19A: Idea Napkin 2

You: I am Parker Blystone. I believe my talents to consist of people skills. I am good at talking to almost anyone and I like striking up deals with others. My aspirations are to attend law school and become a lawyer for an esteemed law firm preferably in the northeast. I see this business concept playing a role in my life greatly because many of my family members smoke cigarettes and are addicted to nicotine and by actually creating a nicotine free product that slowly weens people off of the drug effectively, I believe that I could help not only many people but also members of my own family in the process.



What are you offering to customers?: I am offering a Juul like vaporizer that effectively weens you off of nicotine by reducing the amount of the nicotine in the pods that you would order every week until you eventually do not feel the need for nicotine anymore. That is my plan for a product that is relevant to society today and especially parents of young students exposed to vaping at school or in class.



Who are you offering it to?: I am offering this product mainly to young people who are unfortunately already addicted to nicotine due to the rise in popularity of vaping devices in the ages 14-24. I am also offering this product to the parents who see no alternative and want to safely and effectively wean their children off of a harmful drug while avoiding rehab. All my customers have in common is they either vape themselves or know someone that does. This customer base can cover a wide variety of people. It’s aimed at the masses with a specific focus on younger adult aged persons.



Why do they care?: They care because no one truly wants to be addicted to a harmful chemical whether its themselves or someone they love. I believe this inherent belief holds true in most people, especially those targeted by my customer base. They will pay money as long as they want to quit smoking vaporizers.



What are your core competencies?: I think what sets me apart from the other companies is that the goal is to actually improve public health and wean people off of nicotine rather than get them addicted so that they buy more and more of it.









I think these elements all fit together to make a good product that people will buy. The glaring problem which I do not have figured out is how to keep revenue coming in when people are not hooked on nicotine anymore. This main concern is the one that I think would hold me back if the product were to come to fruition. This is also the main criticisms I have received, and they make sense. It is a large problem.

14A: Halfway Reflection

1) I have used my time management skills, tenacity, and perseverance to keep up with the requirements of this course. I have been forced to be more creative in this course than any previous time in my life, and I have enjoyed the challenge of having to do so. So, I would definitely say that my creativity and use of a creative mindset has really developed over this half of the course so far. I am a very straight-forward logical thinker and this course has challenged me to respond to issues in very unfamiliar manner than what I am used to.

2) I felt like giving up on the first assignment that had to deal with coming up with an actual product that would solve the opportunity that we had identified previously. For the life of me I could not come up with an idea to solve the problem until I conducted the interviews that were required in the assignment. What pulled me through the thought of wanting to give up was the interviews I conducted. In a weird way, they were a stress reliever and allowed me to calm down and view the subject at hand from a different angle which I found to be extremely helpful.

3) Tip 1: Use your time efficiently. Do not wait until Thursday to start the assignments for the week, you’ll drown in stress.

Tip 2: Keep up with the lectures, do not fall behind.

Tip 3: Challenge yourself to think outside your normal trains of thought. Push yourself through the adversity of the assignments and really try to come up with something that’s both viable and sustainable at the same time.

13A: Reading Reflection

1) For the reading reflection, I chose to read Shoe Dog an autobiography by Phil Knight the founder of Nike. I found the fact that despite Nike seemed almost certain to fail, Phil Knight preserved anyways through countless mistakes, struggles, and tribulations and made Nike into one of the most successful companies this world has ever seen. I admire the fact that he started selling imported Japanese shoes out of the back of his Plymouth Valiant and turned that dream into a reality where you can walk down any street today and are almost guaranteed to see someone wearing something with the iconic Nike swoosh attached. The thing I found least admirable about Phil Knight was the fact that some peers in the industry found that he was hard to truly get to know on a personal level. Now, this fact can be attributed to his dedication to his business, but I feel as if people in a position of power such as the CEO of Nike should be approachable and get along with various types of people. Phil Knight encountered a ton of adversity before he made it big with Nike. He started Nike with 50 dollars from his father and lived in debt for many years. He had to practically beg investors at banks to give him a chance time after time. Finally, after years of struggling and barely keeping Nike afloat, he made it big and became the international success that he is today.

2) I noticed that Phil Knight exhibited a willingness to fail and fail often in order to succeed. I believe that to be his biggest achievement in it of itself. I think that by being so willing to fail, it opened his eyes to what truly would lead to his success since he definitely knew what would NOT lead to it. He exhibited a willingness to work with all kinds of people and put his trust in people that he may not have necessarily done in any other situation. He also displayed an unparalleled humbleness about himself despite his success, detailing in the book his nervous quirks and insecurity.

3) I found Phil Knight’s lack of depth concerning the actual making of the shoes confusing. I do not understand why he did not detail the actual making of the shoes in the factories and what it takes to make a solid product for consumers.

4) I would ask Phil Knight these two questions: Why did you trust a college design student to make your iconic Nike logo? And do you wish you did anything differently/Do you have any regrets? I would ask these questions because I find both of these scenarios very interesting: the fact that he was willing to trust a college student with something so important, and the fact that the CEO of Nike may have some regrets about the way he conducted his business.

5) I think that Phil Knight would say hard work is very important to success, but I think he would say that having no fear of failure is way more important and can teach you what you need in order to succeed in your endeavors. I definitely share this opinion after reading this book.

9A: Testing the Hypothesis Part 2

Who: When conducting my interviews, I found that there was a decent amount of people that fell outside my market and opportunity. These people are those who have been smoking the juul or any other vape for a while and have come to terms with it and are convinced that it is better for you than smoking cigarettes even though there is little actual medical evidence to support this thought. My first interviewee said that he was not interested in stopping smoking the juul because he thinks there is no harm in it. My next interviewee said that, “this is not a nicotine issue, this is a parenting issue”. She, a 21-year-old female college student, said that parents can easily cut down on the “juuling” issue simply by parenting their children better.

·      I found a surprising market while conducting interviews. My third and fourth interviewees are parents of middle-aged school kids who they personally caught juuling. They took my idea for a solution surprisingly well and said that they would allow their kids to vape if the juice contained no nicotine at all. These results surprised me.

My last interviewee is a former Juul smoker who quit when after realizing just how harmful smoking these vapes can be. She said she did not think a product like this would work because the nicotine is what keeps people buying the product; so, taking out what keeps the customer coming back was “inadvisable” in her opinion.

What: When talking to the first interviewee, a really good point was brought up. My product that contains no nicotine may not be successful or stop anyone at all from using the nicotine-filled products. You can’t control what people will do especially when the trend is extremely popular and there has not been enough medical research done to convince the public of the true dangers of the device itself.

Why: The need is not any different- the only issue concerns whether or not you can actually convince kids to stop doing what they perceive to be “cool and in right now”. You also can not try to get someone to switch to a product that contains no nicotine if the consumer has no problem with nicotine itself.

                                    Inside the Boundary                         Outside the Boundary

Who:               Middle aged kids or teenagers that                 Middle aged kids or parents who do

                                    are hooked on nicotine                       not care about the danger of nicotine

                        College aged kids wanting to stop                  College aged kids who do not care

being addicted to nicotine                              about being addicted to nicotine

Parents wanting to help their children            Parents who smoke themselves

Combat the effects of nicotine addiction

What:              Need is stopping nicotine addiction               Stopping nicotine addictions

in under age kids

Why:               Smoking the juul is considered “cool”           Smoking the juul is considered“cool”

                        And is seen as a healthy alternative