Venture Concept 2

The Opportunity

Athletes often to eat healthy, balanced meals to maximize performance. However, many athletes are unable to prepare wholesome meals on a regular basis due to challenges associated with busy schedules and demanding training regimens.

The problem is particularly prominent for collegiate student-athletes and young professionals who do not prioritize grocery shopping, meal prepping, and spending time in the kitchen. Frozen meals, ordering take-out, or simply eating snacks in place of meals are common ways student-athletes (and people in general) satisfy their hunger. However, these alternatives are neither desirable or sustainable, as they do not provide adequate nutritional value to fuel and recover from intense workouts.

In addition, there are several meal delivery services on the market, but none of these services are geared directly toward busy athletes. Many require adequate cooking knowledge, take a significant amount of preparation time, and do not provide the nutritional value athletes need. This creates an unoccupied market niche.

The market for wholesome, quick to prepare meals exists across the United States, but it is concentrated near universities and cities (with a high concentration of physically active individuals). The window for opportunity will remain open until someone provides a viable solution.

Innovation

My solution, a meal delivery service, will provide balanced, quick to prepare meals to customers. Dinners will be delivered in weekly packages with options to include grab-and-go lunches and healthy snacks. A variety of plans will be offered on a subscription basis. Customers will manage their plan and choose meal options online, then the food will be delivered to their doorstep once a week.

Every meal will be specifically formulated to include plenty of complex carbohydrates, healthy fats, and protein for optimal performance and recovery. They will be approved by a performance dietician for nutritional composition. In addition, portion sizes and ratios will be customized based on every athlete’s specific needs and goals (lean, maintain, gain, etc).

Here an example week of dinners for the vegetarian plan:

·       Burrito Bowl with brown rice, fajita vegetables, roasted sweet potatoes, pico di gallo, and a cilantro lime sauce

·       Vegetarian lasagna with zucchini, corn, and an Italian spice blend

·       Quinoa stirfry with tofu, vegetables, and an Asian style sauce

·       Mediterranean stuffed peppers with roasted chickpeas and a lemon tahini drizzle

Assuming the average meal costs $5.50 to make and deliver, we will sell for $8. That adds up to only $32 per week for 4 healthy dinners for the customer and a 45% profit margin for the company.

Venture Concept

My innovation, a customizable meal delivery service for physically active individuals will take the effort out of eating healthy. This makes it a very desirable option, as customers can be confident they have something good to eat and they can focus more on training and being successful in life.

Customers will see this as a great option because it will be an immense time and energy saver. Convenience is the name of the game these days, and when you couple convenience with quality you have a real winner. Athletes will be eating healthy without even thinking about it!

An effective promotions strategy will be used to prompt customers to consider my service. Athletes already using a meal delivery service will consider switching to mine for a few main reasons.

·       The benefits of having balanced meals formulated specifically to fuel workouts. Popular meal delivery services, such as Hello Fresh, Home Chef, and Blue Apron, do not live up to the nutritional caliber athletes ultimately should have, and they rank lower on the healthfulness scale.

·       Options to include healthy snacks and grab-and-go lunches, which creates extra value.

·       Lower prices. Hello Fresh, for example, is priced between $9 and $10 per person per meal. At approximately $8 per meal, the cost savings will add up for my service.

·       Switching costs will be very low, so there is no barrier to changing services.

Special recyclable packaging will offer augmented benefits for my products, as they will be delivered promptly in packaging adorned with motivational phrases on it. This differentiates my service in a simple way and prompts customer delight. Exceptional customer service, driven by the desire to help other athletes, will also set my service apart.

For marketing, I will create an aesthetically pleasing, easy to use website, and I will ensure search engine optimization. I will also create social media accounts to promote my products. Most importantly, I will play the social media influencer game. I will use my connections in the athletic world and ask friends with many thousands of followers to help promote my business. Hopefully, this will stir up a word-of-mouth buzz.

To start, I will simply start cooking meals in my own kitchen, and I will drive around the Gainesville area to deliver them. As my venture grows, I will need to invest in a commercial kitchen and a distribution company. I will also hire kitchen help, organizational executives, and eventually a marketing team.

Minor stuff worth mentioning

It will be very difficult for competitors to copy my success because of my “unfair advantage:” being a student-athlete at a division 1 school. Personal experience, my fellow Gators’ experiences, and constant contact with prototypical consumers will allow me to understand my market very well and tailor my business to fit my customer’s needs. It also gives me access to a variety of resources and an expansive social network revolving around athletic excellence.

What’s next? Once I find success with my meal delivery service, I will create a community of inspiration for the athletes in my customer base. Besides weekly meals, I will focus on creating value for them in new ways to further help them become better athletes. Perhaps this will involve partnerships with other firms.

Within the next five years, I want to create a huge buzz in the athletic world, and I want most serious athletes to recognize my brand. My vision is to help athletes achieve their goals through delicious and nutritious food, and this first venture will allow me to do so.

Reflection:

On my blog, I received mostly positive comments. However, Dr. Pryor had a few great suggestions on what to include, namely my marketing strategy, distribution strategy, and more detail on meal plans. I expanded on these parts, and I believe my venture concept is much stronger now!