Venture Concept No. 1

Opportunity

            The unmet customer need exists in apartment complexes and condos where there are very few dumpsters or the dumpsters are located a short driving distance from the tenants.  These potential customers don’t want to take the time to walk the trash to the dumpster because it is so far away.  These customers may also be unable to walk that far or they may not be able to while holding the heavy trash bags.

            These potential customers often drive their trash to the dumpster by putting the trash inside their car.  Many of these customers dislike doing this because it makes their car smell like trash.  They also may not like to do this because the bag may be leaking and they don’t want the bag to leak in their car.  Some of these potential customers that dislike putting the trash in their car end up putting the trash on top of the hood or the trunk then drive to the dumpster.  This leads to potential hazards as many condos and apartments have speed bumps which can knock the trash off of the car which almost always breaks the bag and spills the garbage everywhere.

            The market size of this product is always increasing as the population grows and more people rent apartments or buy townhouse style houses without trash pick-up services.  This product could serve any age range low enough to own a car and high enough to assist the older population in taking out the trash.  This opportunity has some risks but the profit of a successful product could do very well. 

More market research should be done to determine the amount that a customer would pay for such a product.  There is no similar product available so there would be no switching costs to the customer.  Many of the potential customers I interviewed expressed discontent with the traditional ways of putting the trash on top or in the car, so it would be easy to convince the customer to change their habits.

There might be laws regarding the type of attachments that can be put on a car which this device would have to comply with.  This product has a very large window of opportunity because the problem has persisted and will continue to persist until another alternative is achieved. 

Innovation

            The product that this venture relies on is called the Trashport Pro.  This device would consists of essentially two half spheres.  The lower sphere would act as a suction cup to attach to the vehicle’s roof or trunk, the main function of the lower half is to hold the device to the car while the trash is being transported to the dumpster.  The upper half sphere would be deep enough to hold a large trash bag full of garbage without it being able to fall out of the device.  The main function of the upper half is to prevent the garbage bag from falling off of the vehicle while moving.

            The device would be made of a rubber polymer that would not scratch the paint of the car while being suctioned to the car.  This rubber polymer would also need to be non-porous so that it cannot absorb any of the odor if liquid is spilled on it from the trash bag.

            More research on the market would need to be done to accurately put a price on the product.  The device should be able to be mass produced and shipped at a rate that would be less than the price consumers would pay for it in order for it to be profitable.  The only source of income from the venture would be the profit from the initial sale of the device.  It has no enhancements, but different sizes could be an option if there is a large enough market for them.

Venture Concept

            The innovation addresses the opportunity in that consumers would purchase a product that would prevent them from having to put the garbage bag in their car while significantly lowering the risk of the garbage bag falling off of their car.  The only thing stopping a consumer from switching to this method would be the initial cost of the device itself.  If the benefits of the product outweighed the initial investment in the product then there is a potential for profit.

            If the demand was high it would be very easy for competitors to enter the market and make a similar product.  The device would most likely only be profitable while the patent was active, but once the patent expired, many substitutes would start to appear.  The only resistance to the substitutes would be brand image that formed during the initial stages of product introduction.  This brand image may continue to stay strong for a short time until reviews of the other products deemed them equivalent and possibly cheaper.

            For the reasons listed above it would be important to have packaging that was cost effective but memorable to the customer.  The name “Trashport Pro” implies a superiority to alternatives and is also a pun to the word “Transport Pro.”  There would be limited customer support as the device would be fairly simple to use.  The purpose of customer support would be to address the customer issues while also looking for opportunities to improve the product.

            There would be a very limited number of employees to reduce overhead costs and to keep the product in an affordable range for the potential customers.  The product would be made by an outsourced company and potentially packaged by that same company before being shipped to a warehouse that would ship to the stores for sale.

Three Elements

            The secret sauce of this product would initially lie within the patent that would create the lasting brand for the consumer.  The brand itself would then become the secret sauce that consumers could rely on.  It would be hard to target the existing customers with another product due to the product not having any enhancements or updates.  It would most likely serve the company best to sell the rights to the product and start on another opportunity with the profit from this one.  If I were to create this product I would do exactly that, and continue to look for problems that average people have that I could create a solution for.