The biggest market for my product exists with parents of any age and their children; children being typically between the ages of 4-13. I will essentially be targeting parents because they will be the ones eventually buying the product, but I also need to make the product enticing enough for children to want to use it and thus telling their parents to get it. The actually need is that eating in the car is so unnecessarily difficult. Your lap is uneven making for placing your food in your lap between bites a big risk. The food could spill, crumbs could drop, and using dipping sauce is much more painful than it would be at a table. Sometimes parents calling out "Hold on!" when making that last minute turn just is not enough to save that box of nuggets. Parents end up having to spend their otherwise peaceful Sundays taking hours to vacuum every nook and cranny of kids booster seats and regular seats.
I think kids are more involved with extra school activities than they have ever been. With so many sporting opportunities, after school clubs, and general involvement with clubs, life gets so busy. Sometimes eating dinner together just is not a possibility when you have three kids, each with a different place they need to be. Instead of sitting down to eat, the only way to feed your kids is on the road driving from one place to another.
In terms of geographically defining this target market, I think the only factors that truly play into it would be access to drive a car (not a busy city that relies on public transportation). When looking into demographics, age is definitely a factor for children simply due to maturity. The age of the parents is not really a factor, but I would assume younger parents would be more interested in this problem as older ones might have a higher expectation for their child's eating habits in the car. This is definitely an assumption and not a definite fact in the market.
Currently there is not much being done in the market place to accommodate this need. Products have come out to assist in writing, coloring, or holding a laptop in the car, but nothing has really been provided successfully to assist eating in the car. With that being said, people might not be loyal to another product, but historically people are resistant to change. I would have to make sure there is a big enough need and I create a product that addresses the issue of eating in the car and do it in a way has an exceptional design and a great perceived value in order to be successful.
This opportunity is utterly huge! Think of how many families there are worldwide that have children involved in extracurriculars. Even if they are not extremely involved, there are also so many families who take road trips which consists mainly of having food in the car.
On top of the opportunity being huge, there are slightly fewer than four million babies born in the United States each year. Even if only one quarter of those are born into a new family, that is a million potential customers. There is truly no ending window of opportunity for this product.
Innovation
In order to make eating easier, I have created what I call the car table. It is pretty much what is says it is. You will no longer have to worry about spills from uneven laps or having nothing there to catch your food when it slides because of sharp turns. The car table with measure approximately two feet by one foot and feature three inch sides. The table will be able to fold easily to best fit in between the seats or underneath the seats depending on you car seat orientation. The table will also be fully customizable. Whether you prefer a classic black look or you child wants a colorful rainbow and unicorn design, we will offer it all. We want their to be an element of excitement around this product, whether that be because it is very aesthetically pleasing or the fun wild design. With the foldable ability of the table, it will lock in all the crumbs making for easy cleanup for the parents and no hours spent vacuuming out car seats. For this product, I will charge somewhere between $25 and $35 depending on the design chosen for the table.
Venture
My product solves many of the stated issues in the opportunity including: losing food during sharp turns (the sides of the table will now prevent this), not having a flat surface to set food or dip your food in sauces, and the issue of endless crumbs all over the car. Having no direct competitors, I will have to persuade my target market that this product will save them time and money in the future. I also have to convince children that it is fun to use this product when eating in order to entice parents to purchase it for their child. Price point, customer service, customer experience, and business location will be the most important factors of business. The price point will make or break this product. Because this is a new product, I have to price it low enough for people to be willing to try it, but high enough for people to believe the product is high quality. I will strive to have a very high level of customer service and live by the mantra "the customer is always right". My product is based off of simplify the customer's experience of eating in the car. If I do not create a great customer experience, then I have failed at creating this product.
Addition to Venture Concept:
Based on feedback, I will make sure to focus on licensing when looking into the future as it has been pointed out as a great opportunity after receiving feedback. I agree with the feedback given when they say kids often hook onto a character or cartoon and will want gear to match that character. I think this will be a great opportunity to tap into this market and the culture that surrounds it. The feedback also touched on my advanced thoughts about selling the company and I do not think that this mindset is premature. I think knowing your goals and where you want your company to be with help when building the company. I know that I must reach certain levels of production, sales, and overall partnerships with retailers in order for companies to show interest into buying us out.
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First, my most important resource would be commitment to succeed as well as knowledge in both marketing and retail. Knowledge will put me a head above the rest and my commitment will take me to the finish line.
Second, I would love to get licenses in order to put marvel, Disney, and other characters on my products. The next product I want to make readily available to everyday consumers would be a charging platform for your car that allows you to charge it without plugging it in.
Third, after I have created my product, five years down the road I would love to have sold the company for a large amount of money and use that money to invest in other ventures.
Here is the only feedback I received on my Venture Concept No. 1:
Hi Taylor,
I love the idea of getting licenses to have tables that have popular comic and cartoon characters on them. This will probably be the best way to attract kids. One thing I've learned from my younger siblings is that when children start liking something they really get into it and literally want everything they own to have that certain character. So that would be a really good move. I also find it interesting that you are already thinking about selling the company, it was not something I had in mind but it could be a really good plan if you think of something else you want to do later on.
Other feedback from "What's Next?" included the support of making the product available for lower income families and also pointed out how expensive a partnership with Walmart or Amazon might be. I would have to be extremely confident in my product.
What I added to this blog is included under the "Addition to Venture Concept" section.
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