Monday, 17 September 2018
Smart Shoes Business Idea
Introduction
The scope of this report is to
highlight a novel idea pertaining to implementation of a smart alternative to
traditional footwear, in order to increase overall performance of the wearer
and ensure standards of quality in all applications. The product and its idea
will be novel and cutting edge, with focus being put on reliability and a
reduction in size, along with making the platform open source in order to gauge
the response from several segments of the market. The report also intends to
highlight the potential market for this application along with the suitability
of this product to the market to ensure a market fit. At the end, the report
intends on highlighting the potential jump from idea to implementation and
summarize some of the possible strategies that can be used to ensure a viable
business implementation.
Body
Every year, one of the most
common articles in every personal set of collections of clothing and
accessories are shoes. They are the fundamental human-worn item, worn by
billions of people worldwide. As such, they come in many shapes and sizes,
tailored to meet not just the dimensions of the wearer’s foot but also the
needs and requirements in terms of activities and uses. Different types of
shoes are worn for casual usage as compared to shoes designed specifically for
different kinds of athletics and working environments. In recent years,
emphasis has been laid on the implementation of novel design strategies to
enhance the level of cushioning available to different parts of the shoe to
boost performance. This includes the addition of air cushions to reduce impact
from the ground as well as steel tips to the shoes to prevent impacts from the
top. Other additions typically made by the footwear industry include extra
support or lack of support to the ankles to increase or reduce the possible
range of motion available to the body at the ankle level. The market does this
through rigorous studies of the shoes in action using high quality sensors
connected to computers in laboratories as well as through kinematics studies of
the human body to find areas that are most impacted.
We feel we can improve upon
this system by using technology available today and make the average shoe
smarter and capable of doing a lot more than what shoes currently accomplish.
The way forwards is through the use of sever small nano-sized embedded sensors
that allow the wearer complete ease of use while simultaneously noting down
specifics about the type of use and the routine patterns. The method in
question uses accelerometers to gauge motion in several directions including
from the joints separating the carpels from the rest of the foot. Another set
of accelerometers will take into account the difference in movement between the
bones above and below the ankle to gauge the need for ankle support.
The novelty continues with a
set of pressure sensors embedded at strategic locations in the heel and sole of
the shoe, allowing us to map the pressure points upon which weight is exerted
in everyday use. This will also allow us to map the general kinematics of the
human body and therefore conclude to a reasonable degree of accuracy how a
person moves his upper body based on the results from the shoes. This has many
novel applications from mapping key performance analytics of sportsmen for
better insight into training and also from a safety point of view to ensure
that workers employed in factories and construction complexes lift and move
objects taking into account prescribed values of safety. Most companies have
set guidelines regarding how weight is to be lifted and by using performance
metrics to further drive safety into everyday lives, it will greatly increase
overall safety and reduce likelihood of accidents occurring. The demand for
such a product is immensely high, as anyone who goes through trainings in
construction, manufacturing or any sort of field work is often trained in the
proper methods to work. Additionally, with companies like the Ultimate Fighting
Championship (UFC) embedding sensors into fighters’ gloves to allow home
viewers access to fight statistics like power and acceleration of punches,
sensors in the shoes will allow them to further measure performance metrics
like acceleration in sports like football, rugby, cricket, boxing and martial
arts. This information can be used to train the next generation of fighters as
well. The information can also be used by sports medicine professionals to map
the exact impacts to the foot that may have resulted in known injuries to the
athletes in order to treat the athlete accordingly.
Applying the value proposition
canvas to this idea allows us to see that the product in question, which is a
sock like insert that covers the foot and functions as an insole as well as
containing embedded soft sensors, allows us to reduce pains faced by coaches
with regards to highlighting specific areas where athletes need improvements as
well as to managers who face horrendous accidents at work as a result of
workers deviating from prescribed safety manuals (Lawson-West, 2017) . Additionally, whenever it is called
upon in the case of an emergency, it can possibly save time in diagnosis of the
actual problem by visually mapping out the stresses at the root cause of the
problem, thereby improving diagnosis for the medical industry the way it is
struggling to do otherwise (Melendez, 2014) . The key choke hold on such an idea is
not the algorithm that can be used to calculate performance based on sensor
readings, but more that the sensors are small enough and robust enough to take
the burdens of everyday use without hindering performance of the user in any
way. All of this has to be done in a financially feasible way as well, which is
perhaps the biggest challenge to such an implementation. The customers would be
happy as they would be able to get direct information regarding their day to
day operations, including mapping out more accurately the activities done all
day than compared to the simple step trackers available commercially. The
product will be tailormade to the specification of the foot so a single unit
can be worn inside several different shoes with the same level of fitting. The
only jobs that the customer is expected to do are to buy a product custom built
to the requirements and to wear it as a replacement for insoles in shoes.
