Assignment 24A: Venture Concept No. 1

Opportunity

   I have been kayaking for several years now whether it be fishing, partying, or just going out for a sunset trip with my family. I enjoy being on the water and the physical exercise that comes with kayaking but over the years have realized that there is not enough room for all of the things I need. I have tried several different kayak styles and brands and they all seem to lack one thing or a another. If you produce a kayak that has enough room for all your belongings, it will be slow and harder to paddle and probably won't track to well in the water which is why most of the kayaks on the market don't have too much room on them. This makes it difficult especially when fishing because of all the gear you need to cary with you. Many different consumers have this problem because kayaks can be used anywhere that water is present. You can use them in a lake, lagoon, river, or the ocean. As of now, customers just take less equipment with them out on the water or buy a kayak with a lot of room and deal with terrible tracking or ease of paddling. I think the opportunity is pretty big because of the fact that there are so many people who go kayaking on a regular basis and the popularity of the hobby. I think that the window of opportunity will be open as long as another product of this sort is not on the market. 

Innovation

   Since there is not enough room on the kayak I have come up with a product that you drag behind your kayak that you put all your equipment and excess belongings. It will increase drag a little but it wouldn't be as bad as if you were to have loaded all that equipment in the kayak that you are sitting in. The product is called the kayak party pack and is equipped with both dry and wet storage as well as a cooler, live bait well, fishing rod holders, and bluetooth waterproof speakers. The product is a stand alone vessel which makes its utility versatile. You can use it while kayaking, canoeing, stand up paddle boarding, or even at a raft up sort of even where boats come together at a sandbar and go in the water. After adding up all the costs I would incur, I think that a profitable selling price would be around $400-500. which is a few hundred dollars less than a new kayak. 

Venture Concept

   My concept fixes the issue of additional space on board a kayak while reducing bad tracking in the water and drag on the vessel. I think people would buy this product because the need is there, the price is fairly low, and the product offers so many additional features that you wouldn't be able to get in a typical kayak. There isn't really a learning curve to it which would make the purchase and use of it pretty rational from the customer's standpoint. As of now, there aren't any competitors that I have come across which makes the product unique. I would however need a pretty large business in order to run day to day operations such as inventory, filling orders, manufacturing, distribution, and marketing of the product. 

The three minor elements

1) I think my products secret sauce is the location of where I am from and will be rolling the product into at the start of my business venture. Ft. Lauderdale is known as the Yacht capital of the United States which shows how much the water means to people that live there. A lot of people stay out on the water everyday and there are many location in South Florida that offer some of the best ocean kayaking in Florida. It is important to have your target market segment near where your business will be run so that you are able to market your product to the people who will actually use it.

2) I think the next opportunity would be to get into the kayak rental services. If I were able to sell this product to companies like this, I would have an even bigger market.

3) I'm not exactly sure if I will ever take this idea and actually make it become reality because kayaking is just a hobby of mine. I do however hope to have my own business within the next 10 years whether it be a clothing company or restaurant. I think this whole process has been beneficial because it went over the entire process of how to generate ideas to actually finding your target market and thinking about how you would actually start the company.