Forming An Opportunity Belief

I believe that many people can relate to my opportunity. Women (especially those in college) find it nervewracking to transition to being on their own in general. Aside from that, women find it stressful and scary walking alone in an unpopulated area, especially at night and this has been happening for decades. From the spree of different serial killers in the 70s and even cases with things like Uber today. I feel that when women are not in a place like a campus that has emergency call towers it's important to help them feel safe. Sure, there are apps and gadgets, but women continue to get taken and hurt every day. I feel that there must be some better way to ensure the safety of women when they find themselves alone.

I spoke to two different women and one man to see the differences in responses about this issue. The prototypical customer, in my opinion, would be women, and maybe men, who don't feel safe being alone in public.

My first interviewee was my mother. I wanted to gain an outside perspective to see how it has been to both be a woman who has been scared walking alone and being a mother to women who have the potential of being hurt. My mom said that to this day, she is frightened of walking alone especially at night. With this, she continues to say that she is nervous about all three of her daughters being on a college campus and far away. Personally, when I am walking alone at night I always call my mom so that I have an added sense of security and she does the same. It's adequate for now but not all realistic. If I was taken, what could she do being 4 hours away? How would she know who took me and where they were taking me? She explained that she is almost always aware of the problem as she thinks about it often. She has had a fear for years upon years. She even stated what I briefly described in my introduction. My mom was born in 1964, so in the '70s as a teenager in Florida, the news about Ted Bundy is what sparked her fear. Hearing about the girl in Lake City as well as the girls at FSU really made her nervous about her security. When asked about finding a better solution to this problem, she said if I were able to find a good solution that would help ensure security no matter where I was that she would definitely support it.

My second interview was with a girl on campus names Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn is a graduate student who lives off-campus. I asked her if she had that certain fear of walking alone and being alone at night to which she replied: "Absolutely, don't we all?". This made me feel like the opportunity that I thought could have great potential to help a lot of women-and men-everywhere. I asked her how long she has had the fear. She told me that it was always instilled with her that it is important to be safe at night and avoid being alone. Kaitlyn is from Boca Raton, Florida and when I heard that I asked her if she's heard of the Russian gang that has recently been trying to take women in that area. She said, "oh my gosh yes, it scares me so much, I have a little sister back home and the thought of anything happening to her would just break me". At the moment, Kaitlyn and her family track each other on their phones. They all know each other's location at all times. I personally think this is smart as my family does the same. She did explain, however, that she was still nervous about those kinds of things and that she would like to be more educated on what to do if she was in that situation. I feel that I could make something to help Kaitlyn!

My third and final interview was kind of short and sweet. I spoke to a man on campus, Ricky. I asked Ricky if he was aware that women had these kinds of fears. He explained to me that he had due to the fact that he was raised by his mother and two sisters. Because of the environment in which he grew up, he was very in tune with women's feelings and insecurities. I then asked him if he thought other men were aware of this problem. He said that he's sure some are but probably not all. I then asked if he or his family do anything to help ensure safety at night to which he said not to his knowledge. I then asked him if he thought that it's important for women to feel and be safe walking alone at night, he said that he did, he hears about all of the cases on tv of missing women and those who have been hurt. He said if there was a good product out there that he would advise his sisters to get the product.

Reflection:

I wasn't surprised at the feedback I received. I have personally felt this fear and I knew that many others feel this fear also. I think that this problem is something that could be resolved better than current technology and strategies for safety. The most surprising thing that I learned was what Kaitlyn said about becoming educated on what to do if something like that were to happen. This gave me ideas toward my problem and finding a solution.

Summary:

In total, I feel that creating a better solution to this important problem would be beneficial as it would help a lot of people. At first, I was thinking about a way to ensure safety, and while I'm still doing that I am now also exploring other solutions to the same problem. This could be educating people on what to do if something terrible did happen to help them get out of a bad situation. I think that the opportunity is more accurate and a little more detailed than it was before. I think it's really important for entrepreneurs to adapt their opportunities based on customer feedback because the customers are the people they are trying to provide for and the customers are the people who will be giving the entrepreneur business. It's important for them to like and use the product that you're offering.