Idea Napkin No. 1

1. I am Matthew Iandoli. I'm a freshman finance major at UF and I was born in Orlando, Florida. Growing up I played tennis, piano, and a lot of ultimate frisbee. In high school, I was heavily involved with my student government and debate team. I think my best talent is that I'm a good public speaker. I gained a ton of speaking experience in high school and I typically spoke to crowds at least once a month. It's one of my favorite things to do and I always enjoy the challenge of writing a speech. Earlier this year, I took a strengths test and found that my biggest strength was that I enjoy meeting new people. This seems to go pretty hand-in-hand with my passion for public speaking. My aspirations in life aren't quite clear yet. The biggest goal is to be happy with those around me and have a job that provides me enough to live a comfortable life. I think the idea I've come up with could play a huge role in my life if I decided to commit and pursue it heavily. I've gotten some great feedback from interviews and think it has a lot of potential to be successful.
2. The idea that I've come up with is an app called TextSwap that will connect college students at the same school to each other. They will create a profile and then list all the textbooks that they need and those that they are selling.  Students will then be able to search the app for textbooks they're in need of and get connected to someone who's selling it. The students can then decide to either buy, sell, or trade with the person and the only hassle is meeting up with the student in person to make the exchange.
3. My target audience is pretty self explanatory. I'm obviously going after college students if I want this app to be successful. I'd probably test out how the app works at a few colleges to start and then expand it to more schools.
4. Buying textbooks is an extremely expensive and frustrating process. Since TextSwap makes everything simpler and cheaper, I bet it would be very popular among college students. I imagine that the app would probably be free and the main way I'd generate revenue would be through advertisements. If I can get enough traffic on the app, I'm sure plenty of companies would be willing to pay for ads in order to gain more exposure to college students.
5. The most similar thing to my idea is a Facebook Textbook Exchange page. I know UF does this and I'm sure other schools do as well. The problem with this is that it is difficult and time consuming in order to find somebody with the textbook that you need. My idea is better because you'd just have to search the ISBM, and all the students that have it would come up. I'm set apart from online textbook distributors because of how much less time it would take. Students wouldn't have to deal with the week or two that it could take to deliver the book. Finally, TextSwap would be set apart from the bookstores simply because it would cost less to the student.
I think these five ideas fit together pretty well. I didn't think my opportunity would turn into anything but once I came up with an idea and started asking people, my mind changed. I think this seriously has a lot of potential and could be something to pursue outside of this class. The only thing that doesn't quite fit is the fact that I'm a college student. I'm very busy and my number one priority is school work so it would be difficult to find time to develop an app. Maybe if I came up with a team of people to develop the app, things would be pretty manageable. There's obviously still a lot to think about but besides that fact, I think everything fits together pretty well.