Going Into The Shark Tank

I am at my final stages of my entrepreneurial development project. Here is a recap of what I’ve worked on this semester:

• I came up with my idea and determined my purpose. I saw a problem, and came up with a way to fix it.

• I determined my sneezers and my hive. I found stats on freelancers and narrowed down my target audience.

• I highlighted my competition, namely Elance and hitRECord, and determined how I would be different.

• I determined the name of my product: Joint.

• I evaluated my values and came up with a minimally viable product (MVP).

• I brainstormed tag lines for my product.

• I thought about how I would fund Joint and how I could make a profit from it.

• I reevaluated my audience and determined a more solid market.

• I pinpointed my strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

After much thought and going through all of those steps to solidify my product, I still have some inhibitions. All I need to do is design a great pitch to wow the judges. Nervousness and inhibitions aside, I feel confident enough with my product that I am ready to enter the Shark Tank…

Threats

My biggest threat is definitely my competitor Elance. Although we are slightly different, Elance is already a well-established company that succeeds greatly. The silver lining is that Elance probably doesn’t have a huge following, as it is a job-finding site, and once people find a job, they might not go back right away. Until maybe their freelancing gig is up.

This website encourages the consideration of consumer purchasing tendencies, and that is something that worries me a bit. Although I would be offering upgrades for very little money, I worry that my consumers will not be willing to pay money on the service. Because much of my market is younger people, just out of college, they probably don’t have a huge yearly salary and wouldn’t want to add an extra charge.

I must also consider the same issue that Elance probably has, and that is creating a large following. Because Joint is a type of match-making service, would people use the product again once they have found a match? My vision is that people use Joint for short-term projects and will go back to the service once they are finished. They can also use it to find people if, along the way, they feel they need to use another talent with their project.

Problem ——-> Solution

The first step in coming up with my idea for Joint was identifying a problem. Something that we didn’t have or didn’t work very well. Something that people want and need to make life better and easier. I found that problem when I had it myself.

I’ve already discussed my issue with finding a web developer, but I know of others who had the same problem. My friend living in Columbus wanted to create a short film, but he needed a writer and an editor to assist him. He didn’t know how to go about doing that other than texting all of his colleagues and posting a message on Facebook and Twitter. He eventually found some people, but it took quite a bit of time.

With Joint, you wouldn’t have to wait all that time. You would be able to create a profile, simple and easy. You would be able to filter your preferences, simple and easy. You would be able to select a location and swipe through people who meet your preferences, and reach out to someone who you would work with. That whole process can happen within an hour.

Like with Tinder, you don’t have to go through the trouble of reaching out to people on Facebook or meeting them in person until you find someone you like, Joint makes it easy to find someone quickly, so you can begin your project with no further ado.

My Strengths

We did an exercise in class during which we discussed our strengths and weaknesses with our product. I definitely think one of my biggest strengths in developing Joint is my ability to relate to my audience. Although I am not a freelancer, I work on many projects with which I sometimes wish I had someone to collaborate. For example, at the beginning of this year, I needed someone to help develop a website for my student organization. It was extremely difficult to find someone with the right credentials, the willingness and the time allowance to take on a such a project.

The two people I did find ended up bailing on me, and I wish I had some sort of forum to discuss the project and recruit people to help. I know there are many others like me who are having the same problem. Another strength is my knowledge of social media and how people use it. I know what it takes to make a good, informational profile, and I know what people around my age like when it comes to efficient websites.

The need for efficiency is another strength I have. I have identified that this is what people want most with their websites and social networks, and I have sought to create a product that is quick, efficient, and easy to use.

A Slight Change

I know, this is late in the game, but as Joint is come to fruition, I decided to reevaluate my audience. I feel that my product will more likely benefit very young workers, especially those right out of college who are looking for like-minded people to collaborate with, not necessarily people looking for a job at a company. Because that position is something I can relate to, I feel that people like me would be more likely to use a product like Joint. Especially in this technological era, in which people in their early twenties are extremely apt to use social media and networking sites.

I also think that specifying my sneezers in this way will further separate me from what Elance does. Whereas Elance extends a hand to both freelancers and companies, Joint will offer an easier platform for people to meet in order to work on building a website or filming a video. It will be less of a hiring site, and more of a social networking site with a specific purpose.

