24A – Venture Concept No. 1

Opportunity:

I strongly believe that every person has the need for this item. Everyone scrapes themselves, burns themselves or cuts themselves. It’s simply humanity. More so, the potential customers are the people that experience more severe injuries. These would be burn victims and people who get into accidents. The market is specifically for those willing to invest in better healing parents and health addicts would be more likely to buy this product than your average shopper. The nature of the need is based off of the injuries of others. The environment creating this opportunity is the stagnation of the healing market. People crave innovation. Customers are currently satisfying this need by buying the regular bandages which simply cover up the injury while still needing ointment or antibacterial. This opportunity is huge as the current market for bandages is upwards of $500 million dollars. The window of opportunity will be open depending on the rate of medical research and the release of new bandages.

Innovation:

This innovation is new in comparison to other bandages because it actually provides healing for the skin instead of simply covering it. The bandage will have a layer of biodegradable scaffolding for a scab to form. The faster a scab heals the less likely scarring or infection is to form. This is more incrementally innovative in medical research, but it could change the drug store bandage market. The bandages will be priced at a similar price-point as current bandages, but slightly higher enough to reflect value. The materials won’t be too pricey so this will allow for a profit.

Venture Concept:

I believe that customers are likely to switch to this product because of its value. Once the research is done, the material should be relatively cheap. Because of this, the price wouldn’t vary too differently from current bandages. If we can offer better, more efficient healing, at a similar price there is no reason for customers not to switch over. The concept is that the bandage will provide a scaffold for the scab to form. This would accelerate skin healing and help prevent infection and scarring. Competitors would be big name bandage and medical supply companies. Packaging and price points are very important. Customers want multi-toned skin color options to allow multiple races to reap the benefits of the product. Organizing a business will be the most difficult because it will need to have support for the research, for the marketing and advertising, and for the manufacturing. This will require a lot of technical background so the venture initially could be pricier.

Three minor elements:

Important resource: The important resource for this venture is my mentors. This will provide invaluable experience to the venture’s management helping it excel. So many ventures fail because of their management –not because of the idea.

What’s next? The venture will move forward to expand to salves and ointments that could dry and provide more flexible healing – like a mask. This could attack a market of people that get irritated by bandages on the skin.

What’s next for me? In five years, I’d like to be able to sell this venture to a large company like Johnson & Johnson. This would allow me to profit from the idea and use what I have gained to start a new venture.