Assignment 25A

What’s Next? 

Existing Market 

Step 1: As a young college student with a consulting firm business concept, I believe the biggest points of expanding my business venture is building experience valuable enough that people with business ideas of their own are willing to believe that paying me for my service is worth the money. My knowledge and experience will be my most valuable resource. This said, I need to get real world experience working in startups in my existing market. 

Step 2: After describing my business concept to three customers within my existing market, many of them asked what kind of experience did I have to make my consulting firm valuable and worthwhile. The questions I received from my prospective customers were qualifications and experience-based questions, which I have very little of in this specific field. My interviewees also implied customers may need someone who is very creative as well as knowledge and qualified to run a consulting firm. Creativity is a piece of my skillset that I need to focus on to offer quality ideas to my clients. 

Step 3: Based on the feedback I received and my own expectations, I believe building a qualified summary of my experiences and what I have done for other entrepreneurs is the most convincing part of building a successful consulting firm. Consultants need to be knowledgeable in specific fields as well as being creative when building a business foundation.  

These qualifications come with experience working in real-world businesses. I believe my venture will be extremely long-term in the sense that I doubt many people would hire a 22-year-old, just-out-of-college consultant for their startup business.  

New Market 

Step 1: My existing market was targeting startups with business consulting at a very little to no cost in the beginning phases on the business. I will target prospective clients with more financial stability than the average starting entrepreneur.  

Step 2: My venture concept for this market may not different much from where I began. All things considered, I still need valuable experience and skills to build a successful consulting firm, even if financials are not considered.  

Step 3: After interviewing people from this market, I learned that a few adaptations I could make could be, hiring a creative partner to help with the consulting, or hiring a team of uniquely skilled people that make up for skills that I do not possess.  

Step 4: This new market helped me reflection on the process side of things, rather than the results. I keep thinking about the end-product, rather than the journey itself to get there. Both markets seem extremely attractive and opened my thinking a step further about the consulting idea. 

Consulting firms can “strike gold” if they create the right service or the right product. This is why having a team of experts in different areas of skills can be extremely important to bring the best tools out of each person to create a better business foundation for clients.