Forming an Opportunity Belief

1) I believe that an opportunity exists in teaching college students how to cook and maintain a healthy balance between their diet and college responsibilities.

2) The unmet need pertains to college students. Most college students, especially freshmen, come into college with little to no cooking experience. This need has always existed. It is well known that college students take the easy way out when eating. The term, “Freshman 15”, where new freshmen gain weight during their first year proves that this is an important unmet need for college students. Students are on college meal plans, purchase frozen meals, and order take-out. This opportunity 100% exists in college towns, especially in a place like Gainesville.

3) The prototypical customer is a college student.

4)

Q1: Would you consider yourself a good cook? Who cooked before you came to college? How is that affecting you now?

·      No, I have no experience. My Mom cooked all the meals, she grocery shopped as well. I now don’t know what to buy, what works together, or even how I’m supposed to cook any foods I do buy.

Q2: As a freshman, what does your diet consist of?

·      Cereal with fruit, protein shakes, Chipotle, meal plan items (chicken, burgers, hot dogs, pasta, dessert). Living in a dorm doesn’t allow me to try and cook things myself because it is communal and I have no pots/pans/etc.

Q3: Would you like to be a better cook? Why? When did you realize how important maintaining a healthy lifestyle is?

·      Yes, I want to live a healthier lifestyle and budget my food money better. Eating mainly take out and quick snacks does not satisfy me and give me the nutrients I need. I realize I am more sluggish when I eat premade meals and thinks like that. I think learning how to cook and prepare meals would make me feel better internally, perform better, and not be as tired.

5) I realize that the opportunity does still exist. I think an issue that could arise is that even if freshmen aged students took cooking classes; they still won’t be able to really prepare meals because they don’t have the means to if they live in a dorm. But the cooking classes wouldn’t just be for freshmen, so I think it would still be very beneficial for sophomores and even upperclassman.

Entrepreneurs should definitely take customer feedback into consideration. If an entrepreneur simply ignores feedback, then his/her product or service cannot be as useful as it could be if the entrepreneur adapts his/her idea to the feedback received from customers. Listening to customers is extremely important if someone wants to be successful.