Forming An Opportunity Belief

1) Your beginning point. I believe that there exists a need for a place to take your dog to socialize and exercise when it is raining. The opportunity that exists is to build an indoor dog park for people to utilize when the weather outside is not ideal.

2) Describe your belief. The unmet need is the need for a place to take your dog to exercise and socialize when the weather outside is not nice. Most dog owners who understand the importance of exercise and socialization for their pet have this need. This need has most likely always existed. To meet this need now, people aren’t really doing anything. In my case, when the weather is bad, I choose to just stay home with my dog. I am about 80% sure that this opportunity exists.

3) Identify the prototypical customer. I have identified three prototypical customers, and I have transcribed their interview question answers below.

4) Iteration No. 1: I can’t take my dog to the dog park when it is raining. I have had days when I planned ahead of time to take my dog to the dog park, but then it rains out of nowhere. Since I first got my dog a year ago, I have had this issue a significant amount of times. This doesn’t happen all the time, of course, but enough to be annoying. When it rains, and I had planned to take my dog to the dog park, I instead stay home and play with him inside. This is why an inside dog park would be perfect! Playing inside is not an ideal way to get energy out of my dog, and plus, I want him to socialize with other dogs.

Iteration No. 2: I don’t really have a need that goes along with this idea. I have a dog that doesn’t get along with other dogs that well so we don’t ever go to the dog park. For this reason, I would not benefit or even utilize an indoor dog park.

Iteration No. 3: I have been taking dogs to dog parks for as long as I can remember. Growing up, my family always had at least one dog at any given time, so we loved going to the dog park. Whenever it rained though, our plans would be ruined and we wouldn’t know what to do. There really wasn’t anywhere else we could take our dogs to run around and play with other dogs so we usually stayed home and played with them in our living room. Compared to large open dog parks, our living room didn’t allow them ample space to play at all. I think an indoor dog park is a great idea. It would serve the same exact function as an outdoor dog park, just available to be used in any weather conditions, solving all of our problems!

5) Reflect. I learned that many other people share the need that I have, but not everyone. People who are not dog owners do not have this need that I have, and not even all dog owners have this need. I was most surprised to find out that not everyone who owns a dog takes their dog to dog parks. I take my dog to the park very frequently, and there are always many dogs and owners there which caused me to assume that dog owner also took their dogs to dog parks. 

6) Summarize. I believe my original opportunity is completely still there. I know my market will be a bit smaller than I originally thought, but there are still many people who could benefit with my solution. I do think my opportunity is more accurate than when I started because now I have had input from several individuals. They all gave me great information that I could use when moving forward with my opportunity. I definitely think entrepreneurs should be willing to adapt their opportunities based on customer feedback. What makes someone an entrepreneur is that they are meeting a need that wasn’t previously met, and to ensure the needs of the consumers are being met, you have to listen to their feedback.