Additionally, the customer has to ensure that the product remains charged, but
this can be improved in a design innovation scheme where piezo-electric sensors
could be used to charge the sensors as the person moves along, however, that is
not entirely a robust technology application as of yet. Overall, it will help
quantify and in turn improve performance, safety and ease of solution to
medical problems for the customers. The value proposition canvas is a good tool
for quantifying aspects related to novelty and value of the product, however is
in our experience, a little too simplistic when it comes to building a value
proposition that is constant in the long turn. Additionally, the application of
the value proposition canvas before finalizing design from an engineering
standpoint might result in proposing impractical aspects and therefore needs a
review. The lean canvas made by Ash Maurya, better defines the actual problem
that needs to be addressed than the value canvas (Koen, 2017) .
Applying the business model
canvas to this idea involves identification of key partners in the
implementation of this idea. For that, a team of engineers is needed to work in
collaboration with professionals from the footwear industry to ensure
reasonable compromises between engineering and comfort for the user. Other key
stakeholders include managerial staff members in companies and at professional
sporting level like coaches who need to be consulted to see what accurate
readings and resulting output visualizations they expect from such a product.
Customer discovery is one of the key aspects of any good entrepreneurial
approach and this product needs to go through the same. Partners include
medical professionals whose input into which pressure readings correspond to
which natural movements is critical to understanding the human body. Key
activities in this regard refer to coming up with the accurate requirements
from consumer markets to see which particular areas of the market are actually
ripe for digitization in such a manner. Then the system needs to be developed
accordingly. Once the simpler hardware aspects are complete, more focus will be
sent on collaborating with medical professionals to correlate readings to movement
data accurately. The knowledge of kinematics of the human body along with an
understanding of and experience working with embedded systems and sensors are of
paramount importance to our attempt at improving the performance of workers
across several industries. Relationships with sporting professionals, such as
managers and coaches, along with people who have previously dealt with
performance footwear is essential as well. A key inspiration to this is the way
Kobe Bryant has recently collaborated with specialist sports doctors along with
footwear designers to make an impressive low-cut court shoe for basketball, a
field dominated by high-waisted shoes. His insight is based on two decades of
professional basketball, which we hope to be able to quantify and apply to
other aspects of the sporting arena as well (Drehs, 2008) .
Once complete, the available sales and distribution channels to us would be to
management professionals via large contracts with companies who buy them for
their workforces or with management s who buy them for their teams from product
catalogs available in-store and online. In this market, the targeted purchaser
will be the people who buy these products for their employees and the consumer
will be the actual users of the products. Thus, the application of the business
model canvas to this idea results in a good understanding of the way forward
though it is open to some shortcomings as the canvas does not account for
strategic thinking involved in setting up the company and its ideals and
purposes. It also doesn’t account for competition from other wearable products
with sensors embedded in other objects like wristbands. It is also fairly
simplistic in its approach and therefore doesn’t allow accurate representation
of several complexities (Coes, 2014) .
The average cost of such a
product needs to be about USD200 at a maximum, which is the suggested retail
price for the highest end specification. Reducing the number of sensors would
reduce the cost to the customer with a single sensor costing about USD25 to
manufacture and USD50 for the purchaser. The sensors record readings and transmit
them via Bluetooth using a simple Bluetooth module that is commercially
available for USD10 worldwide. This information can then be recorded using our
proprietary app and computer software that is only available when purchased
from us. The overall cost of manufacture for us is roughly USD115 for a single
unit with the maximum number of sensors: four along with free access to an app
and a computer interface to read the data simultaneously. We anticipate selling
this product at a profit of USD85 per unit for the top-line model, which gives
a return on investment of about 73% in terms of profit generated per unit. This
money can be used to recover costs of securing and perfecting the design and
simulation phases to ensure the intellectual properly is unique and secure. The
product shall be accompanied with a limited liability warranty and no return
policy since it will be custom made to fit the consumer’s demands.
When conducting primary
research, our leadership intends on contacting experts from Nike, Adidas and
regional medical facilities along with senior staff members of offshore oil
rigs based in the Gulf to understand some of the challenges they face in their
respective markets. They will be asked about the general requirements of the
shoes worn by the consumer and will be offered the data regarding foot
movements mapped onto the human body, instead of the details of the product
itself, to gauge its use to them. Each manager will interpret the data in their
own way, all of which will be targeted by our product. Once a prototype is
built, we will have semi-professional athletes review it under strenuous
conditions and gain feedback regarding readout values from their coaching staff
to tailor it for their requirements. At the end, we will publish our results in
relevant technology circles and then use that to secure interviews with bigger
companies as well as for basic marketing to get a website up and running,
allowing users to share data on social networks to increase fitness goal
attainment (Muoio, 2017) .
