25A – What’s Next?

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

Poop Pocket to hold bags of dog poop during walks, leashes, collars, harnesses, bandanas, and t-shirts. There would also be dog training videos on the website.

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. 

The three customers believe I should possibly consider what Chewy.com is doing and to understand how to ensure Chewy.com is not too big of a rival.

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.

First, it would start off on eBay and the poop pocket would prove itself worthy of the market. There would be a social media account created, posting relevant posts of funny things and links to funny dog videos. There would also be posts about the products that are sold on eBay. After proving the venture is worthy of investment, investors would be consulted in an attempt to gain resources needed for mass production. Mass production happens, made in America, and gains attention from pet retailers. Get into the pet retailer stores, gain more attention for the brand, more attention for the website, and grow from there, totally independent from bricks and mortar.

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.

People who do not have dogs and rich, showy offy people are not in the market I am aiming toward.

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!

If I wished to get the attention of the super-rich, I would consider putting crystals on the harnesses and such. To target people who do not have dogs, which is a very bad idea, I suppose I could possibly make agreements with local pet shelters. Get them to give coupons to my website whenever someone adopts a dog.

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? 

The people I interviewed suggested finding a way to make my products what people think of getting someone who has a dog as a gift.

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 when I came up with finding the people who are just then getting a dog and getting my product in their face to gain their interest.

Showy offy people like crystals and sparkly things on their belongings. That is a pretty sound assumption because if someone pursues expensive things, they are showy offy. It is basically the definition.