4A – Forming An Opportunity Belief

Hello everyone, 

My belief is that the closet at Keys Complex is too small. I don't even have space for all my clothes. I need to stack some of my sweatshirts, pants, and all my shoes outside. 

I realised that everything is small when I moved in. At this time I could barely fit everything, but it worked. But also at this time, I had to put all my shoes (about 10-12) pairs at that time outside. Over the time when I bought more clothes, I ran out of space. I think the closet should really be bigger because the room is small anyways and through the clothes that I have to stack, the space reduces even more. 

In my interviews I learned about different opinions, but all of them lead to the solution that the space is not enough. All the Keys Complex residents I spoke to had big problems with the closet. The thing is that there is only a closet under the bed and that’s it. The arrangement in the rooms is different, so the residents told me that because of the bed, desk, room formation, they don’t even have the chance to stack clothes. The clothes would block the door or space to move and walk in and out. The residents are really unhappy with that problem because it’s the room you have to study and sleep in, so it’s not easy to find a way to fit 10 pairs of shoes, more than 5 sweatshirts, and a couple pants. They started to address the problem when they bought more clothes over the time of their college time, and don’t know how to solve it all the time. I talked to a person that had a lot of books, and he doesn’t know if he should use the small space for his books or his clothes. 

They try to stack it as good as possible, but for small persons it is a problem to reach for some of the things they want because they have to stack it almost under the ceiling. Then, they have to stand on chairs what is very dangerous sometimes. So, the problem with the closet becomes a dangerous try to get something you want to wear today. The problem is that a Keys Complex room is not big enough to put a bigger closet in. The rooms are pretty small, so it’s almost impossible to solve the problem. One of the opportunities would be to buy a mini shelf, what would work if you have just a little bit too much clothes, but not of you have way too much. Even the mini shelf would be hard to place in the room, but at least it would be something. The residents all agreed on that. 

I think that my opportunity definitely improved through the interview with costumers. They helped me to see the problem I investigate on from different perspectives. So, I see the problems from multiple persons, not only from me. That way I was able to think about something that could help all the problems the people had. From too much shoes, to too much books, to too much clothes. Before I talked to the costumers my idea was just to stack everything somewhere, but after it I got the idea of the mini shelf that would also look good in the room. All the costumers liked the mini shelf, and told me that this would be something useful that they really need in their room. 

I think it is really important that entrepreneurs interact with their costumers because that way they can find out how their product is really working. Theory and reality is sometimes very far apart from each other, so it only makes sense that they stay up to date and are always interested in improving their product. Also for the costumer it’s a good thing because if they give feedback, they may get a better product by the entrepreneur when he improves it. It’s basically a win win situation because the entrepreneur produces and sells better products, what is good for his business and reputation, and the costumer gets a better product and may consider to recommend it and buy more products of this entrepreneur.

Eric Friese