4A- Opportunity Belief

My Beginnings

      I believe that we could teach young adults how to cook and also give back to the community.

The fact of the matter is if you talk to any group of college students or young adults and ask them “can you cook?” 3/5 times they will say no. This is due to the fact that we have become complacent with convenience. Dining halls, fast food, and restaurants all around are causing more and more young adults to not learning how to cook. Now, what is my idea? My idea is to teach a cooking class once every week where we teach young adults how to cook and we then take those meals and give them back to the students or feed to the homeless. The unmet need is young adults that do not know how to cook. The people who have the need are students in college or transitioning into college. The efforts to fight this issue include cooking clubs and YouTubers like Binging With Babish that show food recipes in movie and pop culture pulling more people into cooking. This has no benefit to the community. My club will have days where we take the meals made during that lesson and feed them to the homeless. I am 75 percent sure that this is an unmet need due to the amount of college student that I have met with a meal plan or who exclusively eat out.

Prototypical Customer

        The first person I spoke to was my good friend back home in South Florida Armand. The reason why I chose Armand is the fact that he does not cook. The first thing that I asked him was “Why did you never learn how to cook?”. He responded with “I don’t know the man I come from an Indian family and it is just traditional for the mother of the family to cook and we just go along with that really.”. I was surprised because I too come from an Indian family, but I always pushed myself to learn how to cook. Next, I asked him what would make him want to learn how to cook and he said, “the recipes man if the recipes are awesome then it’ll keep me coming back for sure.”. We talked at a bit more about the convenience that fast food brings people and how much wasted food is generated. The conversation brought up a point to me that I was thinking about the other with how much food is wasted that could be used to help the homeless. I asked, “would you join the club if the meals you are cooking fed a homeless person.” Almost immediately he said “absolutely! I can give back to the community and learn how to cook. That’s a wholesome bargain.” The final question I asked is “what can we do to stand out versus other methods of philanthropy or volunteer work?” He said that as long as we focus on teaching the student is a clear and concise manner it will be even more enriching when the food is donated.

      The next person I spoke too was a friend from High School Kiari who also did not learn how to cook. Because I already had my first test interview, I had a more streamed line conversation and interview. “Why did you never learn how to cook?” Kiari responded with “I never had a need to, I had fast food and Publix all around me I never needed to learn how to cook.” I asked why and he said that the oven and microwavable foods they have means he has no reason to cook. Next, I asked “What would make you want to learn how to cook?”  and he said “A comfortable environment, cooking is sometimes really tense and scary especially when you’re new to it. I want a class that is comfortable enough where it will encourage me to learn how to cook.” I then changed the subject to talk about world hunger and what we could do to try and help where I then asked, “Would the fact that the meals you cook were being fed to the homeless help influence you to join the club?” He then said, “Maybe, because if I cooked a bad meal for someone and it was the only thing, they would eat for that day it would upset me, but it really is a great incentive.”. The final question I asked was “How could we made the club stand out more than other clubs.” He said to make sure we made it clear that we would also be feeding the homeless because the fact that it was community service would immediately get peoples support.

      The final person I spoke to was an old friend from my neighborhood Alex who did not know how to cook. We started talking and I started with the first question. “Why did you not learn how to cook?” Alex responded with “I was too focused on school, my parents always told me that school was the priority and my main focus so if I was always studying and then food appeared, I wouldn’t wonder or question why.”. This surprised me, this was the first-time schoolwork was used as an excuse. It made sense though if your workload was large and you had many extra-curricular, cooking would be the least of your worries. Next, I asked, “What would convince you to learn how to cook?” He said that the quality of the food we were cooking would be the largest deciding factor. “If you are using good ingredients and showing how to make fresh and sometimes healthy dishes I would be on board.” Next, as I did with all other conversations, I began to talk about world hunger and the effect it had on society and how wasteful we are at points. Then I asked the third question “Would the fact that the meals you are making will feed the homeless help influence your decision?” He immediately said, “Only if get to eat occasionally as well, I want the philanthropy stuff to be occasional things because the main draw should be learning how to cook.” Finally, I asked how I could make the club stand out and he said that focusing on the amount of fun you can have cooking would be a large draw to most young adults.

Reflection

     Overall, I am extremely happy I had the opportunity to get this research on my idea. After every conversation I learned something new for example, cultural dissonance causes young adults to not learn how to cook. Also, the pressure of schoolwork could also cut cooking out of someone’s life. Finally, I learned that the fact that we would also give back to the community means a lot to some but not so much to others and scheduling of the times we give back would be needed.

Summary

       After all, the interviews and research I would say 75 percent of my idea still remains, the the reason why is only small particulars of my idea need working on not major concepts.

I do believe that after this assignment my ideas vision is way more accurate, due to the different feedback and ideas I received.

I believe that the customer is king however an entrepreneur should twist and contort their entire idea for the customer. Only work to make the ideas main core concepts easier for the customer to digest.