That being said, the hive will extend out to older or younger people wishing to collaborate. For example, college students working on a project, or seasoned professionals. My sneezers will be the very specific 22-25-year-old working in communication who is looking for others to help with a project.

Money, Money, Money

It’s about time I begin discussing the funding for Joint. When I first launch my product, I will need some funding right away to hire staff and get people interested. It may be beneficial to begin with a crowdfunding site such as GoFundMe or Kickstarter. I won’t need to raise a ton of money, but just enough to get my idea off the ground.

Once I actually have a product, my main source of revenue will be advertising. I may begin using Google AdSense to turn a bit of quick profit. It would be easy to set up, free, and the ads with be catered to my audience.

Advertising cannot be the only way to make money, though. I feel that Joint can work well with a freemium model. In other words, it would be free for users to apply its simplest features. Users will be able to create a profile, select and filter skills, and communicate with other users. The premium features, however, will allow users to choose more specific filters, search a specific user or company, and create a more extensive profile.

The premium upgrade will only be a small cost each month, to give users incentive to purchase it. I have yet to determine an exact price and method of payment.

Inspired By…

This week I presented the co-founders of Food52 for my Entrepreneurial Spotlight. I was inspired by the website’s tagline, “Helping people become better, smarter, happier cooks.” Although that line doesn’t sum up the website, it’s a great mission for its target audience. Even though I’m not quite ready to come up with a tagline for Joint, it feels like the right time to begin thinking about some branding techniques.

In coming up with a tagline, OXP recommends writing down all the words that relate to the business or the message that the product is trying to give. Here is a list of some of those words:

Communication, Effectiveness, Efficiency, Advantageous, Collaborative, Social, Diverse, Simple, Pragmatic…

I want my tagline to draw people in and seem interesting, but I also want it to reflect Joint’s mission and ideals in a short statement.

How about: Communicating in Collaboration

Or: Effective Collaboration

Or: A Simple Way of Collaborating

None of those are that great, but I feel I’m off to a good start.

I found some other websites’ taglines that may steer me in the right direction. Create Digital Media uses the line, The art & science of app creation.” It is very straightforward, but that is what makes the website’s purpose obvious. Apple‘s tagline is “Think different” which is a bit more vague, but it works with its simplicity and catchiness. Finally, all in good fun, Disneyland’s slogan is “The Happiest Place on Earth.” Now that is a tagline that really works.

Values

This week in class we discussed our companies’ values and how those lend to the MVP and mission statement. I have been thinking a lot about those values, and I would like to use them to refine the mission of Joint. Some of the values I brainstormed included, efficiency, accuracy, and quickness. I also decided that the most useful features for Joint will include user profiles, a search feature, and one-on-one chat boxes when matches are made.

I felt that the user profiles are probably the most important, because like with Facebook and Twitter, the profiles help set up a persona for each user, and that is how users can match up and find one another. The search feature is also critical, because for efficiency matters, finding someone who has skills that you know you want or need will be very easy if the user can just search tags for that person. The chat boxes are also important, because like on any social media site (especially LinkedIn) sending messages to the matches will expedite the process of meeting and deciding if that is the right person to collaborate with.

With those values and features in mind, I have updated my mission slightly:

Joint is focused on provided an efficient match-making platform on which small businesses and freelancers can find accurate matches for collaboration.

All In A Name

I thought that at this point in the development process, it’s about time I come up with a name for my project. When coming up with a name, I didn’t want it to be anything complicated, long, difficult to pronounce. In accordance with my company’s values, I wanted something quick and simple. I decided that the best method for that would be to come up with a single word. When I was thinking about existing companies, I realized that many of the ones boasting quickness and consolidation had only one world in the name. For example, Vine is for short videos, Yelp is for quickly finding reviews, and Zite is for quick news clippings.

Of course, those examples aren’t true for all companies like that, but I thought the method would work well for my idea – which is a quick and efficient way to meet other artists for collaboration. Therefore, I came up with the name Joint. It is short, easy to pronounce, and quick to type in a search bar. I also felt that the name worked well in kind of describing my idea. When I began thinking of ideas for the name, I looked up words having to do with collaboration, meeting, or working together. I stumbled upon words like “together,” “alliance,” “partner,” but none of them had a nice ring or really described my idea. Joint, however, means collaboration, joining, and togetherness, but it is also the perfect name for my product.