Venture Concept 1- OChacon.com

1           Opportunity

The main force creating this opportunity is probably time itself. As time goes on, technology progresses, and with coding technology this is especially true. In 10 years there can be A LOT of progress. It is why un-updated websites from the 2000s look so stale and gross now. Social communities also change regarding their priorities, humors, and wants, and it is absolutely vital for social media creators to take note of this. Due to a neglect in this area, my opportunity has arisen.

Geographically, this market can be located just about anywhere in the world, as it is online. However, I’ve noticed concentrations in the western Unites States and Canada. Demographically, it is majority women who are mostly college-educated. The age range is 18-25 with a few outliers. They are all either artist/writer hobbyists or professionals, and are interested in experiences with their friends.

Currently, I think customers are mostly satisfying their need for a modern platform to chat, write, and draw by using a cocktail of 2-3 different websites and lowering their expectations as a way of coping. Due to these lowered expectations, I’d say they’re none too loyal. In my own experience in the past, this market jumps ship to another social media website within months of a better alternative being released. Usually, the only thing keeping people’s loyalties are their followings that they’ve worked hard to build up, but even then it isn’t always enough.

This market I am targeting, while more niche, I would still comfortably say is a few thousand people big, and according to a poll I conducted, seems to be either stagnating or growing. The people in this market spend plenty of discretionary income on fandom and original merchandise, so I know a small monthly membership fee is not unrealistic.

The community doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, so I would say that the window of opportunity will last until someone else creates something. I can safely say a year or two at minimum, seeing as I’ve been in this community for years without any alternative offered. My only guess for why nothing has been created is just that most people involved are hobbyists and have schoolwork or full-time work to do, so no one’s taken the plunge in creating something.

2.                  Innovation

My service is on the more continuous or dynamically continuous levels of innovation, as it won’t require much (if any) learning at all beyond getting used to the interface. My market is a more tech-savvy one, so a new social media website should feel ideally familiar and intuitive. The most innovative part is who it’s for- all I am really doing is combining the most useful aspects of the 2-3 websites my market frequents.

To be more specific, my current market uses various combinations of these three websites: DeviantArt, Twitter, and Discord. The reason why my market cannot survive on just one of these alone goes as follows, with each website’s pros and cons:

DeviantArt

+ Capable of hosting artwork, animations, and literature

+ While ill-suited for original content, groups can be hosted here as well

- Outdated chat and social functions make it very hard to meet people

- Groups with decent HTML formatting and organization are charged $60 a year to upkeep.

Twitter

+ Artwork can be posted here, whether finished or in-progress works

+ Very easy to meet and socialize quickly with people through mutual followers and the dashboard feature

+ For professional artists and those who offer commissions and merchandise, Twitter is additionally a great place to advertise themselves.

- Picture quality is iffy, not friendly to different kinds of image formats

- Due to character limit, ‘serious’ conversation regarding roleplaying can’t really be done here- Twitter is just a place for others to keep up with their friend’s lives.

Discord

+ Easy to use and great for creating large chatrooms for roleplaying groups with many members

+ Direct messaging feature

+ 2000 character limit is pretty literature-friendly

+ New and constantly updating

+/- Very controlled audience for who sees your content

- While pictures can be uploaded here, quality is iffy

- Cannot upload animation videos

- Shared artworks are easily lost due to being buried by messages

So, my plan is to combine the positive elements of these three websites to the best of my ability, with a large focus on being art-friendly. I plan to profit by either selling advertising space or by offering premium features for members’ profiles and groups for a low rate of $3.99 a month.

3.                   Venture Concept

As stated prior, I believe it will be customer’s dissatisfaction with what is currently offered that will bring them to my website. I expect switching to take a few months, so the first few months of being up and running will be quite the hustle. All of my established competitors have specific focuses to their websites just like I do, but my main advantage is that my target audience isn’t really interested in them.

When members purchase a membership, I’d like to send a nice thank-you card to them as a tangible representation of good customer service. The purchase process will be automated through a 3^rd party like paypal and my team and I will be available for emails for questions. My team will ideally consist of me, a coder, a graphic designer, and 1-2 others to help moderate. We will mainly keep in contact through online medias, though if the website becomes profitable enough I would love to consider a small office.

4.                   Three Minor Elements

1.                  My important resource is being part of my own market.

2.                  Perhaps partner with a merchandise-making company to give people the option to turn their art into prints and charms.

3.                  I would like to be able to grow this venture enough so it becomes sustainable in the next 5 years. In the next 10, I’d like to move on to my own artistic endeavors. This will be useful business experience.