Venture Concept #1

Venture Concept No 1.

SafeRate API

Summary:

My product is called the SafeRate API. It would be a piece of software that would gather data about a location and rate the area’s safety in several categories.  It can be thought of as a location based safety metric or rating system.  My system would rate the safety of an area (based on three categories crime, vehicle accidents, and weather damage.) and combine that to create a general safety score of the area.  I would access local police records, accident records, and weather damage records (similar to what insurance companies look into when evaluating risk).  I would take these metrics and use them to produce scores in an area in all three categories.  Then these categories could be combined to create a general safety score.  This software will serve as an API.  As an API, other companies would be able to use this technology in their own applications.  For example, Google Maps could incorporate this technology to help users determine the safest route.

Opportunity:

I believe that there is a massive opportunity for this API. My group of customers would be businesses that specialize in software. Some software companies would have the need for my product, as my product could help make their related products better. Not every software company could realistically incorporate my API into their product. Only software companies that provide services related to location could incorporate this API. Some examples of well-known companies/software platforms that could use my service include Air BnB, Uber, Lyft, Yelp, Google Maps, Apple Maps, and really any other mapping software. The main force or change in the environment creating this opportunity would be the development of this technology. It is hard to differentiate businesses geographically and demographically. The beauty of software is that it is very easy to distribute at very low costs. Therefore differentiating potential business customers by geography would be pointless. I could differentiate potential business customers demographically by only targeting software companies that distribute software that would benefit from my API. Next I will address how customers are currently satisfying this need, and how loyal they are to using it now. Currently my customers, business, are unable to receive this service unless they create this technology on their own. I think that this need is not currently being satisfied due to its reliance on technology that has not been developed yet. This seems like a pretty large opportunity. This opportunity is open because of the lack of technology. There is currently no other product that gathers real time information about crime, accidents, and weather and results in a safety score for the area. This window of opportunity will only be open as long as this technology has not been developed. Once someone else develops this technology, the opportunity will no longer exist.

Innovation:

As I described before, my API will work by accessing police records, accident records, and current weather reports for an area.  The SafeRate API will use these measurements to provide a safety rating for a specific area. As far as I am aware, this technology does not currently exist. Therefore it would fall under the category of radically innovative technology. My API would use specific algorithms to develop a score for each category (crime, weather, accident) and then use another algorithm to combine these scores into one central score.  I plan on making money by selling an API Key. This API key will give the developers an easy way to incorporate my API technology into their own applications. This is how most APIs are sold and I think mine would fair well in the marketplace. One of the beauties of manufacturing software is how easily distributable this technology is. In theory, every developer could have access to my API in an instant. This gives software companies a massive advantage over other startup companies that say have to manufacture a new product each time one is sold. 

Venture Concept:

The SafeRate API will directly address the opportunity I described above. It will allow developers and business to access my API and directly incorporate my technology into their applications. Customers would use my API because there is currently nothing out there like it right now. This is new technology and there would be no competitor that they could switch to. Other potential competitors would be anyone who develops a similar API and, as far as I know, there are currently no competitors in the marketplace. Packaging plays a very small role in my venture. The way I would distribute my API would be by setting up a website in which potential customers (either businesses or developers) could learn about the technology and purchase/download the API and framework. Customer support would have to be provided to some extent. It may also be helpful for my website to include a forum in which customers can ask and have their questions answered by my company or the community. Thankfully our business would not need a consumer facing location. I would organize my API as an ongoing business by hiring developers to continue and strengthen support for the API and to answer customer questions on the forum. My API would have to be constantly updated due to the ever-changing landscape of the tech industry. I cannot say how many employees I would need, as it would depend entirely on the success of the API.

Answering other questions:

-I think that our most important resource would be our human capital. Excellent software requires excellent developers and our company would not survive or even get off the ground without strong developers.

-The next steps for the venture, after obviously creating and effectively selling our product, would be to expand support for our current users. The easier we make it for users to incorporate our technology into their applications the more users we will have and the happier our users will actually be.

-In 5 years our company will have had to adapt to the changing technology landscape. Assuming that we successfully adapt and do not sink, we will explore other products and innovations.