Since the product that I’m developing is one that solves an issue that isn’t tangible, it is harder to put a price on it. When seeking alternatives for meeting people in college settings before school starts, people select based off of where they find the greatest amount of people/options. For example, in my interviews, Facebook groups for incoming classes where mentioned for trying to meet people; however, meeting this alternative was the only one that was identified by interviewees as PRE-college interactions. The others mentioned they wait until the semester starts to try and join clubs and go to classes. Price seemed not to matter much, as people joined Greek life, with costs upward of $1500 per year and clubs having dues/fees. Audience size mattered most, it seems. For the alternatives that required money, people tended to buy in person (Greek Life) and use a check or credit card to finance the purchase. There isn’t much post-purchase evaluation, as it appears most of my interviewees did not spend money to try and make friends more than club dues and going to events. Interacting with people on Facebook, though, had mixed reactions, some good, some bad.
My interviews mainly involved gauging ways people made friends in their school prior to attending. Most people were unable to meet this need and tried to find people in their neighborhood, or meet people through Facebook pages. This did not always work.
I would describe this segment as hopeless (platonic) romantics. Their needs seem not to be met and mimics those of hopeless romantics, however are platonic.
You mentioned that it can be difficult to pin a price on an intangible product. This is an interesting point that you bring up, and I think that the best thing that you can do is to either look at related businesses and see what kind of prices they are using or you can ask your potential customers what kind of prices they would be willing to pay to utilize your service. Either way, it is important that you create a price point that customers are willing to pay, but also not to cheap that you can be both competitive and profitable.
ReplyDeleteI think that this is a very interesting analysis of the market that your product is catering to - and when I think about meeting other college individuals, I do think of clubs, apps, (not greek life, too expensive) and in-person class meetings. However, I don't think that this should dissuade you from developing a price. Dating apps for premium services, such as tinder, bumble, match.com, that require subscriptions, might be a good base for you to start a deeper alternative search around. I think that asking people about the extent they'll go for romantic dating services, and then asking about platonic dating searches, could provide more insight to your market research.
ReplyDeleteI agree with meeting people before college you mostly choose to find group chats with the most people in order to meet kids or on Facebook by trying to find people in the same dorm which I saw a lot of people do. They always seem to do this and start dorm group chats only to have them end up becoming “dead” or maybe making friends with a few of them.
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