$100 dollar CHALLENGE
What is the $100 dollar challenge?
Its part of a class at Brigham Young University - Idaho called small business creation. The purpose of this class is to teach us how to run a small business. We have been put into a group of 5 students and given the challenge to start a business with only 100 dollars of start up money. All of the money raised will go to Kiva. Kiva helps 3rd world entrepreneurs by giving them micro loans. I will update my experience below through out the semester. Let the Challenge begin!
1/22/13
Today we defined what business we wanted to start up. We are going to install peep holes in apartment complexes around Rexburg. Why did we choose this business? There are so many complexes in Rexburg because of the University. Most of these complexes don't have peep holes. We see this as a safety issue. So we want to fill this need and help some other Entrepreneurs.
2/6/13
Today we went and officially tried to sale our peephole service. We when to Rexburg housing and gave them our sales pitch. The woman we talked to seemed somewhat interested. We might have to follow up with them. We then went to an apartment complex called Stone Brooke for married students. We talked to a leasing manager and she wasn't the decision maker but she said she would pass the message on to the owner. After that we went to North Gate apartments for women. We talked to the manager there and she seemed positive and expressed how even she would like a peephole. We haven't had any sales yet at this point but the response has been positive. We just need to get in contact with the decision makers.
2/18/13
Struggling to get sales. This seems to be the motto for our business right now. Our team originally started out with five group members. We are now down to three. So the work load on the three of us has increased a lot. We have not made any sales yet but we have changed up they way we are contacting apartment complexes. In the past we drove to the actual apartment complexes and gave them our sales pitch. We were only talking to managers and they are not the decision makers and this had been our struggle. Getting sales is a numbers game. We need to contact a lot of apartment complexes in a short amount of time. So, I created a list of all the women's complexes so we can call them and try to get a hold of the managers. We need a sale this week! I'm confident that we will achieve our sales goals, we just needed to fix some details.
2/19/13
Today In class we had to report how much money we have in sales. We had to write a big fat goose egg on the board. The problem were having is contacting the owners of the apartment complexes. So we need to pivot and change our strategy. We are now going to target home owners by going door to door while still contacting apartment owners. This way we will have some revenue coming our way. We have planned to knock doors this Saturday so I post my update then.
2/23/13
SALE! We have sales people. I contacted an old friend that is the manager of Carriage House and several other complexes. She contacted her owners and they are interested in having us perform our service. They already have a budget set in place so we are going to have to wait a few months before we can come in and install. Also to supplement our sales we are going door to door selling deserts like cookies and cake balls. This way we have some actual money we can show. We are still going to contact apartment complexes to see if we can make some more money. It has been rough as of late but we switched up our business model. I was thinking about how we could get some sales and the thought came to me that we should offer an article in the university newspaper showing that the owner care about their tenants safety. This incentive, I feel was what closed the deal for us. I learned to be creative and think outside the box!