25A What's Next?

Existing Market:

What makes the most sense for me in my venture in terms of growth is to provide more resources to sweeten the pot for consumers. Since my business is service-based, many of the people I interviewed said that as long as I am providing the service I can only grow by improving what is offered by my service or by providing more. Since my service will already be competitively priced and offering any games that the customer wants (though it will take a while to build up a catalog), I asked for the people I interviewed to tell me what customers might want in this environment besides the games and consoles they are renting. Some ideas were drinks, additional capability for streaming, unlocked DLC for games, and early release parties. Based on the suggestion for early release parties, I started to think that perhaps I can make event-focused activities to get more customers in. Perhaps I would be able to host watch parties and sell beverages and snacks as a way to advertise my services. Additionally, if I hosted tournaments and got known as a venue people may come in to play just to socialize. This sense of community will allow my business to grow through word-of-mouth.

New Market:

The only radically different market I could think of is people who definitely have enough money to purchase these machines and games on their own. Since one of the main focuses of my venture is allowing people who do not generally have the capability to experience these games on the basis of cost, it is a twist to find why they would be interested in my venture.

I decided to interview some of the people who I wanted to interview early on, and was told they were not interested because they had enough money to purchase the games on their own. Some of the things that would make them interested would be: technological support for when something goes wrong and they do not understand how to fix it, the sense of community provided by playing video games with friends and family, and the ease of being able to use a system that is being set up by someone else. This is all about the product/service mix because if I am able to provide these resources, even if they are not necessarily interested in renting they will still consume my service. In order to adapt to this new market, I would have to find a way to make this service more appealing to friend groups rather than single-players. I think that targetting both competitive and casual markets will also be useful.

Reflection:

What surprised me the most about this new market is that they would even be interested in using this product at all if they have all the systems at home. I had previously assumed that my market would be the only demographic interested since my original plan was to target those who can't afford consoles. I think that this was a major oversight on my part because I assumed that they would not want to spend less to go out with friends. As an example, even though I can afford to buy a movie and watch it in my home I may want to go out and see that movie in the theatre with my friends because it is a different experience. It is a lot nicer having someone take care of all of the equipment and keep a clean space for all of my friends to play in. It is also a good place to make new friends. 

My assumption that the community is an important part of selling my service was a very good one because it means that I will be able to target more than just my existing market. Although I knew community was important and I was thinking of good ideas to expand my community, I did not think that it would allow me to introduce more people into my market. I expected that people with more money would be able to use my service if they were not technologically savvy and I was also correct about that. If someone does not know how to troubleshoot errors, playing video games at home is a frustrating experience when you come across graphical bugs and shutdown errors.

This new market appears to be just as attractive as my existing one. It may be even more appealing because if I am able to attract those who have more money it will be easier to bring in money from this type of business. If my original concept is to create a sense of community, I may want to focus on bringing in as many different types of game-oriented people as possible.