25A – What’s Next?
EXISTING
MARKET:
What’s
next? The next step
for me is targeting local restaurant businesses and pitching my services to
them as potential customers. In essence, it’s time to make a sale.
Path: I interviewed representatives from
three companies: Relish, Mojo Hogtown, and The Swamp. With these businesses, I
discussed that I believe my next step as a venture is simply making a sale.
Each interviewee partly agreed, but was also able to add some insight into what
they believe I should be doing next:
Relish:
Here, I learned that I should start building a “resume.” In other words, I need
to get experience under my belt to work my way up to bigger clients.
Mojo Hogtown:
I did not get much additional feedback here. The only advice I received was to
build a convincing case why a restaurant should adopt an allergy menu as opposed
to just training servers and chefs to be cognizant and accommodating of individuals
with food allergies.
The Swamp:
Here, I was advised to conduct additional, more wide-reaching market analysis.
This is important because it is necessary to first convince these local
restaurant businesses that they are losing money by not catering to individuals
with food allergies.
Clearly, my
next step should be some broader consumer research so that I am able to display
to these firms what opportunities they are missing out on by no catering to
individuals with food allergies, In addition, I need to begin by catering to
small restaurants/shops so that I can build my resume and attract slightly
larger clients.
NEW
MARKET:
What is
this new market? Since
my venture is designed to be B2B, I decided that this new market should be
ultimate consumers (local restaurant customers).
Can I
create value for the new market? The interesting thing about my venture is that the value for
the firms to which I am selling is derived from the value perceived by their
customers. If I am serving the businesses adequately, I am by design adding
value for their customers who make up the ultimate consumer base.
Reflection: Based on what I gathered from the
ultimate consumers (both of which had food allergies), my venture would indeed
add value for ultimate consumers. Ultimately, I do not think that attempting to
serve this additional market will be as lucrative as acting in the B2B market. Organizations
which collect allergy menus for ultimate consumer convenience already exist (e.g.
AllergyEats) and selling allergy menus to ultimate consumers is not an option.
From here, I
plan to continue pursuing local restaurant businesses as clients because not
only will this create value for the firms which I am serving, but it will also
create value for ultimate consumers who suffer from sever food allergies.
Ultimately, I believe I can offer a more valuable/rare service when catering to
businesses rather than consumers.
Hey there Johnathan! You did a really great job with this blog post. I also agree that your venture would indeed add value for ultimate consumers. It most likely will not be as lucrative to serve this additional market than it is for the B2B market, but that is ok if you ask me.
ReplyDeleteJohnathon,
ReplyDeleteGreat minds think alike. I never really addressed it but I was thinking you could make your own restaurant that is based on food allergens. After that you add in the basic versions for people who do not suffer from those issues. It would require more kitchen supplies to not mix things such as peanut oil with food for people with food allergies. This would fit perfect with your market to gather local customers.
Hey Jonathan,
ReplyDeleteAgain, great work with there blog post, it is extremely organized and easy to read, which is always half the battle. I agree with Daryl and her idea of making your own allergy friendly restaurant as your next step. It could be a revolutionary idea within the restaurant and food industry. I think that creating some sort of fast on the go type of place like chipotle that could eventually grow to be a national chain would be an amazing idea with a lot of potential.
I agree that sticking with B2B services will definitely benefit you more than applying your services directly to consumers. For the restaurant idea in the comments, I do feel like it's a good idea; however, I think it would be really difficult to pull off. There will definitely he some higher expenses if he would go in this direction. Plus, if he were to be cooking in the same kitchen, I feel as though the fumes could potentially carry its way into other foods where it could be a potential allergy for another person. If you were to go this route, you can have some separate sections of a kitchen where they are almost blocked off. On top of that, have some sort of overhead ventilation that catches the fumes. Going this route, you need to be careful with who you hire. You definitely don't want a careless employee in something like this. But overall, great post and excellent feedback from the companies that you interviewed!
ReplyDelete