Forming an Opportunity 4A

Beginning Point: I believe that an opportunity exists and I first became aware of this opportunity while I was working on the "Bug List" assignment last week. When a standard automobile has a burnt out tail light there is no way for the driver to know until somebody tells them or they get pulled over.

Describe Your Belief: The unmet need here is that there needs to be a way for the driver of a vehicle to easily be able to tell if their tail lights are working properly. As of now, there is no way to know. Anybody that owns a vehicle has this need, or even just people that drive cars in general. It is a safety hazard to be driving around if all of the lights are not working properly. Before the invention of cars, this need obviously did not exist but ever since people started using cars this is a need that has still not been satisfied. Especially now that there are sensors that come in cars that can tell you if your tires are low on air for example. A sensor for the lights sounds relatively feasible. As of now, people are meeting this need by driving around in an unsafe vehicle until either somebody lets them know that they have a tail light out, or they get pulled over by a police officer that could potentially write a ticket. People manage, but this is not the most efficient way. At this point I would say that I am about 95% sure that this need exists.

Identify The Prototypical Customer: This is the beauty of my opportunity. Anybody that drives a car is essentially a prototypical customer. I believe that all drivers would benefit from a tail light sensor in their car. I interviewed a young driver, an older driver, and a manager at an auto mechanic shop.

Iteration Number 1:
For this interview I spoke with my next-door neighbor, Ricardo. He's 33 years old and owns a 2009 Saturn Outlook. I asked him about his experience with tail lights burning out and introduced to him the idea of a built-in sensor that could notify a driver when the tail lights aren't working. He told me that it's not something that he thinks about often but "I guess it'd be nice to have". He said that he has had a tail light go out in his car before and that somebody notified him while he was backing out of a parking lot. "At that point I suppose it would've been nice to have something like that in the car because who knows how long the thing had been out at that point." His experience with having to change his tail light was the first time he recognized the need. Before then it had never crossed his mind. I asked him how he's dealing with this problem now. "Honestly, I just hope it doesn't happen. And I figure if it does somebody will let me know eventually." He appears to be somewhat satisfied with the current solution, but not entirely. He also mentioned that if cars began to implement the new technology that it would probably be a while until he has a new car anyways.

Iteration Number 2:
For this interview I spoke with a family friend, Gary Meyers. He's 70 years old and owns a 2017 Buick Regal. Again, I asked him about his experience with tail lights burning out and introduced to him the idea of a built-in sensor that could notify a driver when the tail lights aren't working. He seemed intrigued with the idea. "You know, you're absolutely right. It seems like they should have come up with something like that a long time ago." He told me that he has been pulled over for having a tail light out before and that he's also had other tail lights out where people have told him in parking lots. He said that being pulled over is the first time he recognized the need. He was annoyed that the police officer gave him a warning for something he couldn't have known about. When I asked about how he deals with the problem now he said that he checks his lights every once in a while but it's not perfect. He is not entirely satisfied with his solution to the problem.

Iteration Number 3:
For this last interview I spoke with a manager at a local auto mechanic shop, Melky Guzman. He is 43 years old and owns a variety of vehicles. I asked him about his experience with tail lights burning out and introduced to him the idea of a built-in sensor that could notify a driver when the tail lights aren't working. "No doubt in my mind car manufacturers will begin to implement this technology soon," he said, "there are already sensors in newer models for numerous reasons so it's only a matter of time." He agreed that it is a good idea. He said that he checks the lights on his cars weekly and that he's happy with the solution but he can understand why most people wouldn't want to go through the trouble since it seems trivial.

Reflection:
I came to the realization that even though it would be nice to have a tail light sensor, it seems that it is not something that most people think about, which is probably why car manufacturers are waiting so long to implement the technology, because they feel like consumers wouldn't want the car much more because of that feature. What surprised me most was that out of the three people that I talked to, none of them even mentioned anything about safety. It is more unsafe to drive a car with a tail light out but none of the people that I talked to seemed to view safety as a factor.

Summarize:
Most of my original opportunity is still there, the main change that I would make to my opportunity would be to have the tail light sensor as an option instead of just included in the model. People seem to share the opinion that it is annoying not knowing the status of your tail lights and there is no easy way to check, so I definitely believe that if the price was right many people would pay a little extra for this option in their vehicle. I believe that this new opportunity is more accurate than what I started with because people that aren't as bothered with tail lights or don't have a problem checking the lights themselves can choose to exclude themselves from the option. I firmly believe that an entrepreneur needs to adapt to customer feedback as much as possible. When it comes down to it, the success of a business relies on customer satisfaction. Only the customer can tell you what they want, you can't create a need for them. Once you have a better idea of what exactly the customer wants, opportunities should be adapted to reflect the customer's desires.