Towards Execution

At the beginning of every semester most students are occupied with the hustle and bustle of registering for classes, and purchasing new textbooks for their classes. My entrepreneurial idea is bathed from the need of finding EXTREMELY CHEAP textbooks. I want to create a website which will enable students to sell and buy textbooks from each other, and it will also be open to competitors.

That is how it started- just as an idea! However, the idea has progressed and built up into reality, and hopefully the website will be launched soon! Coming up with an entrepreneurial idea to me meant looking at the society around me, and identifying a need. In this way, textbooks are a MUST have resource for every student, however with the sky high cost that comes with getting them, I felt that something had to be done to make the process of getting the textbooks  easier for students.

 

To solve this need- expensive textbooks, a website has to be created to cater for students in different schools; it will initially be an online portal where any college student can log in, and search for his/ her school, and identify a class and either buy or sell the textbook from that class. This website would offer a cheaper and more convenient way to purchase and sell textbooks. Implementing the use of social media is key to the growth of the website. This is because if a student is selling his/ her textbook, they would tend to be proactive in getting the word out about their merchandise. In this, they will post links and short messages on their social media sites: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube … the list is endless. Excel will be used to facilitate the organization and presentation of the various transactions happening on the website, through the use of tools such as: conditional formatting, and pivot tables.

Since we are talking about ecommerce a PC is important for every user engaged in the transactions, as it pretty much acts as a gateway to the internet. However, with advances in technology, users will be able to log in to the website from their smartphones, and tablets. As time progressed, I also had a chance to identify the competition, and analyze their strengths and weaknesses. With most of the competition, for example textbooks.com, their user interface does not make it easy to find a textbook. In addition, all the websites I checked did not offer textbooks customized to the specific schools. The website which I am proposing will make it easy for students to find a textbook, whereby a student can click a desired subject or department of study, or even a school. Moreover, since students will be selling their used textbooks to other students, it will be possible for a student to find a customized textbook for their school.

Derek Sivers (http://sivers.org/multiply) says that: Ideas are just a multiplier of execution; Ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions. Since I started with just an idea, my IST 195 class has equipped me with knowledge which equals tools which I can use to execute and bring about reality. Tools such as: use of cloud computing, and adaptation of Adobe Photoshop which will be used to edit the pictures posted on the website to increase their marketability; incorporation of Windows Server 2008 Standard, and utilizing cryptography to enhance security in the website. For this product to launch, I will share my idea with the team at the Syracuse Student Sandbox (http://www.syracusestudentsandbox.com/about/), which acts as an incubator to give aspiring student entrepreneurs the resources to make their visions a reality. Additionally, I would meet up with the team behind The Raymond von Dran Innovation and Disruptive Entrepreneurship Accelerator (IDEA) (http://idea.syr.edu/about/) and discuss my idea with them, and come up with a game plan on the steps needed to execute the idea.