4A- Forming An Opportunity Beilief
1. About a year ago, a problem started coming into my everyday life. The problem seems very minor, but can take up to 30 minutes a day to deal with.
2. Ever since I bought my second puppy, I have had a problem that I can not seem to find a solution for. My first dog is now 7 years old, and my second dog is only 2 years old. They eat different foods, but usually eat at the same time. They always eat each others food and can sometimes cause them to become ill. This is when I first sensed that their might be an opportunity. If I am having this problem as a college student, then others must be having this problem as well. Right now, I usually have to feed my dogs separately, while keeping the dog that is not eating occupied. My sister has two cats, and has been having the same problem. She is attempting to train the cats to eat at separate times. This creates an opportunity to try to find a solution to a problem that people have been dealing with for decades.
3a. The prototypical customer would be someone with multiple pets, who eat different foods.
4a. The first person I interviewed was my sister, Carlee. Her problem started when she rescued her second cat about 5 years ago. Since this cat was a rescued, she has to feed it a special type of food. The problem is that her first cat, loves to eat and is much bigger than the other cat. Often times, it will bully the other cat and take its food. Since she works everyday, it has become a major problem because one cat is not eating nearly enough, and the other is eating way too much. Currently, she puts the bowls as far away from each other as she can while she is at work. When she is home, she does the same thing that I do with my dogs.
5a. Since this was my first interview, Carlee opened my mind and showed me that this is a bigger opportunity than I originally thought. Being a college student, I didn't think of how much bigger the problem is for people in the workforce. They aren't home for almost 8 hours and have no idea which pet is eating the food.
3b. The second prototypical customer I interviewed was a best friends mom, who has 2 dogs and a cat.
4b. She had a different problem than my sister. Since she had dogs and a cat, her dogs often throw up when they eat the cat food. This is a huge problem because the dog is ill, the cat doesn't eat, and the house begins to have throw up stains all over. She is a stay at home mom and has to constantly monitor the food. She says that there are a couple of companies who have offered solutions but none of them have truly solved the problem.
5b. She made me understand even more that this is a problem for a lot of people. Many households have more than one pet and often times cannot control what they eat. She also opened my mind up to the idea that when these pets get sick, they ruining valuable parts of peoples homes. I thought it was interesting that she has purchased items to solve this problem and still has yet to.
3c. The last prototypical customer I talked to was my Aunt. She is what you could call a "crazy cat person." My aunt has 5 cats.
4c. When I started this interview I thought she was going to tell me that her problem was worse than any of the other people I interviewed because of the amount of cats she has. Once the interview started I realized that this wasn't the case. She went on to tell me that the cats are all within a couples years age of each other. She said that when the cats were younger she had this problem. The kittens would all fight each other for food and it was hard to keep track of which ones ate and which ones didn't. She said that she didn't do much to solve her problem, but instead as the cats grew older they all let each other eat.
5c. This interview was extremely interesting because she showed that as animals get older, they can be trained to eat their own food and only their own food. This made me wonder if dogs were able to do the same thing. She said that when she let the cats eat each others food that they were learning where to get food from and how it will be.
7. After doing this assignment, my views of the opportunity I believed their was did change a bit. My Aunt changed my thinking a bit. She was very strong in her belief that animals know they need food to survive and will eventually figure out which bowl to eat out of, even if it means getting sick a couple times. In her experience once a certain type of food made the cat sick, they would be hesitant to eat it again. I think this does play a factor in this opportunity because if they can train themselves to eat the right food, people may not buy a product that does it for them. I think that entrepreneurs definitely change their opportunities based on customer feedback. The customers are the ones actually buying and using the idea. If they have a complaint or compliment, they probably mean it. This information can help the entrepreneur reach more customers as they adapt thought the customer feedback.
