evaluation

MARKETABILITY:

I like all ten of my ideas, however I am biased because I picked them. In order to test if these ten ideas are actually marketable, I personally polled 15 students around campus. I had them complete an anonymous google form survey with 6 questions for each of my 10 products.

My six questions were (in this order): "What do you think of this idea?", "Do you know someone who might use this?", "Would you use this product?", "Can you see yourself owning this item?", "Would you buy this?", and "How much would you pay for this?".

I showed them sketches of each of my product ideas accompanied by a short verbal description. Below is a list of my ideas along with a summary of my verbal descriptions that accompanied the sketches. 

Bike Whistle: "This whistle would attach to the handlebars of any bike and would emit an audible noise to warn pedestrians and vehicles of your presence. A funnel would capture the air and concentrate it to make this work even when moving at low speeds. There is a slide to adjust the pitch to personal preference and volume."

Goldy Gopher Nose Warmer: This insulating device would cover one's nose during the winter months. It is open underneath to allow for easy breathing. Straps would go around the ears for a snug fit. Plus, it is cute, like Goldy Gopher. 

Note Alert Pen: This pen would incorporate a microphone to actively listen to your lectures and meetings and will vibrate slightly when it recognizes something that might be note-worthy.

The Reminder Ring: This GPS-enabled ring can be set to provide location reminders via a smartphone app. When you get to a certain location, for example, the grocery store, it will buzz and you will be reminded to buy more milk, for instance.

Environmentally-aware headphones: These headphones would operate much like standard noise-cancelling headphones by incorporating an actively-listening microphone which will play back the reverse of the sound waves in order to cancel out ambient noise. These would have the added feature of being able to be programmed to listen for a certain word of phrase, such as your name, which will then disable noise-cancellation and allow you to hear who is talking to you.

The Canopy Lampshade: This lamp would incorporate a potted plant at the base, which would grow up onto a trellis and become the lampshade. At the end of the season, you may have ripe tomatoes hanging near your desk, or fresh herbs to pick and place on a salad. It will bring some light and life to a room.

The Grow N' Snip herb-cutting Flowerpot: This flowerpot would incorporate a food-safe cutting edge, eliminating the need for scissors or pruning shears when harvesting. Simply bend the leaf down to the edge and harvest what you need.

Plant Pals!: These electronic flowerpots would incorporate sensors to measure the growing condition inside the pot. Metrics like humidity, pH, and temperature will be translated into emoticons that will give your plants some personality.

Your Personal Plant Factory: This device would produce a substantial amount of leafy green vegetables. Lights would be raised and lowered robotically as plants grow for optimal productivity. The device would be connected to a smartphone app that will provide reminders as to when to water, and when it's time to harvest! This would make farming an automatic process.

Chalk-able flowerpots: These flowerpots would be designed with a writable surface to allow for personalization and written messages. This way, your mom could write a message like, 'The Basil is ready, or the Tomatoes are ripe - eat them!' directly on the pot.

After these polls had been completed, I analyzed my data. Here are the results:

Bike Whistle:

The price ranged from 50 cents to 30 dollars. Many of the "other" responses consisted of comments exclaiming that the participants didn't ride bikes at all in the first place.

Goldy Gopher Nose Warmer:

People loved the Goldy Gopher nose warmer idea, but, as a fun gift. Many couldn't see themselves owning it. Price ranged from 50 cents to 30 dollars. Most would have paid between 10 and 15 dollars.

Note Alert Pen:

This idea performed very well in the polls - since this was a student population. All participants knew someone that would use this and 73% would have used it themselves. The price ranged between 10 and 100 dollars, with most paying over $40.

The Reminder Ring:

Prices ranged between 15 and 100 dollars. Many thought this was a good idea. One had concerns about battery life. 80% knew someone who might use this.

Environmentally-aware headphones:

Everyone knew someone that might use this. 60% said they would themselves. Over 50% could see themselves owning this and would buy it. Prices were much higher on average, ranging from $20 to $500.

The Canopy Lampshade:

This idea performed very well. 87% knew someone who might use it. 67% would use it themselves. 60% could see themselves owning it, and over 50% would buy it. Prices ranged from 15 to 75 dollars.

The Grow N' Snip herb-cutting Flowerpot:

This idea didn't do so well. People thought it was dangerous, quoting it as "an insurance hazard".

Plant Pals!:

People loved this idea. 100% of participants knew someone who would use this. 73% would have themselves. 67% could see themselves owning this. 87% would have bought this for themselves or as a gift. Prices were consistently higher, ranging from 15 to 75 dollars.

Your Personal Plant Factory:

Reviews were mixed on this. Prices ranged from 10 to 200 dollars.
Chalk-able flowerpots:

Some wouldn't buy because it seemed more like a DIY project. Most knew someone who would use this and would have used it themselves, but couldn't see themselves owning or buying it, unless as a gift. 

