23A – Your Venture’s Unfair Advantage

1. Ability to network with upperclassmen who have been successful in their majors.

• Valuable: This is the main ingredient in my service as the app will be based around these upperclassmen's experience.
• Rare: I think it's not rare to be able to find the right upperclassmen but it can be challenging. 
• Imitable: I think anybody has the possibility to be able to network with the upperclassmen!
• Non-substitutable: I don't think this could be substituted because networking is essential and nothing can substitute it.

2. Ability to understand student's choosing a major dilemma.

• Valuable: It's valuable because I can understand students who have second thoughts on their major or even are interested in a new major. 
• Rare: I think it's not rare exactly but it is hard to find students who are 100% committed and KNOW what they want from the start. 
• Imitable: I think it's imitable to be able to understand students who have trouble deciding on a major since it is a huge portion of their life and not just a piece of paper at the end of their 4-5 years. 
• Non-substitutable: I don't think it could be substituted because there's only one way of being able to understand student's and that's through individual experience. 

3. Ability to market. 

• Valuable: Once the service is up and running, or even beforehand, it's important to be able to know who and how to market the app which I do have connections in!
• Rare: It's very hard to find the right person or people and even strategy when trying to market a product or service. 
• Imitable: This is very hard to be able to imitate since not many have this skill or even the will to market where networking plays a huge role. 
• Non-substitutable: I think this may be able to be substituted by a smaller means of marketing such as word of mouth but marketing is marketing. 

4. Ability to recruit funding and financial support.

• Valuable: This part is crucial as funding will be needed in the app's development as well as marketing. 
• Rare: It's not rare to find the right funding or financial support, there's like over 3 major banks around us within a mile! It does take effort to find the right funding as in the right investors and even customers. 
• Imitable: This ability is imitable as anybody can walk out and just go find a bank and get a loan (although interests will vary). 
• Non-substitutable: The ability to be funded can be substituted by investing your own money so there is no search needed. 

5. Ability to identify strengths and weaknesses.

• Valuable: This ability is very critical in being able to see how the strengths can incorporate and build your service but being able to identify weaknesses is the secrets towards progress. 
• Rare: It's very rare to find someone who feels confident enough to be able to accept and make changes from their weaknesses or their service's weaknesses. 
• Imitable: Since it's rare, it's hard to imitate this.
• Non-substitutable: This definitely be substituted with failure, so really it's all or nothing. 

6. Ability to be open-minded and incorporate as many aspects.

• Valuable: This ability is important in being able to distinguish and know what your customer's want, specifically their unmet needs.
• Rare: This is rare to see since most service are based on financial driven factors than solving the general issue. 
• Imitable: This is definitely imitable but it take's a bit to really focus out and see the bigger picture. 
• Non-substitutable: This is definitely not substitutable. 

7. Ability to provide efficient customer service.

• Valuable: This ability is very important in building and knowing the connection between both your service the impact it can have on your customers.
• Rare: This is not a rare ability, Publix offers a great customer service platform.
• Imitable: This ability is imitable as all successful business have a great retention rate
• Non-substitutable: Customer service is not substitutable as it determines the retention and your product/service's overall success. 

8. Ability to lead and manage.

• Valuable: This ability is so important to be able to effectively lead and designate your service.  
• Rare: This ability is not rare but it is hard to find someone with leadership qualities. 
• Imitable: To lead and manage is imitable and is able to learn and replicate. 
• Non-substitutable: This is not substitutable since there is only way to manage. 

9. Ability to seek growth/failure

• Valuable: This ability is also important since if you seek growth you'll be able to see as many strong points towards success but if you can also imagine failure then you're able to create a plan to deviate from it. 
• Rare: This is a rare ability as many only focus on growth and development than seeing the other side. 
• Imitable: This is imitable if one knows about it!
• Non-substitutable: This is can be confused but not substituted with the ability with identifying strengths/weaknesses. 

10. Ability to deal with failure.

• Valuable: The ability to deal with failure is the turning point in your service/product. 
• Rare: This is hard like very hard to have since most just give up and begin to focus on another problem and solve that. 
• Imitable: This is imitable but it takes a lot of experience to be able to fully understand the importance of this. 
• Non-substitutable: This is not substitutable as there is no other way of escaping failure but to accept it. 

I think networking is the most important from it all, whether it's networking with customer's, web/app developers, field experts, or another individual who has created a similar product can easily guide you towards making your service success. It's not what you know, it's who you know.