25A – 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.

Ointments and salves are next in this market. This would create new products for the venture with similar healing benefits. This will also target people that get irritated skin from wearing bandages.

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: We should be focusing on organic healing for the venture. What would Whole Foods want?

Interview 2: We should be focusing on child healing specifically. Parents don’t want to buy adult bandages for their children, so there should be a specific line for children.

Interview 3: We should be focusing on healing for skin in the acne realm. How can this scaffold healing be transferred to acne?

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.

Based on the interviews, I think that organic healing and children’s line makes the most sense. These ideas are similar enough to the venture. In comparison, these ideas add more diversity to the venture.

An organic line would be very interesting. The logistics of the materials would need to be figured out, but other than that it could be very successful. Possible bandages made out of bamboo? Do the bandages need to be vegan or can they use animal based products?

A children’s line is a very important idea. I never thought that parents wouldn’t want to buy normal sized bandages for their kids and it’s a question I never asked. A whole line for them could be very profitable especially because parents are one of my main markets.

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.

I have not focused on the market for the elderly. My interviews have been based around younger individuals and children. I think that I need to make more elderly and nursing home based products.

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!

I think that this venture could create a lot of value within the market. Elderly skin tends to peel off more easily – so bandages would need to be more delicate. The glue for the skin could not be as strong. Also, the healing could be based more around IV injections and other processes that are more common in nursing homes.

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: The response was not too exciting. They seemed to be happy with what they were given with the services at the nursing home. Focusing more on internal healing would be more valuable than external healing.

Interview 2: This was more helpful of a response. They tend to fall a lot and scrape up their hands, elbows, and knees. Bandages that aren’t as clunky for this would be really helpful. They think that this could be moderatly successful because it is more of a niche 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. 

What surprised me the most was the lack of a market. The people I interviewed didn’t see the value. They think that it should be more geared toward younger people. This market is definitely not as appealing as my existing market.

One idea that I did get was for focusing on healing of plastic surgery. Those who get plastic surgery are the most conscious about scarring, therefore that could be a huge market if it would prevent that.