Your Venture's Unfair Advantage

1. Time management skills

Valuable: Looking at time from a business standpoint, being able to save as much as I can is valuable. I can get things done efficiently while still being effective.

Rare: Many people are very bad at managing their time.

Inimitable: Easy to copy- some people have this skill and others can learn this skill if they wanted to. 

Non-substitutable: No other resource can save as much time for the business as this resource.

2. Financial capital

Valuable: I have enough of a savings built to where I can start up my company and at least hire some people to begin engineering the product (prior to investors joining in). 

Rare: Some people have this idea, but in today’s society, it is pretty rare.

Inimitable: As much as some people want to have enough money to turn their business idea into reality, if the cards don’t line up, this resource is very hard to come by.

Non-substitutable: You cannot begin a company with no money, so this resource is non-substitutable.

3. Well acquainted with social media for advertising

Valuable: Since today’s society is almost run by social media, it is valuable to know how to navigate through it. 

Rare: Many people older than me do not have this skill because they did not grow up learning about new technological devices each day.

Inimitable: People can learn how to use technology over time, but it won’t come as easy. 

Non-substitutable: Technology as a whole can not be substituted since it is such a big part of daily life.

4. Contact with investors through current family

Valuable: I will need a professional to invest in my company to begin its growth. 

Rare: It is not that easy to come by investors that are friends with your family.

Inimitable: People can come by investors, but they most likely don’t have a family friend that is an investor. 

Non-substitutable: I am in a special situation that is non-substitutable because if my family backs my business idea, they could help me discuss with the investors and help convince them to back my product.

5. Great work ethic

Valuable: Perseverance in the working world will keep a business running.

Rare: So many people are lazy nowadays and I do think it is rare to find a group of hard working people. 

Inimitable: No; people can not learn work ethic over a short period of time. It is hard to break old habits of laziness.

Non-substitutable: If you don’t have a good work ethic, you will never be an efficient or effective worker. Nothing replaces work ethic in this sense. 

6. Uf’s resources

Valuable: Having resources for free is great to have because nowadays, nothing is free.

Rare: It’s not rare considering a large percentage of people in Gainesville have access to these college programs. It is rare outside of the university and college cities, though. 

Inimitable: This resource is not inimitable unless you join a university or college in order to access the resources. 

Non-substitutable: There are many resources around the country that are almost the same as UF’s resources, but they aren’t free.

7. Growing population of bikers in CURRENT times

Valuable: More people will want to buy safety features associated with this growing product.

Rare: It is insanely rare that there will be a global pandemic that makes people want to ride bikes more to either get out of the house or get their exercise. 

Inimitable: This is definitely not inimitable. 

Non-substitutable: This is also non-substitutable. 

8. Organizational skills

Valuable: Organization is one of the keys behind a business, or at least its functionality.

Rare: Not very rare, but there are still many people who are very disorganized and their life is a mess. 

Inimitable: You can buy things and learn ways to be more organized. 

Non-substitutable: You cannot substitute organization skills for anything since the company would not run if it was a train wreck in the organizational category. 

9. Money management skills

Valuable: One running a business needs to know how to manage money or their business will go under and fail completely. 

Rare: Many people blow their money on unnecessary things and don’t even realize. I think this resource is definitely rare in today’s society. 

Inimitable: There are classes to take and people to help with money management skills, so this resource is not totally inimitable. 

Non-substitutable: This resource cannot be substituted. You either have it or you don’t (and if you don’t, don’t start a business). 

10. Support from community

Valuable: Support is easily recognized as part of the building blocks of a business. If nobody backs your business, then it will never be as successful as one with support.

Rare: This is not rare unless you live in a town where there are already supported competitors or there is a predisposed issue unrelated to the actual business idea.

Inimitable: You cannot copy or recreate support from a community. You either have the support, or you don’t.

Non-substitutable: This resource could be substituted for support from others outside of your community, but “support” in general cannot be substituted. 

After completing the VRIN analysis on each resource, I think my top resource would be the fact that I have contact to investors through my family. I think that it is very hard to come by investors that would want to invest in your product right off the bat, but with people already backing you due to connections, it seems a lot easier. I think that this resource specifically would really help my business idea flourish because it could lead to other connections as well that I never previously thought about.