19 A

Idea Napkin No. 2



Who you are. What your talents are. What your skills and experiences are. Also: what are your aspirations? Specifically regarding your business concept, how do you see this business (if you were to start it) playing a role in your life?

· My name is Esther Goldstein. I spoke with five individuals who are familiar with my abilities and they provided me feedback concerning my strengths and weaknesses. Based collectively on those conversations I reached conclusions concerning my skills. My greatest asset in embarking down the road of life as a prospective entrepreneur is my oral communication skills. I enjoy public speaking and do it confidently. When I was in high school, my father took me to his business development group and I was able to stand up in front of seventy professionals and deliver a thirty second presentation concerning a product I was selling. After the meeting, my father received several inquiries from professionals in attendance looking to hire me for their companies. However, I needed to finish high school and attend college.

· In high school, I did start my own business manufacturing and selling bath bombs. I manufactured them in my home and was able to sell them online cheaper than the stores. I developed my own logo and web-site and even established a merchant account.

What are you offering to customers? Describe the product or service (in other words, how you'll solve customers' unmet needs).

· I will invent a washer/dryer combination which efficiently automatically cycles from washing to drying. I believe it will be the future for how individuals prefer to do their laundry. The potential customer based is endless as it will be used by laundromats, college students, efficiency apartments, working parents and anyone who does laundry.Using this product will help busy people by making doing laundry more convenient.

· Based on my interviews, I realized that I need to modify this invention somewhat. For example: I must have different settings that are programmable before the load begins. These setting include a delicate one in which the laundry will not automatically be dried. Interviewees also wanted the product to come in a variety of finishes. Finally, interviewees would like to see these machines come in a horizontal version to incorporate a folding table on top.

Who are you offering it to? Describe, in as much detail as possible, the demographic and psychographic characteristics of your customers. Think especially of this question: what do your customers all have in common?

· I will market the product to consumers who desire more free time. My market for the consumer can be any age group; it’s really the mindset of the person as to how efficiently they want their laundry completed.

· The second target I plan to market to is owners of laundromats. Consumers who use laundromats would prefer to not sit around to transfer their clothing into another machine. A laundromat can market itself as a leader in the industry by having the most efficient machines.

Why do they care? Your solution is only valuable insofar as customers believe its valuable to them. Here, explain why customers will actually pay you money to use your product or service.

· Retailer will care about this product because they like to be known as the first business carrying new products. They want to continue to keep their customers believing that they are the only store that carries the newest appliances.

· My original napkin design remains the same; the only thing that I plan to change is some of the settings on the machine, such as a feature that stops the machine from automatically drying the clothing. I do believe that consumers will purchase this product and larger families can possibly even have two in their household since it would take up the same amount of space as their current washer and dryer.

What are your core competencies? What sets you apart from everyone else? Also: what do you have that nobody else has?

· According to my research, there is a product similar to this that does exist. However, Consumer Reports does not rate it well. One of the major defects is that it takes a minimum of 4 hours to complete one load of laundry.

· What will set this product is it will be able to complete a load of laundry in the same time as a traditional washer and dryer. Unlike its competitor, the machine will be 2 separate machines. Not one machine that does both, allowing the dryer to more efficiently dry the clothing.

· What these machines will be able to do that no other ones will is they will be able to function interdependently as well as together, allowing consumers to have the best of both worlds.

In addition to these five elements, please spend a paragraph evaluating whether you believe these elements fit together or whether there are aspects of your business concept that are weaker / out-of-joint with the others.

· I believe that all of my elements will work well together. One of my weaknesses is presenting my prototype to manufacturing companies. Also, since I do not have experience in the mechanical part of the machine, I will need to either find a partner who does or outsource that part. However, once I present my product and show that there are no other comparable ones like this in the industry, I am confident it will be a success.



Feedback Memo:
This process for me has been quite a journey. I have interview people closest to me and learned a lot about myself. Some of the strengths and weaknesses they identified I was aware of and others I was not. However, each person did say that my greatest strength is my communication skills. This made me happy since communication is crucial for having a successful business. 

I did decide to modify the product after interviewing people and listening to their “wishlist” as they brought up ideas that I did not think of when I invented the product. 

Based on the comments from my first elevator pitch, I also will be more cognizant as to keeping my speech less about me and more about the product. While this product will also affect my life for the better, I must convince the consumer it will also change their life for the better.