Idea Napkin No. 1

You Hi, my name is Elizabeth Barbe, I am a first year student and I am a General Business major in the Warrington College of Business. I have developed skills as a team leader through involvement in corporations such as Bank of America where I collaborated with other individuals to create health and wellness curriculum programs that were implemented in non-profits such as the YMCA. Through my involvement in Model United Nations, I ran a club of 60 members and participated in competitions across the state. Through the personable and communicable skills I have learned, my goal is to be able to make an impact on other people’s lives through entrepreneurial ventures. 
What are you offering to customers? I am offering a service that restaurants can use to deliver their leftovers to homeless shelters. I am solving people’s unmet needs because I am offering homeless shelters another source of food which in turn can help those that. are hungry. In turn, I am helping businesses, specifically restaurants, because they're leftovers will no longer go to waste but instead to a good cause.Using my service can help promote restaurants images by showing they are actively trying to help the community. This will be the main motivating factor for restaurants to use my service. 
Who are you offering it to? I am offering my service to restaurants, particularly ones that take on the value of corporate social responsibility. Corporate social responsibility is a concept that companies look after society and not just themselves. One popular company that abides by this is Toms. For every shoes a consumer buys, Toms donates a pair. However, my service can be offered to more restaurants, but I thought ones that were focused on giving back to the community would be more likely to use it. 
Why do they care? This is a solution that restaurants would want to get involved in because it can act as positive marketing for they business. They can promote that they are using my service which will give them a more positive view by the community and make more people want to spend their money there. Also, being able to give back to the community is satisfying and it allows restaurants to not put their leftovers to waste. 
What are your core competencies? What sets my idea apart from others is that it is the first service to actually utilize restaurants. Most organization that try to gain donations for homeless shelters/the hungry in general try to gain donations from the public, but most of the public don't even realize they can donate. Utilizing restaurants for this cause could open up a whole new door in helping to solve world hunger. 
Paragraph I think all these elements work well together because it combines two necessities. Homeless shelters/food banks have a need for more food donations and restaurants have a need to use their leftovers in a less useful way. I do think my idea has one weakness and that is appealing to restaurants to get them to use my service. I think it will require some negotiating with restaurant owners in order to get them on board with the idea. With that being said, I don't think negotiating should be too hard because their leftovers are just going to waste and restaurants are already losing money by throwing them away, so they should have no problem donating their leftovers instead. 



Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 6, 2017 at 10:00 AM

    Elizabeth, I think everything you mentioned in your sections was well said. I also that that it was smart of you to add the restaurants to your customer base because you are giving them an opportunity as well in helping the homeless and gaining positive feedback from the community. I think other people might just focus on the the fact that it is directly helping the homeless. Also I think this idea has a lot of potential!

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  2. UnknownOctober 8, 2017 at 11:55 AM

    Elizabeth,
    I'm glad that you highlighted the importance of corporate social responsibility. In addition to improving the reputation of businesses that subscribe to social responsibility ideals, I believe that the societal benefits that occur when companies are concerned with the wellbeing of the less fortunate are significant. I'm an enormous fan of your concept and I think that eliminating waste by providing for those who are suffering is one of the most noble goals possible.

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  3. ShelleyOctober 8, 2017 at 12:23 PM

    Hi Elizabeth,
    You seem to have many skills that will benefit you well in this venture. You have worked alongside people and interacted with large businesses, allowing you to gain the knowledge on how to communicate well. I like how you talked about corporate social responsibility and related it to restaurants. This is going to be interesting to see because restaurants are on a much smaller scale than large corporate companies. Your company will be beneficial because it will help cut down on waste and help people in need. These are two qualities that will be very attractive to businesses.

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