I would like to start off my blog post explaining the justifications for my lean canvas by clarifying what are some major points. First, you will find that I redefine feeling “new” in the context of students starting college/university. I want to emphasize that actually being new to a college or university and feeling new are two separate things. You can actually be new to a college but feel indifferent or confident for whatever reason: such as you came from another similar institution, you received full insight and research into what to do before actually stepping on campus etc. But I define feeling new as perceiving yourself to be inexperienced, unknowledgeable, of the surrounding institution and the surrounding areas. In the problems section, I go into detail about some of the characteristics that accompany “feeling new”. 

 

Secondly, I define the “I don’t know what I don’t know” dilemma. The dilemma being: the individual might feel confident going into a new institution (such as a college or university) but due to the ignorance that accompanies the inexperience of attending that institution, the individual may be completely unaware of facts that could only be attained through time and experience, i.e not knowing that they were supposed to know as a college student that they had to fill out FAFSA every semester.

Now on to the justifications  

Problems

The top three problems for incoming freshman students

The college/university student on their first day of the semester must figure things out by themselves. They are cast out on their own into their first semester of the next four years of their lives. I would like to say that it’s a problem that has been around for decades, but to be honest, by my observations, the modern day “new” student problem is riddled with more anxiety no than previous generations. The three main problems surround the overall big problem of the incoming student feeling “New”. I define “new” in this context as: the feeling an individual who arrives at a new location and has been thrown into a new stage/position in their life without guidance or assistance. The feelings of being new include: confused, intimidated, lost, scared, lonely, and the general ignorance customary with being inexperienced. The “I don’t know, what I don’t know” dilemma.  

 

Solution

The goal is to get the student over the “new” phase as quickly and efficiently as possible. To give them the confidence to go from “I don’t want to make eye contact but I’ve just walked into the wrong class for the second time” to “I’m like the mayor of this place, I know the best spots to eat, take a nap between classes, and got all of my inprocessing done within the first week”. Now more than ever, students are reluctant to go through what older generations might define as “just what everyone has to go through when they begin at a new place” and are seeking a better way to get rid of the “new” stage and just get control of things in a quicker and efficient manner.

 

Unique value propositions

The unique value proposition is encompassed by the 1 on 1 personal care and attention given to each user/student. The service won’t be for big groups of students being directed by one or two formal leaders in the front of the pack. It will be an intimate (intimate in the context of informal, and given direct care and attention) service given to each one of the students. Each one of the mentors will be students that sign up for the right reasons: because they are actually passionate about helping.

 

Unfair advantage

The responsibility of finding the right sponsors is the main priority of the company. That can only be done if “Scoop you” has the best process for recruiting sponsors. This selection process will be determined by some of the best minds of the company to determine what qualities and characteristics make up the ideal sponsor. This process will be proprietary knowledge that competitors may see from a distance and try to replicate, but will ultimately fall short because they don’t have the same selection process that ScoopU has. The secret sauce relies on the efficiency of the service provided by our sponsors.

 

Customer segments

The target customers for ScoopU would be incoming college and/or university students. Now ScoopU could hold value for the different variety of incoming students, whether it’s a straight from high school student, a first time college student, a transfer student, an international student, but the main target customer will be referred to as: the incoming student. The reason our target customer is the “incoming student” is because their problems have a need that is unfulfilled and not acknowledged. Their pains and customer jobs (as defined by the value proposition canvas) directly correlate to how ScoopU could provide pain relievers and gain creators for their problems.

 

Existing alternatives

As we all know, as college students, we had to get over this “new” stage gradually by some of the existing alternatives. These include just going up to other students as asking them for assistance. Which we know could lead to one of two ways, they’re either able to assist you with your specific questions, or they themselves don’t know. The other alternative is to just make mistakes, learn from them over time, walk around, possibly make some helpful notes or a to-do list on your phone or on paper. This takes time, effort, possibly some embarrassment. The real issue is the “not knowing what you don’t know” dilemma. An incoming student could walk around thinking everything is taken care of, when he or she had no idea that they were supposed to register with an academic advisor to declare their major, or go to the bursar’s office to make sure there are no holds or problems with their financial aid documents, for example. By the time they find out, it might already be too late.

 

Key metrics

So I believe that the key measure that indicates if ScoopU is truly providing significant value is through metrics such as: levels of satisfaction, levels of confidence, and would the student recommend this service to others based on their own experiences with their sponsor. ScoopU needs to focus on solving the “New” problem and I believe these key metrics ask the right questions to help us indicate whether that problem is being solved quickly and optimally. 

 

High level concept

With proper publicity, the service that ScoopU provides can only be seen by society as a beneficial way to enhance the modern students’ college experience, similar to the way that Facebook enhanced the interconnecting experience for people around the globe. With that concept in mind, colleges and universities that don’t get on board with the ScoopU service seem either one of two things. 1) they are ignorant of the ways to enhance their students’ experience, or what I believe is worse 2) they are knowingly neglecting a service that can only be beneficial to enhancing their own students’ lives.

 

Channels

I think the perfect medium to connect mentors to students would be through a website or an app. It is currently what modern students are familiar with and what they use on a day to day basis. But when it comes to the channels in terms of letting students know about the ScoopU service, college orientations can inform incoming students about it, Advisors such as a veterans advisor (who reached out to me when I was transitioning into Baruch) could tell incoming students, and high schools can inform students as well about the benefits of the ScoopU service.

 

Early Adopters

As mentioned before, the value would be provided for “incoming students” but the early adopters from the incoming students category would be International students. Why? International students are so committed to their success during college and university that they are willing to uproot from another country. This has several obstacles in itself. But the commitment means that they have high pressure on themselves to succeed and thus can be deduced that they would use all the resources available to ensure smooth sailing. A service like ScoopU can provide value to these specific early adopters. Many of the troubles that international students might face can be found in domestic students with a language barrier, out of state students who aren’t accustomed to the lifestyle created by the general environment and military veterans who are transitioning back to the civilian world.

 

Assumptions

Some of these assumptions must be true for the idea to succeed.

1. Modern students do not embrace, and in fact very much dislike, feeling “new” to a institution like College/ University
2. A majority of modern students feel “new” when they arrive at a college/ university.
3. Finally, the modern student feels more secure in organizing a 1 on 1 sponsor than they do following the existing alternatives