1) You. I am a full-time student and I'm a full-time legal assistant. I'm majoring in public relations so that I can strengthen my writing and become a reporter and hopefully write a novel someday. If I were to start this business, it would be a second job for me as it currently is now until it could fully support me financially. I would have to wait until I had enough clients so that it would be a lucrative business and could afford to hire extra help.
2) What are you offering to customers? I'm offering overnight pet sitting, daily check ins that would include playtime, feedings, and walks for dogs, and transportation to grooming appointments.
3) Who are you offering it to? I'm offering it to older adults (40s +) with higher education and/or professional jobs. They love to travel but are concerned with living their house not watched and their pet(s) in a kennel.
4) Why do they care? They care because they can afford to hire someone to stay in their house to look after their pet(s), water plants, check the mail, and make it look like someone is home so that it is more secure while they're away. They also care about the comfort of their pet(s) and would rather them stay where they are comfortable.
5) What are your core competencies? I want to TNR (trap-neuter-return) cats for every pet sitting job. A proceeds of each job will go towards doing this and fostering cats that are friendly enough to adopt out. I have connections with fosters who TNR, so I am able to learn firsthand how to do it and could easily find/hire experienced help.
I believe most of these elements fit together because of the area of Florida I live in and my experience, connections, and compassion for animals. The weaker areas would be transportation to grooming appointments and availability for overnight for one family at a time. I've only taken dogs to grooming appointments twice and it was for the same family, and right now it is only myself who pet sits over night. I work alone while doing this, so I'm not able to offer a potential overnight job to someone else while also benefiting from it. I don't charge enough currently to do that to where we could both make a desired profit. However, I could probably afford to pay someone a portion of a day's worth of pet sitting if they could transport the pet(s) to a grooming appointment, but I would need to start telling new clients about this to see if they would be interested.
Feedback from Idea Napkin No.1 was to add what differentiates me from other house sitting companies and to get some outside help to improve the weaker parts. I incorporated this feedback by stating my desire to TNR cats from profits made from pet sitting jobs, and being open minded to paying someone to transport the pet(s) to a grooming appointment.
Savannah,
ReplyDeleteI think your idea napkin is very detailed and clearly written. It sounds like you are on a great path and possess the traits that you need to reach your goals. I think it's great for you to be able to offer something special, like TNR, to set yourself aside from other people that offer the same service.