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- Creators: Department of Finance
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etworking.
This thesis explores the viability of the creation of a board game café in downtown Phoenix that would donate a percentage of its profits to local charities and other initiatives for the improvement of the Phoenix area. Using a combination of different entrepreneurship and business model templates, fourteen questions were answered to complete the business model, including questions about resources and partnerships necessary for the venture’s success in addition to what the cost structure and revenue streams would look like. These fourteen questions make up the fourteen different parts of the Lean Launch Business Model Canvas, the template primarily used for the display of the final business model. The business model canvas undergoes “cycles” – that is, different drafts of the canvas are created and added to or modified as needed. This particular business model canvas underwent as many as 15 cycles before becoming finalized and receiving approval.
The completion of the business model canvas invites speculation about its actual viability, bringing up questions about financing, projected sales, and the length of the venture’s future. “Pivots,” modifications of the business model to either increase revenue or decrease costs, are also explored at this point. While this particular business idea does have a sustainable competitive advantage in the Phoenix area as a first mover, it would be unwise to pursue the idea further, as the costs are far too high and the required activities far too numerous to outweigh the revenues and benefits. In addition, it would be difficult to obtain funding at a reasonable interest rate for a venture with such a high risk of failure. In this case, a pivot was considered that eliminated nearly all costs and risk, while still relying on a very similar revenue stream. This pivot suggested a far simpler and more economical way of accomplishing the original goal of bettering the Phoenix metro community and giving customers the chance to rediscover in-person communication.
Though about 75 percent of American waste is recyclable, only 30 percent of it is actually recycled and less than ten percent of plastics disposed of in the United States in 2015 were recycled. A statistic like this demonstrates the immense need to increase recycling rates in order to move towards cultivating a circular economy and benefiting the environment. With Arizona State University’s (ASU) extensive population of on-campus students and faculty, our team was determined to create a solution that would increase recycling rates. After conducting initial market research, our team incentives or education. We conducted market research through student surveys to determine the level of knowledge of our target audience and barriers to entry for local recycling and composting resources. Further, we gained insight into the medium of recycling and sustainability programs they would be interested in participating in. Overall, the results of our surveys demonstrated that a majority of students were interested in participating in these programs, if they were not already involved, and most students on-campus already had access to these resources. Despite having access to these sustainable practices, we identified a knowledge gap between students and their information on how to properly execute sustainable practices such as composting and recycling. In order to address this audience, our team created Circulearning, an educational program that aims to bridge the gap of knowledge and address immediate concerns regarding circular economy topics. By engaging audiences through our quick, accessible educational modules and teaching them about circular practices, we aim to inspire everyone to implement these practices into their own lives. Though our team began the initiative with a focus on implementing these practices solely to ASU campus, we decided to expand our target audience to implement educational programs at all levels after discovering the interest and need for this resource in our community. Our team is extremely excited that our Circulearning educational modules have been shared with a broad audience including students at Mesa Skyline High School, ASU students, and additional connections outside of ASU. With Circulearning, we will educate and inspire people of all ages to live more sustainably and better the environment in which we live.
Habitual Health is a holistic health firm meant to provide the Arizona State University students with awareness of healthy practices. Our Founders Ava Bobbs, Mario DiVenere, and Jack Hammond have found that students have a severe lack of knowledge involving healthy practices including diet, fitness, and cooking. The combination of our strengths and complements to weaknesses puts the firm in a strong position to garner market share and provide value to our company. Throughout on-campus research, the team found that the average Arizona State University student does not feel that they have the sufficient means to be healthy, which is a huge misalignment that prevents the average ASU student from living a healthy lifestyle. This is where Habitual Health comes in, we are going to bridge the gap between the lack of information about healthy initiatives and the implication that living a healthy lifestyle is too expensive, difficult, and time consuming. Habitual Health is a paid platform where ASU students can go to access fitness plans, recipes, topical discussions and analysis, and other health related resources. The product we have established is an interactive, user-friendly website that includes various healthy recipes, nutritional tips and habits, and physical exercise routines. Our data is based on running the website from 01/20/2023 - 03/01/2023. Our company's value proposition is that students’ health would benefit long-term from our platform's resources. We have targeted the ASU Greek Community, which includes roughly 6% of the ASU population.1 We tested our product within the Greek community because of the tight knit nature of the community, as well as the communal kitchen system in the Greek Leadership Village making it harder for those individuals to cook for themselves. We expect to see a revamped community within the GLV, causing a positive impact across the entire campus.