Idea Napkin #2

You. 
I am good at baking, public speaking, maintaining professional relationships. I have had a good amount of business relationships because of my job with the Fastenal Company. I know how to write formally, compose appropriate emails, inventory and task/time management, phone calls, dealing with customer and vendor orders. 
I think that my original idea would require too much travel (to see bank headquarters, etc.) and I don't have any experience with making websites or apps.

Before Fastenal I worked at an ice cream shop, and as a telephone interviewer. All of my jobs involve communication and customer service, so I think that my startup should rely heavily on my own ability to communicate ideas and information clearly, and help people out there who need advice. If I work on building a relationship with one specific bank, focusing all my energy on their customer’s needs, and rely on customer purchases to prove my worth, I could then expand my business by adding additional staff and more customers.

What are you offering to customers? 

I am offering customers the ability to better educate themselves through my website filled with podcasts, additional resources, and possibly blogs or other media relating to important financial information. The topics will be applicable to people during many life stages- wanting a loan, homebuying info, investing info, etc. The banks will have a link to my website, where their customers can use the information by logging in with their bank credentials. The banks will subsidize their customer’s memberships so that fees will be as low as $5 month Per participating customer, while the bank pays a flat rate of $200/month, no contract or pressure.

Who are you offering it to? 

Initially, I will focus on a single local bank interested in helping their customers be educated on their investing and savings opportunities. It is in the banks' best interests to encourage their customers to save more money, invest with the bank, or understand the loans they might take out with the bank. Credit unions are more localized and typically more involved in helping their community. Once I have the support of the bank or credit union 1) with a core value of helping their customers/community, 2) without a great website in terms of educational resources. I can advertise the services through their website to their customers for that low per-user rate.

Why do they care? 

I know that I could find customers because educating those who bank with them would lead to mindfulness when saving (they would know the benefits, reasons why, and ways to save), a higher likelihood of participating in other products like CDs (if they know what a CD, etc. are), and it sets them apart from other banks/unions for a price lower than creating the website (especially podcasts) themselves. Due to the high involvement with their communities that smaller banks have, it should be natural for them to embrace my services. The end users will also appreciate the reasonable rates and all will benefit.

What are your core competencies? 

I have my vision & my honesty. I am pretty good at speaking in front of a group, and communication in general- especially written. I think that I could create the podcasts, after studying the content- and I speak with good expression.
I have a couple good relationships with my local bank tellers and sales people, but that wouldn't really help me when in front of the higher-ups who could decide to use my website. I could use my relationship and repour with my District Manager (Fastenal) to ask his advice on how to approach the necessary meetings. He has years of experience pitching to important people and building such business relationships.

I think that in some ways I am complicating my project by planning on working with a bank and the bank’s customers at the same time, but that close relationship could give me excellent feedback on what features and services my product needs to have. In this initial start up process, focusing so strongly on the bank to client relationship can help me figure out if it is more viable to sell to banks or to end users once I continue to expand my business.

Feedback Memo-

My classmates were very supportive, and they made me realize that there were some clear changes that should be made based off of the information I provided in the first Napkin. I said that I didn’t have  a lot of webpage experience; they said I could learn. This made me realize that the competencies I already have should be MORE of my focus- I really do need to be the one making the podcasts, answering the chat feature, etc. I also mentioned that I don’t like to travel, so I didn’t like the idea of having to go meet banking executives- with my classmate’s help I realized that I don’t need to start this business that way. I should focus small and local, like I’d rather, and sell to the end user AND small bank.