29A – Venture Concept No. 2

Opportunity:

·      The Idea

o   World Hunger is an issue that has tried to be solved by organizations such as The Hunger Project, Food Pantries, Children’s Hunger Alliance and many others, many of these organizations run off of donations solely from the public, but a lot of people don’t even know these organizations exist. One of the largest markets for food donations has not yet been tapped: restaurants. I believe that a service that picks up leftover food from restaurants and delivers it to homeless shelters will not only be able to help restaurants, but also the community.

·      Who has the need

o   The need for this falls under two branches. First, the less fortunate who are not able to have consistent meals and rely on places like food pantries. Second, this idea gives restaurants a way to not waste their money by just throwing away food and instead allows them to use their leftovers in a non-wasteful way.

·      The nature of the need

o   This need stems more from people who do not have the capability to put food on their tables every day. If food banks were being adequately stocked with food then there would be no need for my service. However, the country still has a long way to go in curing hunger and it is something that is still rampant in the US.

·      Forces/Changes

o   This is created by two things. First, people falling into slumps, losing their job, getting a divorce, whatever it may be and not being able to recover and then not being able to provide food for themselves. Second, a lack of sufficient donations to causes trying to aid world hunger.

·      Market

o   Defined by anyone who falls under the category of not being able to provide food for themselves as well as any restaurants that have usable leftovers that could be donated.

·      Current Satisfaction

o   Most people rely on local food banks or homeless shelters to get meals, but this is not always reliable and does not always serve adequate meals. Separately, through all the research I have done I found that not many restaurants are satisfying the need of food waste and normally throw away leftovers instead of donating them. In turn, restaurants that are more conscientious of their leftovers can create consumers that are more conscientious with their leftovers which can help food waste as a whole.

·      Opportunity Size

o   World huger can always be helped and will likely continue to increase as wealth gaps increase in many countries, this means that it is constantly a growing opportunity. Furthermore, since many restaurants don’t donate their food, this is a huge untapped market with a lot of opportunity to grow as many companies would want to be a part of a good cause.

·      Length of opportunity

o   Currently I am only counting my market as the US and particularly the city I live in because I want to start off small. If/when I expand to other countries then the market will only continue to grow and the length of opportunity will increase. This is mainly due to a lot of third world countries where many people don’t have the ability to support themselves and my service would be needed. The lifestyle of these countries will likely continue to be in the state they’re in for the rest of my life.  

Innovation

·      What it is/what it does/how it works

o   My plan is to create a service that will stop by different restaurants to pick up their leftovers and deliver them to local food banks and/or homeless shelters. The service will be mostly done by using vans that have a pre-set location to go to a specific restaurant that will be that van’s assigned restaurant. I want to create a data base that has all the restaurants willing to donate, vans’ numbers, and food bank locations. I would pair the restaurants with an assigned van and the closest food bank, this would create efficiency as well as save gas. In terms of getting a restaurant to allow me to get their leftovers, this would require some negotiating. However, many restaurants have to pay a fee to have some of their leftovers removed and my service would be cost free, which is my main selling point.

o   My service is more of a non-profit so I am not looking to be incredibly profitable in the beginning. My profit wouldn’t come until later on when my brand name can begin to be more well-known and I can specialize into other things that I can charge for. For example, the YMCA is a non-profit, but they have specialized to charge for their gym membership, summer camp, etc. I will run into initial costs of having to rent vans and employers, however businesses that register as non-profit with the government receive tax reductions and stipends that I would use to help pay for things.

Venture Concept

·      Competitors switching

o   I have very few competitors in this field because it is a largely untapped market, there are only one or two other food services that pick-up leftovers and donate them and they were all small scale. I don’t think competitors in non-profits are something to be incredibly worried about, especially in this field, because we all want to help the same cause. With this logic, if one were to be more successful than the other then they would want to help each other out. With that same thought process of helping each other in the name of a cause, I believe that I could even reach out to competitors -- including Feeding Forward and Rescuing Leftover Cuisine—and talk about how they started their business and how successful they think it is.

·      Role

o   I don’t have a lot of packaging concerns; my main concerns are vans and vessels to deliver food in (i.e. disposable pans). However, I believe a large role in my business would be the customer service. Since I am a non-profit and there is nothing to be gained from my business except personal morale, it is important to create a bond with customers (restaurant owners) so they know I am trustworthy. If I don’t create a good bond, then they won’t want to use my service.

·      Making a business

o   My business would be organized around one central hub and I would hope to grow it out from there. I would need one employee per van and for now I would handle the business side of things myself. I currently have two restaurants wanting to participate and I would add new vans as more restaurants become a part of this.

Minor Elements

·      Secret sauce

o   I have contacts of restaurants wanting to support this idea, which is the main thing I need to get my start-up up and running, and reassures me that this will be successful and can only keep growing.

·      What’s next for venture

o   I would want to continue to expand, this would include going to and talking to more restaurants to try to gain their favor and allow me to use their leftovers. This would also include adding new vans to my service so more food banks have a constant inflow of food.

·      What’s next for you

o   My hope is to grow the service to a point where I can specialize. I particularly love to cook so I would like to open my own bakery and begin to make a profit that way. If the bakery were to become successful then I would like to focus all of my time on that and train someone new to take over my CEO position of the service.

I received mostly positive feedback on my venture concept so it actually made editing pretty difficult. All of the comments I received liked the amount of detail I put into my concept and also how I formatted it. So, I mostly gave myself feedback by further developing my market and adding a bit more detail to some questions.

I adapted to my self-criticism by:

·      defining the nature of my need more and showing that my service comes entirely from people who cannot provide food for themselves.

·      I expanded the length of my opportunity to include leaving the country

·      I showed how my competitors could actually help me

·      I explained the importance of customer service in a non-profit

(except with my company name)