29A – Venture Concept No. 2

Through my research I have discovered that part of the workforce, mainly blue-collar workers, have a huge need. It is believed that millions of workers could potentially lose their jobs to the increasing use of artificial intelligence in the workplace. And this is all believed to happen within the next decade. So, my main market includes younger workers who are seen as easily replaceable, but I would definitely not ignore the older part of the workforce. I have also expanded my idea to cover workers that need to adapt to new career fields, whether that is because of artificial intelligence or not. My customers aren’t currently doing anything to solve this need. The only thing comparable is vocational school, but that just teaches students a particular industry. So, I believe this opportunity is huge because it is attacking a huge market and is fulfilling a need that is pretty much untouched. This window of opportunity will be open for as long as artificial intelligence poses a threat to jobs and as long as workers need to learn how to adapt to changing fields and how to diversify their skills.

My idea is to basically create a new type of higher education system that is meant to teach students to face the growing problems of being replaced in the workplace. Our goal is not to teach students about a specific industry or field, but to diversify their skills and make them even more valuable to their current industry or make it so that they can easily adapt to any new industry that they have an opportunity in. I believe this idea is incrementally innovative because we have higher education programs already, but this definitely utilizes a different model. But I do believe that my idea can be revolutionary because it will help empower the people seen as lower class and less educated. These people are seen as replaceable and I would like to change that. This service will be created after much research is done on what employers truly value and how to make humans more useful than artificial intelligence. There will be regional based schools in larger cities that students can attend on a semester basis just like university. We will also provide regional seminars to accommodate those who are still working and can not attend full class schedules. This is not to be seen as a university education. Our revenue will come from the credits that the students choose to take or what seminars they attend.

Customers will utilize my service because they will realize they are not prepared to change industries after being laid off, are not seen as valuable by their current employer, or are being replaced by artificial intelligence. It might be a bit difficult to appeal to my market because they are people that already choice not to take the path of higher education, but I believe once they are shown the need for it they will start to use my service. Then hopefully the reputation will speak for itself. The only competitor is really vocational school, but it is not the same at all. And the weaknesses that I can think of would be getting people that did not want to have higher education get higher education. Also, it will be difficult to assemble a working system and exact formula. But I plan on putting together the best and most qualified team available to combat these weaknesses. Obviously, pricing will be huge to people that probably do not make a lot of money to start with. Distribution will be equally as important because we will need to have locations that are convenient to the majority of our customers. Obviously, with it being a service, customers will need to have a great experience and enjoy coming to us. I couldn’t really say how many employees we need, but we will definitely need enough teachers to support having reasonably sizes classes. I must research the areas that will most benefit my market in order to save money and exploit the best opportunities possible.

Our most important resource will be a teaching system that successfully diversifies our students’ skills and makes them irreplaceable. This would be something that would prove to be very difficult to copy. I believe that research is another huge resource because I need to find the best locations and I need to keep my business affordable to my market. My initial plan was to combat the increasing artificial intelligence found in the workplace that is causing people to lose jobs. But then I plan on expanding to help students learn how to adapt to changing industries. After that, I hope to attack other markets and expand my regionally based seminar system. In five years I plan to be completely consumed by this venture and looking for constant improvements. I want to make my venture extremely efficient and won’t stop until I start seeing true results. After I have really established this concept, I will start to back off and let it run itself. Then hopefully I can turn my attention to looking for other ways to improve people’s lives. 

2.) Most of the feedback I received stated that I need to make sure my price point is good for my market because I am targeting the lower class. This is definitely an important point because I wouldn't want my service to be affordable to the majority of my market. Another point that was made said that I need to do thorough research on the locations that I choose.

3.) Based on the feedback, I just realize that I need to be more specific on my locations and that I need to be very conscious of my expenses in order to keep my service affordable.