick and mortar locations over online sales.

The majority of the brick and mortar locations search for through these services are restaurants, entertainment services, and bars. The common age ranges from 18 to 45 with a growing segment above 45 as this group is beginning to adopt the mobile web revolution.

There are many services like this in the market and users may be fickle with their choice as inventory changes based on which service is more popular in that geographic area.

Large ISVs like Google use this need as an entry point to categorizing consumer habits and a reliable platform for marketing. Every capitalistic country markets to consumers via web services and GPS based mapping services help consumers find the fastest route from their current location to the selected business.

This opportunity will continue to evolve for the foreseeable future as it is part of a core human desire to socialize.

Innovation

Consumers need a smart service or virtual assistant that merges the various directories in an effort to serve accurate information and help the user decide between the similar choices.

The core of the service will be 2 fold. Firstly, as a learning system to study the user’s preferences and search habits in order to produce suggested results and save the user from wading through many similar options. Secondly, it will be a source verification service that enables users to contribute to the accuracy of the information and keep the service relevant.

Many existing services have a method to share information to other web applications and this service will appear similar to how the airline and insurance services find price quotes across many other sources to help consumers get the best rates. This service will help a consumer find the most relevant entertainment in their area.  

The service will be advertiser driven and free to the consumer. The simple business listing will also be free and potentially have been added by the users. $49-99/year Premium business listings will make up the bulk of the revenue and targeted marketing campaigns will offer additional products to businesses for a cost-per-click rate determined by popularity.

Venture Concept

The other services in the market are well established but have neglected to produce a smart service or virtual assistant within their product suite. Other services like Amazon Alexa are gaining popularity and have changed consumer expectations to have information catered specifically to their needs served to them versus going out and finding it themselves. Concatenating the various service inventories through their own web services will provide a deep base of information to apply smart services and search tools for the user. The millions of users within those other platforms continue to provide value to their core service and also trickles to the aggregate service through their background connection to this service.  

Wide market informational campaigns will be needed to articulate the differentiators of this service. Users will see the benefits long term through consistent use of the tools as the service continues to learn and refine its outputs based on usage.

The initial competitors will become official partners through the use of their web services designed to share their information with 3^rd parties. Their value proposition continues to exist with the aggregate service.   

The customer experience is the make or break feature of this service. The general model based on the initial demographics provided by the user will need to be actively improved to give the user the ideal experience before the learning tools gather enough information to create a truly catered experience.

This company will need many data architects and web application developers to refine the services and integrate as many services as possible. The rest of the company will be sales agents and local brand ambassadors to spread awareness in key markets.

User adoption is the most important resource to crowd source the verification of information within the service. Stale information will be the crux that will lose the user’s confidence.

Local entertainment events and elevating small businesses will be the next venture within this platform. This will help the small business find patrons against the onslaught of advertising overshadowing them in the market.

Serial entrepreneurship demands I put each of these ventures into the capable hands of the company and move on to the next idea. Retaining ownership and a board seat in these companies will secure their growth to the long term vision I set in the beginning and allow the company to grow naturally.  Succeed or fail – I will keep evolving and trying new ideas.