24A: Venture Concept No. 1 "Rush Kit"

            I believe there is an opportunity behind the process that sorority girls must go through in preparation for rush. I see possibility in making the process of purchasing outfits and preparing for rush less challenging and less expensive. Building kits that are personalized to the requirements of your specific sorority, including clothing, shoes, and jewelry.

            Being in a sorority at the University of Florida was one of the best decisions I made going into my freshman year. It gave me the chance to immediately surround myself with people that made me feel comfortable and welcome in a new place. Fast forward to the start of my sophomore year and I am on the other side of the rush experience. Each one of the almost 300 girls in my sorority had to buy about five different outfits to wear during rush week. Not only can this get extremely expensive, but it can be very challenging to find specific outfits to fit the criteria when hundreds of other girls are searching for the same things. As sororities have grown at colleges and universities this issue has become more relevant. For instance, at a school as large as UF there are seventeen sororities. Each of these sororities includes between 200 and 300 members. That leads to thousand of girls in the same area, with the same unmet need. I know some girls will share outfits or purchase outfit from discount or consignment stores, such as Plato's Closet. I feel about 80% confident that an opportunity exists in this area.

            Segment: Females between the age of 18 and 22 attending a college or university as a member of sorority associated with the school.  Building kits that are personalized to the requirements of a woman's specific sorority, including clothing, shoes, and jewelry. To be slightly more specific one must understand the extent of needs and requirements that sororities provide towards the woman in order to go through the week process of rush. In reference to University of Florida sororities, typically rush requires 3-4 outfits with corresponding jewelry and shoes. This process is easy, efficient, inexpensive, and simple compared to the normal way of buying and shopping for outfits and accessories for rush. There is less stress of spending weeks and months searching. Everything can be found at once and in one place on the website I create.

            What sets this apart from everyone else is that we do it all in one place and it can all be done online and personally shipped to the customers home. They only have to go to this one website for clothes, shoes, and accessories. We choose from a pool of other online stores to help the kits remain unique and supply a variety of options. This cuts out the time of in store searching or visiting multiple websites and receiving many packages. Everything comes together in one shipment.

            Not only is it expensive but it can become very time consuming going from store to store and mall to mall to find the right outfits. On top of finding the right outfit, us sorority girls usually have to find coordinating accessories, such as shoes and jewelry. Overall, this is an expensive and time consuming process that can be made much simpler with RUSH KITS. Rush kits will provide sorority girls the opportunity to shorten this process from weeks or months to less than an hour, conveniently achieved from the comfort of their own home.

            Girls can simply visit the rush kit website, enter their outfit requirements (including color, style, size and more), then enter their accessory criteria and the website will provide 3 to 5 options for each outfit and accessory that was specified. These options are gathered from a pool of online stores, in addition to products that are made by RUSH KIT themselves. Once options are provided, the customer simply chooses the options they like the best and complete their order.

            The rush kit products are already discounted for a typical college student budget. Additionally, the other online stores that rush kit uses provide a discount from their regular prices. At the end of the process you will see an average overall discount of about 30% less compared to the price that girls would normally spend to shop in stores. 

            I would say the secret sauce to my venture is my mother because of her back ground in clothing retail. As a boutique owner, she knows all the ins and outs of buying and selling clothing and accessories from startup of a business. The next opportunity I see would be creating physical stores close to colleges and universities with Greek life sororities. This will allow consumers to come in and try on clothes and see it in person before they invest in the package. Five years from now I expect a great business to be booming. I would hope that most sororities, if not all, know the name “Rush Kit” because it has become so well known. While every girl may not decide to utilize it, I have hope that they will know the name. Also, I feel as though five years is enough time to evaluate how successful the business is and decide if building a physical store front would be helpful/successful for the company.

            Overall, I see so much potential in this idea. All parts seem to fit together greatly. The feedback I have received has only been positive. People have even added on to my ideas and provided me more insight on ways to make the website and process better. The demographic seems small, but it reaches out to so many people at the same time because of the amount of people that are members of a sorority. These girls are focused on showing their style, yet saving money at the same time.