Assignment 19: Idea Napkin No.2

1) You. I am a second-year business student. I did not know exactly what aspirations I had with my major, but recently I have begun to find that I want to apply it to the family tourism business back in Colombia. My family is composed of tree huggers and thus we have always been very passionate about the environment. Coming up with this app, I held those values in mind. Being able to carry-out the goal of this app, which would be to reduce food-waste and it’s effect on the environment, would make me feel like I’m contributing to the betterment of our world. I feel like it would also propel me to come up with other ideas that could be easy solutions to things we do on a daily basis that also can harm the environment.  

2) What are you offering to customers? I am offering a simple solution to a simple every-day problem. I am offering an app that will help people keep track of their food and food consumption in order to reduce and/or completely eliminate food waste. It is usually difficult to do this and in general people end up forgetting about what they have, which ends up with food going into the trash. Therefore, with this app, with a simple swipe at the cash register, this problem begins to be taken care of. By connecting your credit/debit card to your account on the app, the app analyzes your food purchases and begins a countdown to the expiration date of each product. Doing the work for you and giving you reminders as the date approaches, the app is projected to decrease food waste by at least 50%.

3) Who are you offering it to? I am offering it to the general public. Mainly to those 18 and older, and those who have a tendency to eat/cook at home.

4) Why do they care? Seeing that food waste is a problem that almost every consumer suffers with and a problem that results not only with environmental but also financial consequences, I believe that consumers would use this app as a viable and easy solution.

5) What are your core competencies? There are no other apps that target this problem; thus, I would be the first to be introducing this concept to the public.

I still believe that these concepts fit well together. Targeting the audience and giving exposure of the app to the public will be one of the main challenges, but I believe that once this is done, many will be interested in the concept. Cooperation with other companies will be needed in order for the translation of information into the app to occur and seeing that I don’t really have contacts, I’ll also have work to do in order to make sure that part of the app will be complete.

Feedback:

1.    This app can be targeted to anyone. When I first did my idea napkin, I had picked my target audience to be students/young adults, but reading the feedback I realized that truly, this app can be used by anyone who buys food/cooks on a regular basis.

2.    A lot of planning will be needed. Although it’s obvious that planning is required for the app, this comment did make me think further of exactly what kind of work will be needed to be completed in order for the app to work like it has to.