ENT3003 Assignment 25A – What’s Next?

What's Next?

Existing Market. 

Step 1: Talk about what you think is what's next in terms of products and services for your venture.

• I believe my products future is based on an expanding customer base that's achieved by finding issues with similar product lines like sticky notes, pens, etc. These products are similar stationary work/school-related items that are quite basic in nature yet still lack features that could improve them greatly. 

Step 2: Interview three customers who are already part of the market you have identified, and ask them what they believe is next for a venture like yours. Describe to them your business, and simply ask "What should we be doing that we aren't planning to do?" Next, ask them about your ideas of what customers might want next.

• Interview 1: He told me that I should try to find a way to make my pencil accessible to more than just students. He said that what I had in mind to go after similar product items made a lot of sense but that a lot of them are already in established markets.
• Interview 2: This interviewee explained to me how I should try to promote and make my product more accessible to the target audience through promotions, advertisements, and social media campaigns. When I gave my ideas, I was told that it could also be another avenue but that I should focus on my current product before going onto other product lines.
• Interview 3: My final interviewee said that she believed my venture would be best off selling and profiting off of what I've already created. After giving my idea, I actually considered myself the idea of selling as it somehow never came in mind before.

Step 3: Based on your own expectations and the feedback you received from customers, set a path for the future. In two to three paragraphs, describe what makes the most sense for your venture in terms of growing in your existing market.

• I want to grow in my market and I want for the Capable Pencil to be one of the most successful stationary innovations that we have faced in recent history. Based on my feedback, I believe that this can be possible by first advancing my product's outreach and growing the consumer audience. After this, I think the best possible step would be for me to come up with other product lines that could benefit off of improvements similar to that of what I did with the mechanical pencil.
• With all that was said, I think I could take quite a bit from the feedback given to me today when direction what makes sense for my venture's future. Growth in the existing market would be ideal and therefore discount the idea of selling, however potentially selling off stakes to investors could create more capital for the business that would help also promote the product more and therefore take into account a lot of the recommendations I was given.

New Market.

Step 1: Identify a radically different market from what you're currently planning to target. If you're currently targeting B2B, think about going after a B2C market. If you're currently targeting an affluent part of society, think about targeting a very poor part of society.

• A market I haven't yet considered that would be radically different is the demographics of older people, those long-gone from college in their 40s and over.

Step 2: Once you have identified a radically different market, describe how you think your venture concept might be able to create value for people in that market. You may have to get creative with this -- that's OK -- and perfectly welcome!

• People in this market could have value from my product as for one, they're less likely to use technology and therefore have more need for writing utensils like mechanical pencils that I'm selling. The value created would be the same as for the students though, in that they can get an improved pencil that offers less flaws and premium features.

Step 3: Interview two people from this new market. Again, describe to each interviewee what your concept is. Then, ask them how they think your business might be help to meet customers like them. What kinds of adaptations to the product/service mix do they think you should make to be successful in this new market?

• Interview 1: I interviewed my father, who says he never even uses mechanical pencils or that he doesn't choose to and rather picks whatever is closest to him when he needs to write something. More often then not, he says that he's writing with a pen. Having learned this, my product could be adapted in some ways to work for pen improvements too.
• Interview 2: My 2nd interview led to discussions about why my pencil was better, leading me to believe that the improvements in my pencil won't be as noticeable to those of the elderly age. Taken this into account, I may need more promotional materials about my product that make its benefits clear to the consumer in this market.

Step 4: Reflect, in two to three paragraphs, on what you learned about this new market. What surprised you the most? Were any of your expectations/assumptions correct? Does this new market, on second thought, appear to be as attractive as your existing market? And so on.

• I learned that this market is not the common user of mechanical pencils. Furthermore, I would anticipate the most of these people are not even particular at all about what they use when they're writing and focus more on convenience. With that said, my product creates more convenience for the consumer which allows it to still be an added benefit to people in this market.
• I believe this market is not as attractive as my existing market, although the fact that they're less inclined to use technological devices does make them slightly more appealing that I initially anticipated. Above all though, it seems that older people prefer to write with ink-pens, and that even those who don't aren't too picky when it comes to pencils, much less the niche of mechanical pencils specifically.