2. Ever since I bought my second puppy, I have had a problem that I can not seem to find a solution for. My first dog is now 7 years old, and my second dog is only 2 years old. They eat different foods, but usually eat at the same time. They always eat each others food and can sometimes cause them to become ill. This is when I first sensed that their might be an opportunity. If I am having this problem as a college student, then others must be having this problem as well. Right now, I usually have to feed my dogs separately, while keeping the dog that is not eating occupied. My sister has two cats, and has been having the same problem. She is attempting to train the cats to eat at separate times. This creates an opportunity to try to find a solution to a problem that people have been dealing with for decades.
3a. The prototypical customer would be someone with multiple pets, who eat different foods.
4a. The first person I interviewed was my sister, Carlee. Her problem started when she rescued her second cat about 5 years ago. Since this cat was a rescued, she has to feed it a special type of food. The problem is that her first cat, loves to eat and is much bigger than the other cat. Often times, it will bully the other cat and take its food. Since she works everyday, it has become a major problem because one cat is not eating nearly enough, and the other is eating way too much. Currently, she puts the bowls as far away from each other as she can while she is at work. When she is home, she does the same thing that I do with my dogs.
5a. Since this was my first interview, Carlee opened my mind and showed me that this is a bigger opportunity than I originally thought. Being a college student, I didn't think of how much bigger the problem is for people in the workforce. They aren't home for almost 8 hours and have no idea which pet is eating the food.
3b. The second prototypical customer I interviewed was a best friends mom, who has 2 dogs and a cat.
4b. She had a different problem than my sister. Since she had dogs and a cat, her dogs often throw up when they eat the cat food. This is a huge problem because the dog is ill, the cat doesn't eat, and the house begins to have throw up stains all over. She is a stay at home mom and has to constantly monitor the food. She says that there are a couple of companies who have offered solutions but none of them have truly solved the problem.
5b. She made me understand even more that this is a problem for a lot of people. Many households have more than one pet and often times cannot control what they eat. She also opened my mind up to the idea that when these pets get sick, they ruining valuable parts of peoples homes. I thought it was interesting that she has purchased items to solve this problem and still has yet to.
3c. The last prototypical customer I talked to was my Aunt. She is what you could call a "crazy cat person." My aunt has 5 cats.
4c. When I started this interview I thought she was going to tell me that her problem was worse than any of the other people I interviewed because of the amount of cats she has. Once the interview started I realized that this wasn't the case. She went on to tell me that the cats are all within a couples years age of each other. She said that when the cats were younger she had this problem. The kittens would all fight each other for food and it was hard to keep track of which ones ate and which ones didn't. She said that she didn't do much to solve her problem, but instead as the cats grew older they all let each other eat.
5c. This interview was extremely interesting because she showed that as animals get older, they can be trained to eat their own food and only their own food. This made me wonder if dogs were able to do the same thing. She said that when she let the cats eat each others food that they were learning where to get food from and how it will be.
7. After doing this assignment, my views of the opportunity I believed their was did change a bit. My Aunt changed my thinking a bit. She was very strong in her belief that animals know they need food to survive and will eventually figure out which bowl to eat out of, even if it means getting sick a couple times. In her experience once a certain type of food made the cat sick, they would be hesitant to eat it again. I think this does play a factor in this opportunity because if they can train themselves to eat the right food, people may not buy a product that does it for them. I think that entrepreneurs definitely change their opportunities based on customer feedback. The customers are the ones actually buying and using the idea. If they have a complaint or compliment, they probably mean it. This information can help the entrepreneur reach more customers as they adapt thought the customer feedback.
I never realized how many people had this problem. Luckily I have a big dog and a small dog. Neither really has a large appetite although if the smaller one doesn't finish all of his food the bigger one sometimes cleans it up after him. However, neither the bigger one nor smaller one has ever bullied the other. I have their bowls in separate rooms and they are also different color and different sizes. Not sure if that helps, but so far its worked for me.
ReplyDeleteHi Eric,
ReplyDeleteYour opportunity post is great and super relatable! I myself have 3 large dogs and at one point they were on different foods. Because I had such a problem keeping the 2 out of the puppy’s food, I ended up switching them all to the same food. If the foods were to have been medicated or specialty food for a specific need, I would have had to keep them on separate foods which would have been difficult.