This week we discussed the business model we feel most comfortable pursuing and concluded that we are leaning towards B2C or B2B2C. Our qualms with B2B2C is learning how to a) appeal to and b) conduct business with huge phone service companies (AT&T, Verizon) or universities. On the other hand, the concern with B2C is gaining as much traction as we would selling to customers with B2B2C.
We also worked on our customer survey, which is ready and due to go live tomorrow. We've decided to share to a broad audience, but included questions on age, income stability, and home ownership so we can sort through customers easily to learn our market. We also asked about the "pains" aspect of natural disasters to figure out how much of an inconvenience they're really viewed as in a general population.
Unfortunately, we received no response from the inventor when asked for a second meeting, but will continue reaching out to him, particularly because we ourselves have a few questions on optimizing the software behind the product.
Our upcoming goals are to wrap up the customer research end for now, to work on a "prototype" of the software (i.e. designing an app or whatever it may be), and to figure out how to approach a B2B2C model. After these steps are done, we can loop back to customer surveys or research to continue improving our idea.