My top 5:

- The Goldy Gopher Nose Warmer: I chose this because I thought it had great potential for sales during winter football and hockey games. Plus, it would be simple to manufacture.
- Name-Aware Headphones: I chose this because it did well in the polls and I believe that this technology will be available to us soon. I might as well patent it first.
- Plant Pals! - I chose this because it did very well in the polls and I have the knowledge to actually produce this.
- The "Note Alert" Smart Pen - I chose this because it did so well in my polls. There is clearly a need to re-invent the pen.
- The Automated Plant Factory - I chose this because I am passionate about sustainable agriculture and smartphone integration.

Novelty:

The Goldy Gopher Nose Warmer:

Most of these nose warmers are handmade and available on Etsy for between 5 and 30 dollars. It seems the UMN sports department has tried a similar idea in the past, but never a nose warmer.

Feasibility: This product is extremely feasible. Cost to manufacture would be extremely cheap, since it would be made out of felt or some other fabric. The design could be outsourced. We might need to obtain licensing rights from the University to produce this - which could be expensive. The cost to implement these would likely be under $1,000 - and this would likely get you a large quantity of them to be sold at gopher sports games.

Patenting: It seems someone has patented this idea. However, this could be superseded by a unique design patent.

Name-Aware Headphones:



Many of these headphones listen to the world around them in order to create a noise cancellation effect. None that I have seen incorporate my idea of programming a key word that would activate/deactivate this feature.

Feasibility: The technology for the "name and environmentally aware" headphones ready exists. Vocal recognition was originally pioneered by technology company, Nuance. Even apple incorporates this technology into each of its devices capable of supporting Siri. Bose and others have already finely tuned noise cancellation technology. I could easily see a merger of these two technologies. With Apple's acquisition of Beats headphones, I think this technology could could be easily and beautifully implemented. The cost to research and develop these independently would be enormous. Likely in the tens of thousands for several rounds of prototypes and market testing.

I found two patents pertaining to this technology:

Plant Pals!

As far as I can tell, the blue-faced plant-pal-like product does not actually exist. There are many DIY Arduino projects detailing how to create a plant-monitoring system, however, but these are not user friendly. Plant Pals would stand out in this market.

Feasibility: The technology to do this already exists. Many of it is on the open Arduino platform. I would need to hire a coder/programmer to develop code to interpret data from the sensors. i would also need to hire a graphic designer to design the emoticons and the shape of the pot itself. A production-model prototype would likely cost under $1000 in parts, and another $1,000 in labor and programmer consulting.

Links to similar DIY projects from around the internet:
http://lifehacker.com/build-a-moisture-sensor-that-shows-emoticons-when-a-pla-1490420948
http://www.instructables.com/id/Garduino-Upgrade-Now-with-more-Twitter/

Here is a patent pertaining to my idea:

The Note Alert Pen:

http://digital-pen-review.toptenreviews.com/

Many of the pens advertised their storage capacity in terms of number of pages that it could record. These pens are used to record lectures and also to digitize handwritten notes. None of the pens had the technology that my idea proposed, which was an actively listening pen that would notify you when something was said that was of importance.

Feasibility: This technology would be hard to implement. A microphone that is always listening will drain a lot of battery. Also, vocal recognition and speech analysis is not advanced enough yet for it to understand what we are saying and know what should be deemed important vs. what should not. Even Siri has her miscommunications. Advancing vocal recognition technology to the point which would be necessary to make this product a reality would take millions of dollars and years of research.

I found two patents related to this idea - there are likely many more:

The Automated Plant Factory

Feasibility: The field of hydroponics is changing rapidly. LED lights are becoming more efficient and their prices are dropping. Additionally, we are entering the age of the Internet of Things. It's only right that this device be connected to the internet and to our smartphones. Implementing these advanced electronics will be pricy. However, hopefully the consumer views this as an investment in their personal health and wellbeing. The most prominent player in this market is Aero Grow. Other smaller manufactures and design firms are producing their own as well, such as the Green Wheel and the Volksgarden. This product would be expensive to implement because of the complexity of controlling so many environmental variables, however, I think it is a worthy challenge. There are not many fully enclosed, fully automatic devices such as mine, and this design has several distinct advantages.

Producing this product will not be cheap. There are nay electronic components and parts to be fully developed. A team of engineers will be required for both the hardware and software. Based upon the progress I have made in my own prototype, my estimates are that to finish this device would cost several thousand of dollars on the low end, and $15,000 on the high end in order for it to have the chance of becoming a viable product.

Many people are working in this field. Here is a sample hydroponics patent:

Here is some further inspiration related to my idea.

http://www.aerogarden.com/

http://www.designlibero.com/home/product-design/the-green-wheel/