11A- Idea Napkin

1.      You- I am a 19 year old from south Florida.  I do not have any special talents but I love sports, traveling, and trying new things.  I am very organized, determined, and am proficient in time management skills.  I have worked a variety of different jobs which has taught me how to balance my finances.  I see opportunity in the business concept I created of a way to prevent sand from sticking to the skin.  Growing up in south Florida my family and I often attended the beach which has given me experience on how to address this need.  I have always had a passion for business.  For this reason, I could see myself pursuing a business idea such as this one at this point in my life.

2.      What are you offering to customers- At this point the product I am trying to offer to customers is an idea that needs to be developed.  I want to create a spray on product that would be used at the beach to prevent sand from sticking to the skin.  I have no experience creating such a product so as of now this is just an idea.  I also have the idea of creating a spray on product that cold perform the tasks of preventing sand from sticking and as sunscreen.  As I previously mentioned, I do not have the knowledge or understanding if it is possible to create this product, but it would solve the unmet need.

3.      Who are you offering it to- This product would be most useful for people located near the beach.  This would include most Florida residents but mainly stores located at the beach in south Florida which has many tourists year-round.  The target customers would also be adults both male and female in the age range of twenty-forty as they are the ones most likely to go to the beach and use this product.  Additionally, if the sun screen component were to be created it would be important to target parents of children.  Many parents want to make sure their kids use sunscreen and may use a product to prevent sand from sticking so it doesn’t get in the car to make create less of a mess.  This product would be ideal for people of middle class income with families as opposed to adults who are always working and have no or desire to go to the beach.

4.      Why do they care- When going to the beach, there are ways to attempt to wash and wipe away sand.  These options may be the use of a towel or the local showers provided.  However, these options do not typically do a good enough job to get all the sand residue off.  A spray that prevent san from sticking has value because its an added way to prevent the irritation and annoying factors associated with sand.  Additionally, if this spray had the capabilities to prevent sand from sticking and used as sun screen it would not take any new knowledge on how to use the product.  People use spray on sun screen very often so a transition to this product would be beneficial to “kill two birds with one stone” and would hopefully not be too expensive to purchase.

5.      What are your core competencies- As of now, I can’t think of anything that sets this idea apart from others.  To my knowledge this would be unique until other competitors try and replicate it.  If I could create a product that works and then create a patent then it would be unique but at this point I am just at the idea stage.  

I think the five items fit well together for the overall concept of solving a need with the introduction of a product or service.  For my solution to the need, it was easy to come up with answers for the first four questions.  Using my experiences with the beach and sand I was easily able to link all the answers to fit together.  My product is currently an idea that I need to spend more time learning about.  However, for my product I found It difficult to come up with what made it different than others.  Anyone could create this product if it were to become popular.  In the future planning of my product I would like to spend time to decide what would help make this product different from all others.