I was cleaning up my room one day and I realized just how much plastic I use alone. I then took it out to my family’s trash can in the kitchen and almost everything in there was plastic! I thought, wow I really wish I had a super easy way to recycle; so, I started looking into it and found out that all recycling service charges would be added onto my garbage removal service. To me paying to recycle honestly seemed absurd and completely steered me and my family away from wanting to recycle. Then I started my Principles of Entrepreneurship class with Dr. Pryor and I was able to identify my own unmet need and decided to build an amazing business around the opportunity. There are some people who are already environmentally active and conscious so it would be pointless for me to market my service to these people. I decided that the best untapped market for my service would be large families who are always active but do not have the time or knowledge for recycling. Right now, most people are just throwing all of their trash and recyclables into the same bin and paying a trash service fee for them to take all of your accumulated trash away for you.
With my amazing service I will give every customer a bin for them to fill up with all of their recyclables for free and I will also take all of their recyclables away from them for free as well. I will be able to make money by recycling all of the recyclables that others were just going to throw away for it so sit in a land fill and take up space or even end up in our oceans. A great idea that I got from feed back was to have my weekly newsletter send out as an email instead of a piece of paper. It is more environmentally efficient and it is less of a haggle all of customers including myself. This weekly news letter would not only include recycling facts but also the amount of plastic they recycled and how much plastic I was able to recycle as whole thanks to all of my customers. I have identified my customer market as large families who are always active so they do not have the time or knowledge to recycle.
My venture concept would in fact solve the problem of not being able to recycle and actually having to pay to recycle on top of paying for your garbage removal service. All that I ask is that every container is completely empty and that it is on my list of recyclables. This list includes all seven types of plastic which are labeled for the most part, aluminum, paper, and even glass. Since the market I am really marketing to is large active families I will be able to show them just how much of difference they can make in starting our planets war on plastic. They will be able to recycle a lot of recyclables each week and hopefully start bragging to all of their friends and family about much they are affecting the world for how little effort and time. That is the whole point of my weekly newsletter email giving them real hard facts about how much weight they are pushing and what kind of effect they are making by adding to my company. I can start getting more customers by showing them the results of other family’s success and how much we can all accomplish by working together. The more that they talk to their peers about my service the more people that will also want to feel good about themselves because they too recycle and save the plant at the same time. Once I start getting a big enough clientele pool, I can start my service in other areas that are thriving will ignorance and recyclables.
EVERYBODY SHOULD RECYCLE! Honestly, I do not care about having competitors trying to copy my success. I actually want people to copy me and start on this movement! I see no problem with this since the more people copying me just means that there are more people recycling. Obviously, I still want to be the best recycling option around so I have to say that my weekly email about how much each customer recycles and how much my company as a whole is recycling would stand out from just about every other service out there. It adds a personal touch to my service for each customer that will hopefully uplift their spirits a little be able to a little honest humble bragging because they really are making a difference. This email will be able to show them just how much of a difference we all are creating.
The next venture could be trying to get more customers to start recycling through my service. A cool idea could be that on the weekly newsletters I can show how many peoples recyclables I take care of and show them all the new recycling brothers and sisters that have joined our war on plastics.
In five years, I don’t want to be driving around picking up people’s recyclables. I want to be running multiple teams of people doing this for me. I also want to have started a real movement. This company is not all about making money which initially made me stand out from every other company like me. I want to genuinely change the world for the better.
I have gotten a lot of amazing feedback about my business class throughout this semester. One of the most influential criticisms was from a fellow classmate who told me to switch from an actual newsletter to an email newsletter. I get my memo out without wasting paper and it's very easy for my customers to trash it without feeling guilty about not recycling the paper.
I have changed a lot about my business because of the feedback I have gotten from my peers. I am very thankful for all of the insightful ideas that they gave me. If I were to start this business I really have thought very far ahead and have already avoided numerous obstacles along the way.

Hello Myles,
ReplyDeleteYou did a fantastic job of listening to what your peers had to say and applying it to your venture concept. Your business has the potential to really make a difference in the world and that alone gives you a competitive advantage, if you can get your movement to take off. I think for your company’s sake branding will be extremely important so maybe asking customers to put a bumper sticker on their car or small things like that to spread the word.