24A - Venture Concept No.1

1.      Opportunity

My customer base is anyone in need of furniture, meaning that this includes anyone who has either recently, purchased, rented, or moved from one home to another. This implies that people have at least a certain amount of capital to spend, guaranteeing that I will have at least a small market. The specific people who most have the need are students moving to apartments (both renting and buying,) workers/commuters who are constantly moving around the state or country into cheap apartments, and anyone looking to sell their home and in need of newer and/or smaller furniture.

The reason this market is prevalent today, is because of how rapidly the world’s population is growing. Take for instance countries like Spain that either hold a multitude of people in a single household, or Japan that have extremely small apartments for one or two people. Innovations have been created for these people in furniture, especially in Japan with their changeable furniture, pull-out couches that become beds and tables for instance. But in most other places in the world, particularly in America, there aren’t any similar products. This means you’d have to import for something that doesn’t really apply or make your own model, which is what I’m doing. Currently, customers are satisfying this need only by importing products with similar features to what I’ve specified above, or simply buying smaller furniture. Both options aren’t the most efficient and can even be rather costly. This opportunity is one that will remain prevalent, so long as the world population continues to rise, meaning there will be less and less room for people and they’ll have to live in smaller and smaller places. The same applies for how long the window of opportunity will remain open. So long as no natural disasters, major wars, or plagues come about, then there is ample time for me to create, market, produce, and sell my product.

2.      Innovation

The product I’ve proposed at the beginning of this course has changed drastically, but has maintained the same theme: movable furniture. This is not to simply say, furniture that is able to be moved or that has wheels, rather it is to say that the furniture itself is easily moved from place to place and stored if needed. The vision I’ve always had is a desk or nightstand that can be emptied and folded up into a small, compact piece. This way packing one’s furniture or moving it from one spot to another is easy. Currently, there is not bridge in between the realm of bulky furniture that comes in a single piece, meaning it is an extreme hassle to move around and furniture that must be disassembled and assembled, simply to get it through a doorway. I want to bridge these two things by making a line of furniture that comes in single pieces, already built, but can be folded and shrunk in order to move about. While I am unsure as to the exact logistics of my product, I’m confident that I could outsell most of my competition by charging around $30-$40 dollars for nightstands, $60-$70 dollars for kitchen tables, and $50-$60 dollars for work desks. These prices are already cheaper than the competition but would provide way more utility than my competitors.

3.      Venture Concept

My innovation will solve this problem by providing my potential market with a line of furniture that is cheaper than most of my competitors with a significantly higher amount of utility in the form of being able to easily move the furniture from place to place. The consumers themselves may be rather hesitant to switch to this product from their normal providers however, I aim to market my line to retailers instead. Retailers would provide a much more steady amount of revenue through constant sales, despite a small drop in the price I can sell it to them for. Where this becomes most prevalent is in the market of furniture renters. These retailers are extremely valuable to me as they are constantly looking to buy furniture that provides a lot of utility, is durable, can be held in their stores in mass, and are transported easily; it just so happens that my product aims to meet all these needs. My competitors at this point would be slim, seeing as retailers will take furniture from nearly anyone. Granted, my main competition would be IKEA, as their furniture can be marketed to be similar to my own, without the need of actually having that extra utility; the name alone is enough to keep people buying their product instead of mine. Packaging, style, and the actual production of the pieces matter immensely, as patent laws will certainly prevent me from styling any pieces to be similar to others. Despite this, I’m certain that producing a desk in the style I’d like wouldn’t be much of an issue. The business I’d start would have to involve a factory with a good number of employees, say fifteen to twenty, all ensuring the machinery that would be producing the pieces are functioning properly. This would only be if my idea truly does take off and I can amass the capital necessary to continue production and subsequently begin mass production.