F2014.1 Team 7

Team : JMU Custom DECALS

JMU Custom Decals is an entrepreneurial project that was formed for Dr. Wales’ Management 372 class. It was founded by two senior management students from James Madison University. The venture specialized in making custom JMU MacBook decals, and the target market was specifically JMU students who wanted to customize their MacBook using JMU decals and show their school spirit.

Venture Team:

JMU Custom Decals consisted of two entrepreneurial students, Brent Evans and Nafees Rahman. As a team, the duo has successfully combined various skills, resources, and techniques to create the final venture that has been making continual sales and generating profit. The social community of JMU and Harrisonburg has been very beneficial to them in terms of spreading the word and making sales. They also took advantage of social media sites such as Facebook, Tumblr to spread the word and most of the sales were through online.

Innovation Questionstorming:

Throughout the semester, the team brainstormed through these questions that lead to their innovative insight.

How can different designs be used to wider range of students?

How can marketing efforts be improved so that more people are aware of the Decals and actually buy them?

What other materials we can use to keep the cost low but not degrade quality?

What payment options we are willing to accept?

How should we deliver sold goods to our customers?

How many students in JMU use MacBook compared to Microsoft Laptops.

Big Idea Hypothesis:

After conducting weeks of market research, we discovered that our customers (JMU Students) did not have access to JMU related custom decals in order to customize their MacBook. Whether it was something very simple like purple and gold apple sign or something a little more customized, there was no decals available in the market. Therefore we decided to produce custom JMU Custom Decals which would appeal to the students as it would give them a sense of belonging to the JMU community and proudly show their school passion. Every college kid wants to have products or memorabilia that relates to their school so we took advantage of this opportunity. We offered different decal options so that we can cater to large numbers of students. The simple process to make the custom decal enabled us to make it in large numbers and always keep up with the demand of our customers. IF YOU WANT TO SHOW YOUR SCHOOL SPIRIT ON OUR MACBOOK JMU CUSTOM DECALS IS FOR YOU!!

Innovation:

JMU Custom Decals was able to create value and use their innovative ideas in a number of ways to be successful. First and most importantly, the team provided an opportunity for college students to customize their MacBook and show their JMU spirit by purchasing decals from them. The team also offered few choices which gave the customers the option to select the decal which appeals to them more. The individually packaged JMU decals also added a special touch and the team also delivered the decals physically on Friday night of each week to customers within a 5 mile radius. These extra care created value and word of mouth from our customers to their friends and family helped us to sell more and generate more profit.

Resources:

In order to create the custom decals, the team used few materials which were reasonably priced and widely available. The materials used for the custom decals are: Fabric paint, sheet protectors, scissors, pencil, plain white paper. The precise technique used by the team to produce the custom decals was also very essential.

Lessons Learned:

The following are the lessons learned by the team throughout the semester:

College students are very reluctant to pay high dollars for products, thus our decal was priced at $10.

JMU students love their school and most of them will buy products that they can use to customize their belongings in any way that resembles JMU school spirit.

BUYERS ARE LIARS: buyers always say yes to the product in the early stages and sometimes back out at the time of purchase. This may have been partially due to the variability in our product production.

Word of mouth Marketing is the finest way to market a product. Our commitment and quality of products made our customers happy and they told their friends and family about our products which drastically increased the sales and profits.

Online sales and square app is very helpful.