24A Venture Concept Description - For Kid's Sake

Opportunity. The market opportunity is the need for a safety device for parents of young children that cannot get out of a car by themselves (specifically a hot car). The need is currently not being addressed and has come to my attention because of the continuous reports of this tragedy occurring repeatedly as reported on the news stations where the child has perished. The child’s age for this opportunity ranges from 1 minute old to 2 or 3 years old depending on when the child no longer requires a car seat. Once that has transpired the child has matured enough to speak up and can most likely alert someone who has left them behind in the car. The parents of the child, specifically the mother of the child or children, is my focus. They live in Florida, make a medium household combined family income of $40,000 to $150,000 annually. They are moderately to highly educated, may or may not work, possibly use day care facilities or child care sitters and may have other children either younger or older than the focus child. They come from all different ethnic backgrounds. They may have lots of responsibilities that may make it hard for them to complete every task they are required to tackle each day and they may become forgetful. They also may have multiple children (think of the movie Home Alone) where they think the whole lot of children are with them, but one may not be. They may work full time and rush off to work each morning, doing the same routine each day. This customer will also be caregivers of young children that would be in a situation where they would be giving them rides in a car.

Innovation. I want to stop completely all future hot car deaths. The product needs to alert parents or caregivers if a child is in the back seat so that they are heard and removed from the car. It would need to always be implemented, ready for action and would never be a burden to use or an annoyance. It must have a cost that is reasonable and that is offered at the appropriate time so that the parents will purchase it along with other baby products (in the heat of baby spending) usually just before a baby is born.  It would be best applied as part of a baby car seat design. The initial customer would be the parent of the child, and the subsequent customer would be the car seat manufacturer.

Venture Concept. The product has been simplified to just address this need of hot cars deaths. The product will be a pad that is applied to a car seat that would alert the parents or caregivers if the car has stopped so that the parents would be gently reminded that the child is waiting for them to get them. The weight of the baby would implement the pad, and the car in the off position would set off a sensor to start playing a soft tune to remind the parent. The product is designed to be helpful. It would act as an alarm (soft tune instead of a loud buzzer) that would need to be turned off so that it would automatically reset once the baby is placed back in the seat such as a phone alarm.

Parents would easily switch to this product because it would be offered on new car seat designs for not much more money and would be a natural part of the buying process that already exists. The product would cost the manufacturer pennies on the dollar, maybe at a price of approximately $10.00 or less per car seat. There would be a patent on the design and each car seat manufacturer could advertise its car seat as a safety seat. They could sell it through their own advertising efforts, and they would come out looking like a hero. I would just get a portion of the profit that my product generates.

There would be no competitors because I wish to sell this product to all the top car seat manufactures. Should one company only agree to purchase the product from me if they were exclusive, then their competitors would be the other car seat manufacturers. The other car seat manufacturers would be forced to substitute the item to offer their own version. This could cause them to make a better, more improved idea starting with our idea as a base bypassing the patent.

I would start the business in my own home by myself by working to design a seat pad much like an adult car seat comfortable cushion pad. I would use existing technology to have it be implemented and then reset. This seat pad could evolve to have additional features on it such as a heated element for winters.

My most important resource will be using my human capital. I believe I can get the idea started myself, create a sample product to then present it to the proper decision makers at baby car seat manufacturing companies. Should they not want to come aboard, the back up plan would be to sell the pad separately and added to a car seat in a standard size. I hope to have negotiating skills to present and sell the product. I can also design it to be aesthetically pleasing and comfortable. The idea is an easy one, so it is imitable. I would have to get a patent or have a contractual agreement between me and the manufacturer(s) to either offer it for years to come or to buy the idea from me.

My next step in this venture would be to investigate a patent to protect the idea. Then I would like to contact car seat manufacturers to discuss the idea with them. In five years from now, I would be like to be making pennies on the dollar for each car seat sold that had my safety pad on it as standard.