The maximum available market
for such a product is with every shoe sold in a year which brings the number to
about 20 billion pairs of shoes sold annually. Of these, the ones sold by well-known
athletics retailers like Nike, Adidas and Everlast along with work boots sold
by Caterpillar are our actually attainable market. Athletic shoe sales equal
about 95 million annually (Statista, 2014) . Their strength lies
in their design heritage and the level of expertise they have available with
regards to efficient footwear design and use. Competing with them is futile and
will be a major roadblock to entering the wearables market since their market
value is too high and the brand values are too big. Hence we would attempt to
approach higher management of these brands and offer our product as a value
added incentive to their top-range shoes to secure credibility by collaborating
with an established brand. There are no direct competitors to our product since
this is a novel idea, and therefore out major hurdle is to prove the cost
effectiveness of the actual output from our data collected (Dengate, 2017) . In return, we can offer incentives to
companies as well as this would be the first truly “smart” shoe on the market
and a single collaboration with a major sporting icon like Lebron James or a
wilderness expert like Bear Grylls would significantly improve their stock in
the market by giving them an edge over their relatively “dumb” competitors.
Since Nike and Adidas are based in the US, the number of shoes sold there is
our target market. We would offer our product online, via amazon and a
proprietary website, as well as offer custom tailored solutions to shoe
manufacturers which are seeing sustained market growth annually (Statistic Brain, 2015) .
The major users of potential
smart shoes are generally assumed to be technology literate and therefore we expect
online retailers to be reasonably successful here. The idea of a wearable set
of sensors on feet is novel and therefore we would also like to secure a patent
for its design in order to prevent other companies from producing the same.
Additionally, it will be difficult to replicate owing to the complexity in
mapping sensors to actual human motion that is programmed in our own custom
software and apps and therefore not accessible to our competition. Within five
years, we expect to attain about 10% of the luxury performance shoe market
along with 20% of the steel tipped workman’s boots market to target the
athletes at the highest levels of the sport looking at novel ways to gain an
edge on their contemporaries along with workers working in the field following
mandatory safety protocols. The luxury sports shoe market is perhaps more
lucrative since it has a greater sale by volume annually as compared to the
safety boot market. The product will be marketed in conjunction with renowned
athletes as mentioned above, using television ads and internet ads and will be
offered to famous technology review channels on YouTube such as MKBHD and Unbox
Therapy for free reviews. These channels have hundreds of millions of views and
can significantly impact the spreading of the brand in the technology-literate
market that we want to target, in order to increase credibility of the product (Mediakix,
2018) .
Conclusion
The above highlighted strategy
is an idea-to-implementation model for our product called “The Smart Shoe”
which includes a sound value addition to the existing shoe market at a
relatively reasonable price and with a good amount of primary research being proposed
to further ensure a good product-market fit. We feel the market is ripe for
such a product and expect growth of about 10% bi-annually in the performance
shoe market as a result of increasingly tailormade product selection being
offered directly to the consumer as well as built in features in existing shoes
from major retailers worldwide. Initiative
will be taken in making sure the product meets the specifications outlined by
the consumer and then aggressive hounding of shoe makers backed by direct sales
to consumers will be a good tactic to gain market share rapidly.
References
Coes, B. (2014). CRITICALLY ASSESSING THE
STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS OF THE BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS. Twente:
University of Twente.
Dengate, J. (2017, 04 24). Track Your
Run with Smart Footwear. Retrieved from Runner's World:
https://www.runnersworld.com/running-shoes/track-your-run-with-smart-footwear
Drehs, W. (2008, 12 11). Kobe's feet
to feature new low-top shoe. Retrieved from ESPN`: Kobe's feet to feature
new low-top shoe
Koen, P. (2017, 11 14). Osterwalder’s
Business Model Canvas Doesn’t Work for Start-ups. Retrieved from Front
End innovator:
http://www.frontendinnovation.com/blog/08/14/2014/osterwalders-business-model-canvas-doesnt-work-for-start-ups
Lawson-West, J. (2017, 10 18). Why
health and safety is so important in construction. Retrieved from
Building Education:
https://b4ed.com/Article/why-health-and-safety-is-so-important-in-construction
Mediakix. (2018, 01). Case Study: 5
Tec Marketing Campaigns with Top Youtubers. Retrieved from mediakix:
http://mediakix.com/2018/01/youtube-case-study-tech-marketing-influencers/
Melendez, S. (2014, 09 18). These
Athletic Wearables Aim To Stop Injuries Before They Happen. Retrieved
from Fast Company: https://www.fastcompany.com/3035730/these-athletic-wearables-will-stop-injuries-before-they-happen
Muoio, D. (2017, 09 18). Study:
Social engagement, digital coaches keep fitness wearable users motivated.
Retrieved from mobihealthnews: www.mobihealthnews.com/content/study-social-engagement-digital-coaches-keep-fitness-wearable-users-motivated
Statista. (2014). Number of people
who bought athletic shoes within the last 12 months in the United States from
spring 2008 to spring 2017 (in millions). Retrieved from satista - Consumer
Goods and FMCG:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/231404/people-who-bought-athletic-shoes-within-the-last-12-months-usa/
Statistic Brain. (2015). Footwear
Industry Statistics. (Statistic Brain) Retrieved 03 14, 2018, from https://www.statisticbrain.com/footwear-industry-statistics/
Appendix A
Business
Model Canvas
Appendix B
Value
Proposition Canvas
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