Week 6 Reflection

It's already the sixth week of the semester...

Just thought I would throw that out there. Anyways, today was the second of two class meetings this week. It seems as though the snow isn't hindering our class times lately, which is certainly a change.

On Tuesday, we had one of our scheduled "replacement classes" with the honors engineers. As a result, we did not have our normal class with just the honors business students. This was the second in-class meeting with the engineers, and the class focused on the consumer decision making process by highlighting the pros and cons consumers face while using our product. This was accomplished by creating a consumer timeline of the driving experience, which mainly focused on inclement weather conditions and hazards. Our team's product involves making a more safe, efficient car-windshield, so we focused on the pros and cons of driving visibility. We concluded that the less the consumer has to think about the car windshield, the more effective our product will be. We are still refining the areas we want to make better in the windshield and I personally like the idea of a self-dimming windshield when glare enters the vehicle. Our next meeting is this coming Tuesday so stay tuned...

Since our regular class didn't meet on Tuesday, we were tasked with watching two Shark Tank clips for homework. On Thursday, we re-watched the clips as a class and connected them to concepts from chapters 10 and 11 from last week. These two clips involved the "Phone Purse" and "Revolight." The clips varied greatly in both their nature and watch-ability. The two public relations girls who pitched the Phone Purse were too over-the-top for  my taste. It was quite apparent that their product wasn't innovative at all- it would just sell units. Laurie latched onto their idea because she knew she could use her excellent QVC connections to move hundreds of thousands of units fast. I didn't like how Laurie commented that she's sold almost the same product on QVC before, except that the previous phone purse didn't have a pocket. Therefore, it seemed that Laurie was looking to nickel-and-dime her QVC consumer base which disappointed me. The product was definitely a fad that had the intention of making a quick dollar which was a stark contrast from Revolight. Revolight was a specialty product that actually solved a consumer pain point and extreme safety issue- bicycle visibility during the nighttime. The lights not only serve as a headlight for the bicyclist, they give side visibility to drivers. This is an exceptional idea considering 70% of biking accidents occur from the side, according to the inventor. Revolight not only looked aesthetically pleasing, it served a safety purpose that couldn't be overlooked. Also, Revolight targeted bikers that spent a few thousand dollars on their bikes already, so their specialty product wouldn't have trouble with sales. To their target market, spending a few hundred dollars on an innovative and effective headlight system is second nature. This product was easy to root for although the engineer and person who pitched the idea obviously undervalued his company on purpose (Mark Cuban made sure to call him out on this). This detracted somewhat from the pitch, but I was literally in awe of the innovation at hand as they demonstrated the product. Revolight's deal was one for the future since they had not nearly reached their true sales potential at the time of the episode. Shark Tank never fails to disappoint.

Until next time,
Chris