What's next?

Existing Market

I believe that what’s next in my venture is to actually attempt to manufacture the product and run it through durability tests to make sure that the design is sound and won’t cause problems. After interviewing customers already part of the market I’m looking to move into, they agreed that I should test the safety and ability of my product before I start to market it. Moving from here, I want to work on making prototypes with the same or similar materials that the real product would contain and test them by making impact with different materials that would represent the skin of an animal in the water, to see how it holds up.

New Market

I’m planning on targeting people who don’t own boats or other water sport apparatus, as they would virtually have no interest in my product.

I honestly don’t think my concept would be able to create value for these people, unless they were hesitant to partake in activity on water in other people’s crafts because of harming the safety of animals. I suppose a way to bring them in would be to target those who do touristy things like glass bottom boat rides and renting jetskis, and tell them that my product could give them peace of mind while taking part in these activities.

I interviewed people from this market, and they think that the idea is good but should be marketed as saving more than just marine animals- I also need to put emphasis on the environmental and economical benefits my product can have. With the already existing caged ring motor protectors, they decay, rust, and fall apart in the water, leaving harmful debris floating around, and also don’t last long if not taken care of properly. Additionally, these can cost hundreds of dollars to replace. However, my product has no external apparatus that would disintegrate into the water, and is so cheap and easy to manufacture that if it breaks, it is an easy investment to buy another one.

I think I was able to draw a lot from this new market and learned to emphasize a lot more of the economic and business aspect of it, rather than the humanitarian one. I was correct in assuming that the people I interviewed wouldn’t have a large personal investment in the cause behind the product, and I don’t assume that these same people would be buying it. However, I gained some valuable and objective insight from them regardless.