Venture Concept No. 1 - The "?" Lollipop (The Future!)

 An opportunity that I have designed is with the hearing impaired in mind. Potential customers would be anyone whom has a need to maintain safety for themselves as well as others on the road. Loud music can cause an issue while driving making the driver unable to hear an oncoming emergency vehicle or being distracted by your phone. I find the potential customers would initially be hearing impaired drivers but expand to families, younger drivers, and even truckers when the product gets more advertising and great reviews. The nature of this need is to provide and ensure safety as technology advances each day that may take away safety aspects while driving. The environment is allowing visual features and dashboard creativity but not fully equipping vehicles with a multitude of safety features. For example, the cars that begin to break for you can cause more accidents than help therefore taking away safety. I think the market is designed rather well geographically for my product because I believe my product can be used worldwide or anywhere there are roads around the world. Demographically, I know my product will be useful for men, women, families, and even children just learning to drive with their permit or license. My device, HereWheel, will be a great opportunity that will especially be helpful in larger cities. My opportunity will be open for a long time going forward since as stated above, technology continues to advance which makes safety not as great of quality as it used to be in the past.

HereWheel is a product that would connect to your steering wheel and a small cord to the cigarette lighter for power purposes. This is an attachable device that can detect, within a two mile radius, sirens or emergency vehicles coming towards the vehicle. The device will then alert the driver of the vehicle using HereWheel an emergency vehicle is approaching by gently vibrating the steering wheel. This is how the device functions to warn you to look in all mirrors, pull over, or safely avoid being in the way of the emergency vehicle. The vibrations are not hard or would interfere with the use and driving of the steering wheel. It would apply enough pressure to notify the driver there is an emergency vehicle approaching. Even for petite drivers this will be designed with sleek innovation that will not hinder the space between the wheel and the drivers’ legs. HereWheel will locate within a two mile radius, similar to a GPS which alerts you before a turn) if there are any emergency vehicles in route to an emergency coming in your direction. It will have a 360 degree detector so it can be most efficient for the driver. This product could also be installed for elderly costumers with a small fee at purchase. HereWheel will also team up with respective car insurance companies to offer a small discount to customers who have active HereWheels within their vehicle. This not only makes the insurance company look great in supporting safety but reflect well on my company and generate more revenue. These would be the ways I would make money.

HereWheel will solve the issue of reckless driving and prevent accidents from happening on the roadways while an emergency vehicle is in the process of trying to save an accident. There have been countless times when a vehicle did not move out of the way simply due to distractions, loud radio or did not hear the sirens approaching. As a result the vehicle may have crashed in to another vehicle in the process but HereWheel would prevent these issues from happening. There will not be much difficulty for customers to switch because there is not a product within the market that does this job at the moment. There are similar features in vehicles being produced today that beep when you reverse to alert you are too close to an object or person. But there is not a device or feature within a vehicle to provide the service HereWheel will. Therefore this is a new product for a new market to be tested. It is great because it truly is an original and first of its kind. However with no competition or market; getting off the ground will be kind of difficult. I know that HereWheel is ready for the challenge and will prevail all obstacles. HereWheel will be offered at a reasonable price because it is an attachable device and will work for all vehicles that have a way to access power. If this were a device that needed installment then the price would greatly rise as you are adding an additional permanent device so to speak. Packaging will be soothing but eye catching colors to grab someone’s attention in an aisle who may not be aware of the product but essentially HereWheel grabbed their attention based on packaging. The packaging will be a light sunshine yellow with purple text and borders. The design of the box will be unique as it does not exist on the market today. I would want the packaging to be square like from front on but have an extension on the lower half from a rear view. This would be the part that stores the cord that will connect to the cigarette outlet in the vehicle. The packaging would also be sleek and slim at a glance on a shelf. It would not be an overwhelming sight which may turn customers away. The all yellow will attract the eyes as most boxes on shelves at auto stores are deep colors such as black, orange, red or a combination there of. Statistically, purple is a soothing color and will also pair well with the yellow to have a pastel off-set to other products near HereWheel. My distribution would play a large role in my business concept because I want everyone to have the opportunity to buy and try my product. I find with the three different ways HereWheel may be found will reach all demographics and customers geographically. Using auto department stores is the best avenue as it is a car product offered and most car products or parts can be found at places such as Auto Zone. Using insurance companies to offer discounts to those using HereWheel will allow for people to buy the product but save money from that point forward and everyone loves to save money. Also, having displays and select hearing specialist offices use my product will help directly target the hearing impaired drivers which was my original intention, to help ensure safety and provide a device to do just that. I would organize a business to help support and maintain HereWheel by getting my family involved. My brother is very knowledgeable about business - specifically marketing and accounting. He would help in the role of accountant and marketing ideas. My aunt has numerous law degrees which would be handy just in case anything went astray in a customer complaint or malfunctioning product. She would essentially be the business lawyer to ensure our safety and cover all bases. Aside from the two of them, I would hire a hand full of people to monitor distribution, sales, and packaging. I would be in charge of continuing to put the product name out in ads and monitor the revenue as well as scheduling when it comes to shipments from a warehouse to different stores, insurance companies, and even my employees’ schedules! There would be roughly 12 employees aside from myself as we are a new company in the starting process. As the demand grows for HereWheel then more employees will be needed for this business. But I also would like to ensure I make a profit and not break even after paying employees.

I think my unfair advantage would be that I am not only working to help a specific demographic, the hearing impaired, but I am on the inside of this demographic. I myself am hearing impaired and personally know what it is like to struggle while driving and through day to day activities. I believe that businessmen with great ideas can help to an extent for the hearing impaired. But I have a personal connection and understanding of how to market, what the hearing impaired like versus dislike as well as my own experience with this disability. With the extra level of connection I think it makes my product more trustworthy which is what all companies want from their customers.

My next opportunity would be creating a new edition of my product after a few years of being on the market. The trick is the perfect timing where people would want to buy the newest HereWheel as well as getting original customers to buy the new one as well. My second edition of the HereWheel will provide the option of three different settings of intervals for vibration as well as the option of a soft beep. Since this product is meant for others aside from the hearing impaired, some users of the HereWheel may want the option of both vibration and beep, just beeping, or just vibrations.

If I were to launch, I would hope to have a stable job with this company and have it continue to grow within five years of the release date. Maybe it was a product that was the first from a first time entrepreneur to save a life in a freak accident overseas or here in America. If I end up getting some sort of recognition and of course profit, I would consider it a success. I would assume this product would be the new great device until something new comes along but in the moment would make much success. I see myself on the cusp of a fading product in five years. It is not being doubtful of myself or product but once it comes out there will be people in the works to create knock off versions and others creating a better version with my concept. I think in five years I may be working closely with my brother making a new company that is a local hit. For years we have discussed and we are determined in our own ways, together our determination would make a very professional and successful business. Something a little less broad of a scope such as a local dance studio or combination service business would be in the works within the next decade as well. This first step helps me achieve my vision by not being so scared to get out there and try to pitch an idea and see/learn the different business strategies needed for success. These first steps are also important for building references and partnerships within the business world.  

Sorry for the hefty size. When I proofread and typed it in Microsoft, it was two pages, single spaced, Times New Roman, size 11 font.     (=