Forming an Opportunity

1.       I believe that there is a market for convenient, last second flights, from major airports for people that can’t make connecting flights. In large airports there are a great deal of missed connecting flights and when people miss their flights they are desperate to get where they want to go.

2.       The unmet need is a fast alternative to people having their flights cancelled or not making connecting flights. People who need this are in distress travelers that will potentially be stranded in airports at night or need to get home for the holidays. The need has come from the fact that airlines commonly have to cancel flights or delay them to the point that people can not make other connecting flights. Not much has been done to meet this need at the moment because flight know that there is nothing that you can do and they already have your money.

3.       The prototypical customer would be someone who travels a great deal, or anyone who has a connecting flight.

4.       Iteration No. 1: The first “customer” I talked to was my good friend Logan that has a father who is a pilot. When speaking to him he mentioned that this problem partly exists because there is slight oligopoly amongst all of the airlines. There is no incentive for airlines to help people get home faster and there is little chance that you go and buy a brand new ticket. This need has been around for a while and will only increase as the airline industry grows and globalization spreads. Logan mentioned that he notices that he has this need at very inconvenient times and the situations give him very high stress.

5.       Iteration No. 2: This next interview is my mother. She travels often for work and has been put in bad situations within the travel industry. When asking her about her opinion on the nature of the need, she mentioned that it is primarily because of the high cost of entry to get into the airline business. The big airlines could push up and coming airlines out the way and the regulations in this industry could make it close to impossible to offer a solution in this industry. Additionally, she mentioned that if this service was offered it would be able to charge very high margins.

6.       Iteration No. 3: My last interview was with one of my coworkers from my past internship. His name is James and he lives in Dallas but travels home on the holidays. When he travels home he has run into cancellations and missed connecting flights. The conversation that I had with him was very constructive because he talked about how he felt in that situation and what he would do if he was confronted with a service that could have gotten him home.

7.       The biggest thing that I learned is that there are a lot of barriers to entry for this industry. This is the greatest reason for this problem existing. In a purely competitive market there is no chance that travelers would be treated the way they are when they are stranded in a random city. My biggest surprise was being told that the prices I could charge for a business like this would be huge. For some reason I felt that the best business models are cost leaders.

8.       In summary, not too much of my original idea is there. There are a lot of things that would keep me from doing what I wanted to do. Along the way I thought of a ride sharing service for planes going to different cities which would give people with planes the opportunity to make money for flying people when they go different places. But most people who own planes don’t care too much about more a few extra bucks because they already must have a lot of money. I think my original idea would be better than my ride sharing idea because it would be an airline making use of people needing last minute flights to certain places. Entrepreneurs shouldn’t completely compromise their business plans based on the feedback of a single customer. But, there is no doubt that if there is a trend in what customers are saying then the company should work hard to fix the problem. That way they can keep growing as a company and provide value to customers.