25 A Whats Next ( Student Experience Services)

In the existing market I decided to interview three of my coworkers who find themselves in similar situations as myself. These are people that have been interviewed before and are believers in my concept. When refreshing them about my service idea they all seem to be thinking the same way. I told them that my goal was to implement this program at the University of Florida and they all said that my next step is to start this program all over the country.

Much like my interviewees I see this being a program that is nationwide. Universities and colleges all over the country have students in this situation. The issue that would arise is that the University of Florida would most likely have a much better chance of creating partnerships than some smaller colleges. Also many of the larger universities have a large network already that can be accessible for this idea.

With that said this program would find the most success at the larger universities that already have a pre-existing network to tap into. What makes the most sense to me is not trying to scale too quickly. I believe it will be easier to learn from mistakes if they are only made in one place rather than hundreds. Reaching out to other large Florida universities would come next then spreading throughout the country.

Because of the nature of this service it is difficult to find a radically different market. The next market to reach out to would be high schools. Many high school students are trying to find what they want to do as they grow older but don’t have many opportunities to try it.

I interviewed to high school students to find out their feeling about this market. I actually ended up interviewing them twice. My reason for this was that the interviewees are busy students, one a cheerleader and the other a football player. At first they had a little bit of interest but realized that their busy schedules wouldn’t work with the idea so I adjusted it. I made the adjustment to make this a summer program and they were much more interested.

Prior to this assignment I had already eliminated high school students as a market. I did so because some of the feedback from fellow students. They were right. But with the adaptations I made I believe they are a market that can benefit from this service. I was very surprised that the two students were willing to give up their summer for an internship program with no money.

I think that the main reason this can be successful in high school is because it is reward based. The reward for this to the student is they receive community service hours that can be beneficial to getting into college when the time comes. Finding the most success in high schools is still a work in progress but does have potential to be another market for the service.