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Opportunity:




I believe that businesses in Gainesville could benefit from my reduced priced supplies while contributing to be more environmentally friendly.


The forces that make this possible are the inherent desires of a business to cut costs as well as the existence of the RePurpose Project and other used good stores and thrift shops. Locally ran businesses are also an important feature in the mix since they have more flexibility.


The current target market of my business is Gainesville local businesses. In the future, I believe we could shift to helping out more locally owned businesses in other cities and regions. Another vital partnership would be with Alachua County Waste Management. I believe that if we had a partnership with this organization that we would be able to help the businesses we partner with recycle better and more often. We could potentially even collaborate to provide “Green Audits” of the businesses that we partner with to ensure that they are doing their best job at doing well for the planet.


Our current target market is solving this problem through accounts set up with local supply stores such as Staples or just ordering off online sites using their company’s bank account. Since these are not binding contracts, I do not foresee loyalty being an issue if we can provide similar products of high quality at a lower cost.


This opportunity expands far beyond Gainesville and applies to businesses everywhere. I believe that these reasons would drive many businesses to switch their suppliers.


This opportunity will be open until someone else does it and finds a way to do it digitally. I believe that if we were able to get a large enough supply of used goods, we could offer these services to businesses all over the nation. The biggest issue is finding that large of a supply and still keeping our prices low.




Innovation:




The RePurpose Program partners with local Gainesville businesses to provide them recycled office supplies through an established partnership with a local thrift-like, junkyard store known as the RePurpose Project. We offer low prices by buying products from the RePurpose Project and marking them up to make a solid profit but also remaining a good amount below retail price for new goods. This is advantageous for the local businesses and companies we partner with as they are able to save money while reducing their waste and helping another local business. Our pricing model is based on keeping our margins high as possible while also ensuring that they are far enough below the retail value of new goods. Our supply is based on demand; we do not buy goods from RePurpose Project until they are requested by our clients. If we end up branching off to helping more businesses, we would most likely switch to keeping an inventory of often requested goods.




Venture concept:


Since the ultimate goal of most businesses is to make a profit, I believe that our cost savings would drive a large customer base. The idea of being the cheapest available on the market tends to be a poor business model for many companies. However, due to the nature of our sourcing I do not foresee this being as big of an issue. If we were to sell digitally, this then may be an issue as shipping costs tend to be a large factor.




Three minor concepts:




Our most important resource is our partnership with RePurpose Project. This will allow us to source supplies easily and cheaply. If we get them to sign a binding agreement to not work with anyone else, that would guarantee an advantage. However, if we partner with too many businesses and sell mass quantities, we may lose this as an advantage. If we expand our partnerships, we could hedge against this risk.




Our next move would be expanding our supplier and customer partnerships. We could then drive sales due to our increased availability of suppliers. I believe that partnering with Goodwill would be a solid company to work with given their massive presence in the thrifting retail business. However, it may be easier to partner with locally owned thrift stores at first yet I am unsure since most of them just have clothing a knick knacks.




I would not be able to run this business for long unless I hired younger UF students to fill orders. It is not my dream to run this business for life but I think would be a good experience. I do not think hiring college students to continue the business would be too hard as many students work for similar businesses like Uber Eats. I would still be able to take the orders and translate them to whoever I have working in Gainesville. This would be concerning since I wouldn't be able to help fill orders if the students are busy. I am unsure that I would be able to generate enough profit to keep the business going if I had employees. If possible, I would sell it to RePurpose as they could hire people or just have their current workers and interns fill orders.




Summary of feedback from first Venture Concept:




The feedback I received from my last Venture Concept outline was to focus on finding partnerships with other businesses that could provide more supply resources. I agree that this would make my life a lot easier as I would be more assured that we would have a product available to offer to our business clients. I believe that this would allow us to expand our business to serve a wider customer base in a greater geographic region. I think Goodwill could use this as a great way to expand their service offerings and revenues. With the increase in “fast fashion” due to increased accessibility and the internet, I believe that they may eventually have to expand to being available