1. My name is Corrine, I am a second year student here at UF. I'm in the Innovation Academy, which is why I'm in this course, I am a biology major and eventually I plan on going to medical school to be a surgeon. I am still in the process of figuring out what my talents are but I care about people and the environment so I would like to contribute some effort to the environment so people have a better quality of life. If I were to start a business like this it would play a huge role in my life.
2. I would be offering a more eco-friendly option when it comes to tires. They would be made of other compounds that have a shorter half-life than the current rubber-made tires do so that they don't sit in landfills for millions of years. This would just be a way for people to feel good about themselves since they would be doing something to help the environment.
3. It would be marketed to everyone but the customer base that I know would go for it would be people who educate themselves before buying things and really do care about the state of the planet. According to my interviews, cost would be a very big variable in this, so as long as the prices of these are comparable to the current tires then everyone who buys tires now, would have this as an option.
4. My customer base would care to buy these because they care about the problem of pollution and want to help the environment.
5. The thing that would set this apart from everyone else would be the new compounds that make up the tire itself so that it would break down quicker in a landfill than rubber does. To my knowledge, no one has attempted to make this type of tire, especially in a way that would be as cost effective as the product I'm proposing.
6. The only aspect of this that I would be concerned about would be the fact that the research and development costs of these tires would probably be pretty high, which would inflate the price of the tires overall. If I were actually serious about this as a startup business, I would have to look into this and see whether the prices could be comparable to the rubber tires, which would make or break this potential business.
Corrine, I think you are on the right track and have a very good business idea. The only thing I was wondering was how you would make a profit? Especially since the cost of research and development is going to raise the price of the tires and you said that your research concluded that cost was a big factor in the purchase decision.
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