29A – Venture Concept No. 2
Note: Most of this post is the same as my last one because I only received positive comments since then. To make it easier, I am putting all the changes or additions in bold. I welcome any new readers to see the whole thing and give me any thoughts, but did't want people who saw the last one to have to find the slight tweaks I made. Most of my changes are simply to add an extra detail or idea I got from one of the comments or interviews.
Opportunity:
Thousands of new students, alumni, parents, and sports fans walk through the UF bookstore each year. As they tour the campus, many will end up buying merchandise showing the UF colors or logo. Currently the bookstore has hundreds of items in orange and blue so that all can display gator spirit, find a gift, or get a souvenir. Many of the current merchandise options are clothing and clothing accessories for that gators can proudly wear their spirit, but as anyone who has shopped for a clothing Item in the bookstore these are usually sold at a high price. A shirt could cost $40, a vest $120, and a jacket upwards of $60. There currently is few options for people who want to wear orange and blue on a college budget without choosing between a textbook and that cool jacket. I believe there is a strong market opportunity for wearable UF gear between ten and fifteen dollars. As it stands the closest product to fill this gap is a few of the cheaper hats and UF high socks, both of which are a type of clothing that does not reach the interests of all fans. This need will be strongest on the UF campus during games, events, graduations, and previews but could be catered to year round with the addition of more wearable accessories within the price-range.
Innovation:
To fill this need, I created the ZipStrip. As I have said over and over in these lessons, the ZipStrip is a strip of fabric with zippers on both sides. The zippers will allow you to zip it up and attach to a normal jacket or hoodie with a zipper. The zip strip can easily be fit to all standard clothing sizes, and will come in the three most common zipper designs so it will fit most jackets easily.
Because the ZipStrip is very simple, it is easy and cheap to manufacture. Currently I have a prototype made out of a jacket I cut up and held together to prove the concept, but even with just rectangular strips of fabric cut from a roll, bulk ordered standard zippers, and a sewing machine I could make many identical ones easily for about $3 per unit. Because of this I hope to sell them at $10-15 depending on the cost/cut of creating and selling UF branded ones. To match UF the ZipStrip will come in team colors and show the UF logo, but the concept could easily support more options, colors, and patterns.
Venture Concept:
The starting business plan I have for the ZipStrip is to sell UF themed ZipStrips on the local campus, and then expand out into more generic styles and meet different customer needs once I have enough capital and energy to expand. By starting at UF I will capitalize on the unique team spirit and audience of fans for this new product. In the bookstore of at football games, I think the ZipStrip will be a great option for those that want to wear orange and blue but don't want to buy a full jacket or shirt. Additionally because it is so different and new, I have consistently been told in interviews that if they saw someone with something like the ZipStrip on it would stand out in their memory or prompt them to ask the wearer about in. This is a fun form of free advertising, and I could facilitate it even more by giving free ZipStrips are a few of the events or games here when I prepare to sell them. That would get walking advertisements out on campus before my launch. By pricing it as 20% of what the base UF jacket costs, I think I will be able to attract new fans or students that aren't invested enough in UF to pay the full price. Additionally a ZipStrip could be immediately zipped into a jacket that the customer was already wearing and instantly change the outfit to show new spirit even without changing, which increases the convenience of accessorizing in new school colors. The packaging for the ZipStrip will just be a small tag or hook so they can be displayed, but which will be small enough that customers can try to zip it up into their jackets right from the rack without having to take tags off or purchase first. I hope this will let people understand the new concept, and in trying it on it will attract the attention of other customers that hadn't seen it. I also would like to produce a similar UF themed scarf that I could put in the same display as the ZipStrip to draw in people with a product they are familiar with, as well as give an option for the people without zip up jackets.
Conclusion:
I think my most important resource is the new idea. I have yet to find someone that has seen something like this and I have had strong responses from the people I interviewed. By starting with UF I hope to get out of the gate with a strong community of fans I can use to grow the ZipStrip, and then will be able to transition to selling them online for a wider range of designs and interests. Even if someone were to copy my idea right after I started, by using the Gators I would have at least one group that would be hard to compete with me on. This also was confirmed by the comments on my last venture concept, which both liked my idea and noted that I went in depth on the details and numbers. My feedback also told me that expanding from the UF fan to the other markets I describe throughout these posts is a smart strategy and gives clear avenues to grow my idea into something really cool.
I have already contacted several UF employees who handle marketing and banding decisions, but will need to keep trying and finding the right people to convince and work with. Without getting permission and beginning to get ZipStrips manufactured my idea will go nowhere. My next immediate goal is to order a high quality prototype from a custom clothing manufacturer so I have a more polished example to show.
This Idea was not something I planned on, and my expectations for it are more of as a way to gain experience and confidence creating products. In five to ten years I most likely will have moved on from the ZipStrip to designing and producing my real passion in Board Games. Based on the responses from posts where I mention the possibility of moving on from the ZipStrip, I can tell that I at least was getting interest from some classmates and will try to take what I learned here into whatever products or steps for this idea I do next.
Conclusion:
I think my most important resource is the new idea. I have yet to find someone that has seen something like this and I have had strong responses from the people I interviewed. By starting with UF I hope to get out of the gate with a strong community of fans I can use to grow the ZipStrip, and then will be able to transition to selling them online for a wider range of designs and interests. Even if someone were to copy my idea right after I started, by using the Gators I would have at least one group that would be hard to compete with me on. This also was confirmed by the comments on my last venture concept, which both liked my idea and noted that I went in depth on the details and numbers. My feedback also told me that expanding from the UF fan to the other markets I describe throughout these posts is a smart strategy and gives clear avenues to grow my idea into something really cool.
I have already contacted several UF employees who handle marketing and banding decisions, but will need to keep trying and finding the right people to convince and work with. Without getting permission and beginning to get ZipStrips manufactured my idea will go nowhere. My next immediate goal is to order a high quality prototype from a custom clothing manufacturer so I have a more polished example to show.
This Idea was not something I planned on, and my expectations for it are more of as a way to gain experience and confidence creating products. In five to ten years I most likely will have moved on from the ZipStrip to designing and producing my real passion in Board Games. Based on the responses from posts where I mention the possibility of moving on from the ZipStrip, I can tell that I at least was getting interest from some classmates and will try to take what I learned here into whatever products or steps for this idea I do next.
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