TutorCubes Venture Concept
Opportunity
The opportunity for TutorCubes was presented by the decreasing interest in toys/puzzles that promote educational purpose by inducing logical thinking and problem solving skills. This opportunity is primarily devoted to our upcoming youth because they are the thinkers, and the future of our society. Over the past 10 years, technology has started to take over what is typically normal to the youth of our society. Most of the exploring that kids do these days occurs on an iPhone or similar device via apps. Very few children are still playing with physical toys and puzzles after introduced to all of these technologically advanced “toys and puzzles” in touchscreen format. The problem with this is that there is very little interaction between a child and a touch screen besides just hitting the right buttons. I think that children should be physically involved with the toys and puzzles that they choose to play with because they will get more value out of it. This market is demographically designed to benefit the youth however it can also be targeted towards older people for memory enhancement and the prevention of several neuro-harming diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Customers are currently satisfying this need by buying apps and sitting around poking at their phones as opposed to exploring every inch of things and physically moving and rotating things. The best way to learn is to explore, and there isn’t much to explore on a 4.7 inch screen. I feel that their loyalty is strong because it is a new thing, and feels like the socially adept thing to be involved in, however I feel that eventually society will start to revert to more of the “old-fashioned” way of playing with toys. I feel that this window of opportunity will be open until it finally closes, it’s just a matter of when that will happen.
Innovation
My proposition to close this opportunity window is TutorCubes. TutorCubes is an in-home tutoring service designed to get kids back into the world of exploring and learning how to solve new things by using their brain and hands-on problem solving skills instead of their mobile smartphones. My business would be providing children and adults with detailed hands-on sessions with professional tutors that are experts at certain toys and puzzles. We want to teach kids to think in a creative and diverse way that allows them to look at products from every single angle. By using puzzles such as a Rubik’s cube, we can teach children to challenge themselves and inspire a bit of competition inside of them. The Rubik’s cube has over 4 quintillion possible solutions, and when you exaggerate that number to a child, that will make them feel very accomplished when they finally learn to solve the puzzle. TutorCubes would be sold via weekly sessions. Sessions would be held 3x a week, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for an hour per session. The price per week would be roughly 49$. Other packages/bundles would be sold with various puzzles that very in difficulty and propose more of a challenge to children who learn how to solve the first one. This provides room to progress and grow with their skills, and gives them a chance to apply what they have learned.
Venture Concept
I think that parents mainly would want to see their children doing this and having more hands-on problem solving experience as opposed to getting wrapped up in our technologically advanced ways. It provides children an opportunity to grow mentally and I know that parents always want what is going to be best for their children. I feel that our competitors are going to be online tutoring services such as ABCMouse that allow children to use their phones/computers to access tutoring services for school subjects and play online games. I feel that though this is successful, my program would be more effective at improving logical and spatial thinking skills. I feel that price points play a decent sized part in my business venture however I feel that as long as results are provided, there is no real price on getting their kids to learn and improve test scores and have fun while doing it. As long as we have a team of experienced problem-solvers that can teach children in a fun, hands-on learning environment – our program will be very successful. Ideally, we would form our business off of young adults that wish to make money by spreading what they’ve learned with other people. By first teaching the young adults how to do it themselves, we can then teach them how to teach and provide them with a part-time job actually providing the tutoring services themselves to other people while getting paid to do it.
The three minor elements
Most important resource
I feel that our most important resource would be the fact that we are not only giving children the opportunity to evolve their problem solving skills, but we are also providing them with a way to give back to the community and start making money by doing something they love.
What’s next for the venture?
After turning this into a learning-based community of other children, teens, and young adults – we will be able to spread this onto other types of spatial puzzles and platforms for people of all ages. We may be able to expand to an online-interface where we could provide skype sessions with children internationally.
What’s next for me?
In five years, ideally, I would be the manager of a booming company called TutorCubes that has hired professionals of all ages to help spread logical thinking skills to children all over the country, if not all over the world.
Ryan,
ReplyDeleteGreat job on this assignment. I love your passion for helping children learn! Tutorcubes sounds like it could be a really huge success and you seem to have great direction for your venture. I think Parents would jump on board with your idea. I especially like the idea to eventually expand to skype lessons with international kids. Our ideas are very different but check out my blog here: http://katieaustintx.blogspot.com/2016/03/venture-concept-no-1.html
Although I agree that having a hands-on experience is way more beneficial when solving puzzles than solving them on your phone, I'm concerned about the price. I'm not sure if parents would be willing to buy such a service at $50/week when they can just download an app on their phone for a maximum one time payment of $10. Perhaps target this service to schools. Have these tutors go to preschool and elementary classes in place of the kid's recess or class, and have them solve these fun puzzles. You can charge the schools a fee for each session. Great job so far! Check out my post here: http://npc95.blogspot.com/2016/03/venture-concept-no-1.html
ReplyDeleteHi Ryan!
ReplyDeleteGreat job with the assignment, especially with how clearly you conveyed your message and the style of the assignment as far as how it is arranged and presented. I do love seeing your passion for children and their learning process which is commendable and if you convey that to customers, parents would be more likely to opt in for your services. However, with the expenses of a child already, I am not sure how willing parents will be to choose this service due to the price. Great Idea though!! Here is a link to my post: http://breyflynch.blogspot.com/2016/03/venture-concept-no1.html