Here we are, three students: Delaney, Glen, and Trevor, all peers at the wonderful James Madison University coincidentally brought together by a class. Not just any class however, entrepreneurship is the name, making value is the game. Our teacher allowed us to form groups with random partners and challenged us to create a venture to make profit from it in the short 3 months this class will take place during. While he candidly stated that many of us will indeed fail, it is the idea of failing forward that makes us stronger and experienced. Now, not exactly an ideal beginning, per-say, to be told right away more than half the class will not succeed, but most definitely an engaging challenge. And so, the process to venture creation began:
1st: Team Names:
While we bounced around ideas: German words for crazy management, even the idea of crazy management itself; we came to realize we needed more substance, more recognition, and something easier for the public to take grasp and be marketable. With the thought of ideas come from a "source" and then these ideas being relayed in a certain manor, so came to be SourceSpout...our very own company name and a real domain not taken by previous users on the internet.
2nd: Idea Creation. EASY RIGHT? Not exactly...
Just as many students would resort to for ease, we first thought of targeting our own fellow business peers in the lovely Showker halls (only business building on campus). Perhaps we could conquer the ever so famous t-shirts or sunglasses craze which consumes the majority of our campus. We tossed around the idea of unique phrases: "Getting Down to Business" and tying in COB (college of business) onto bright colored sunglasses, or even t-shirt designs. This would have been an easy idea especially considering we didn't have to mess with trademark infringement with the JMU logo. However lets face it, on the innovation scale, the creativity was lacking as every student at JMU most likely already has one of these items.
Then it hit us, why not do something to possibly better campus culture. As JMU is a decent sized college, and lets face it the culture values drinking as a popular activity among many students. However, this activity is often abused as we see much too many students getting drinking tickets, arrested, and receiving DUIs. Perhaps we can help to amend this...especially to those of age who choose to go to a bar or restaurant for a few happy hour drinks then return home. We decided to sell one time use breathalyzers. We are going to obtain them from a separate source, then customize them in order to include our company name, and local taxi numbers/alternatives for driving. With this we are going to be the first of our kind at JMU to target the group of students currently of drinking age who still choose to drink and drive. We hope our product will encourage people to not get behind the wheel realizing they are over the legal limit and foster the opportunity for better decision making to find an alternative route.
3rd: Name Down, Idea Down, Business Model Creation lacking
Considering we had an idea and plan, we now needed a "business model canvas" to provide structure and support to our ideas and see the separate entities of a business as a whole. In class we were provided time to create our own business model from a pre-designed layout we had learned about before.
So feel free to tag along on our venture to actually positively affect college culture in a manor that will hopefully not only produce value for us, but ensure safety to our peers and everyone in this college town. As we pursue groups such as MADD, local bars, and alcohol safety advocates, hopefully SourceSpout's contribution will be one of great value involving peoples lives and safety.
