9A- Testing the Hypothesis, Part 2

I am researching for an opportunity I recognized in the smart home gadget market. Smart home gadgets are electric appliances which are very intuitive and can make people’s daily lives easier. However, they are expensive, and average people don’t know much about the products.  I think this creates an opportunity to sell the appliances in bundles (making the total price of the items cheaper), with an optional service to install these bundles.

I spent time trying to find people to interview who could have been inside of my boundary; but had some reason not to be.  As I stated in Part I, I assume that anyone in the smart home gadget market would be interested in this idea.  Most people in the smart home market are middle-to-upper class.  I expected potential consumers to be people with busy lives, or with kids, or elderly people needing help around the house.  These are the people who I thought would see the most benefit from spending the money to get the products.  I still believe this to be true, but my interviews showed me how many outliers I could have.  

      There are a variety of people who I would have expected to fall into my boundary, but didn’t for some reason.  For example, the elderly woman I interviewed.  I asked her if she thought that this idea would make her life easier, and she said no just the opposite.  She thought the effort put into learning how to work all of the stuff would be more than the time it would save her.  She said that she didn’t use a lot of electronics, and preferred a more traditional way of doing things.  She didn’t view these tasks that technology can help us with as an inconvenience, but a part of life.  This gives her no need for the product.  I didn’t anticipate this thought process, but after the interview it made sense to me that a good subset of elderly people think this way.  

      Another group of people I expected to be excited about the idea were parents.  Through my interviews though, found that several families had good reasons to be unsure about the opportunity.  I interviewed a mother of two young children.  She liked the idea, but she was afraid of having so much expensive technology in the house.  She said that her kids will play with things around the house, and they end up broken or lost.  Based on this risk, she didn’t think it was worth buying the products.  She still has the need for smart technology, as it would help her around the house, but maybe a more child-friendly product.  This interview made me realize how parents of small children might be less interested in the product than parents of older kids (as they are more responsible and understand the technology better).  She did tell me at the end of our interview that she might be interested in purchasing a bundle for the office she runs.  I hadn’t ever thought about marketing to businesses.  I think this broadens my boundary quite a bit- as it could make the workplace more efficient and keep workers happier.

      I interviewed the child of a military family who also thought that their parents wouldn’t go for the product.  She said that they moved around a lot when she was younger- eleven times to be exact.  They took only what they really needed to avoid any extra moving fees. She said that they probably wouldn’t have moved the electronics to and from every place they lived.  She thought that the constant break down and set up would have been too much to justify the tech.  She still seemed to have a need for smart home gadgetry, but maybe a system that is a little more portable than the bundle.  

      Another type of consumer I interviewed was a UF student.  They seemed interested in the product.  They said that they had heard a lot about smart home products, but didn’t know that much about them.  Originally I thought that young people might be hard to sell to, as they are more technologically informed and might buy independently.  However, this consumer showed me that they may not be as well informed as a might have thought.  In addition, this interviewee saw the value of this technology more than anyone else I interviewed.  The only thing is though, since they lived in an apartment, their appliances, lightbulbs, and thermostat are all bought by the leasing company.  They didn’t know if they would be allowed to replace anything. Even if they could, they said that they couldn’t probably afford an entire bundle anyways.  I think that because of these issues, they could have a need for a smaller, less-involved smart home bundle.  

      The last person I talked with was a person who had hired help at home.  This person would manage the house (clean, cook, laundry, shop, ect) for them.  This fills their need for any kind of smart gadget with a more personal, more intuitive solution.  As a result, they didn’t feel like they had any need for the technology.  When I included the upper class in my boundry, I didn’t consider that some of them would already have the need met this way.  While this kind of help is only available to high class people, it could knock a subset of the upper class outside of my boundry.

      I think that the two needs that smart home gadgets address are convenience and leisure.  They make our lives easier, and therefor there is more time left for leisure activities.  I think that almost everyone has this need.  I believe that everyone I interviewed felt like they had this need.  The deciding factor between all of the groups I interviewed seems to be how they value their own convenience and leisure.  

	Inside Boundary	Outside Boundary
Who	-       Middle to Upper class people who own their own home/ appliances and manage their domestic affairs themselves ·      Young people ·      Technologically accepting elderly people ·      Families without small children that don’t move around a lot	-       Lower class  -       Upper class with hired help -       Technologically adept elderly people -       People who live in rental properties that are already furnished -       Families with small children -       People who move around a lot
What	Convenience in daily tasks which leads to more productivity and increased leisure time.	A technological fad or status symbol.
Why	Everyone has daily tasks like shopping or cleaning that take time out of their schedule.	Some people don’t see the tech as a convenience.  Some don’t view these daily tasks as a chore.