Venture Concept No. 2

OPPORTUNITY:

              I found an opportunity in the area of skateboards. The opportunity that I found, after overhearing someone complain about it, is that people who use boards to get around do not like to carry their boards with them whenever they are not using them. I find myself in that same boat as those people, because I do not take my board to class because of having to carry it. I asked both friends and strangers and they both agreed that something to carry their boards on their backs would make their lives easier when taking their boards places, and some even said that they would probably use their boards more. The customers that meet this need is anyone that uses a board and uses a backpack on a daily basis. This description fits mostly to high schoolers and college students but the potential customer could be virtually anyone in any part of the world. As more people, college students, realize the difficulty to get cheap and easy transportation in a college campus they also realize that using a board is both cheap and easy to transport in. It is efficient and you go faster than walking, you also don’t have to worry about parking with it and it is small compared to a bike, making it the best way to transport oneself in a college campus. These changes create the opportunity that I found. As I was saying before this opportunity has no definition geographically or demographically since it is targeted mostly to college students that use any type of board, and you can find college students with that need anywhere in the world. Some customers satisfy this need by buying a backpack that already has straps included to carry your skateboard, and they are mostly loyal to this backpack. I believe that the window for this opportunity will stay open for a while considering how long it has been open. This a great opportunity which a few skateboarding companies have tried to tackle too so I would have some competition.

INNOVATION:

              My innovation that came for the opportunity described above is an adjustable strap that hooks onto any backpack, which allows the user to carry any type of board, whether the board is a skateboard, a longboard, or a pennyboard. My product is both simple and innovative since it allows the users to carry any board and keep using their favorite backpack, therefore not adding extra expense for a backpack you don’t need. The strap is made of fabric and it has to hooks on each end, which is where you connect them to the backpack. The strap then separates in two in the middle and that’s where you would put your board which then you would tighten the strap and therefore hold the board on your backpack. The board would be vertically attached to your backpack and it will be tightly secured that way it does not hit your legs as you walk from place to place. The best way to strap the board would be with the wheels of the board facing away from you but you could do it the other way around too. The strap wouldn’t be hard nor expensive to produce, the materials for it wouldn’t be expensive to gather either. So I would be selling my product on stores that sell any type of board and they would be selling around $5 - $10. This innovation can easily expand to being more than just straps for boards. With a little of creativity this business could expand to make straps for the things that people do not want to carry that do not fit in a backpack.

VENTURE CONCEPT:

            The innovation I described above will solve the opportunity by allowing people who use boards and that don’t want to carry them with theirs hands by giving them the choice to carry them on their backpacks with straps that hook onto one’s backpack. Customers will buy my innovation because it facilitates their life and allows them to do carry their board on their backpacks freeing their hands. I believe that customers would switch to this product because it is cheap, they don’t have to buy a new backpack so they can keep using their favorite backpack and they can carry any type of board without any problems. I don’t think it will be hard for customers to switch to my product since the other products that exist in the market are straps that have backpacks attached to them, without being able to remove those straps, so my product will allow them to use any backpack they want to carry their boards and not only the one with the straps. The competitors are the business that create the backpacks with the straps already on them, and I think that in itself is already a weakness, since people want to use the backpacks they already have and don’t want to spend more money to buy a new backpack. I think that price point plays a huge part in defining my business concept since my product is both simple and cheap, that way appealing more to the customers than my competitors

             I believe what will make competitors to copy my success is my adaptability and open mind and my also my products adaptability. I think that with my open mind and adaptability, I will be able to take feedback easily and constructively and keep improving my product as it goes and I will also be able to improve my business. And as I improve my business I can keep going to create the next product. As I was reading some of the comments on my elevator pitches, a person suggested to create straps or something to carry textbooks, and I liked that idea. I think my next product would be to create like an expansion to small backpacks that something can’t fit big textbooks, so that way the customers doesn’t have to carry the textbooks every time they go to class or a library or something. And if this all works and it is successful, I actually don’t think I see myself working with this venture in five years. If it’s successful, I would most likely sell it and create another venture. And that’s where I see myself in the next decade, with a few ventures sold and with enough money to follow my own personal dream.

            Most of the feedback I receive was good. A lot of people like my idea, even if they have never skateboared or used any type of board before in their life, and they think it could be very successful. A few said that since it was simple it could be easily modified to fit any of the customer’s needs.  A few comments did question a few things of my product that I have not thought about before. About how the board would hang on a backpack and what material the strap would be made of. Since I received a lot of good feedback and very little bad feedback I did not change my venture concept that much. I added a few things to clarify my idea and added a few new things to the idea itself. But overall I did not change almost anything, because of all the good feedback that I received.