Thursday, September 19, 2019

Solving the Problem


My idea for a solution regarding how to keep guns from getting stolen out of cars is a lock that is attached or bolted to the car. The locks that come with handguns don’t do anything to keep it from getting stolen. They are more of safety locks. My idea of a lock is something that attaches to the car. The same idea of a safe in a house. If the safe is just sitting on the floor, a couple of people can pick it up and take it away. If you bolt the safe to the floor, that can’t happen. If the lock for the pistol was attached to the car in some way, there would be no way to steal it. Some may say that people just shouldn’t keep guns in their car, but the fact is that a lot of people do it and will continue to keep doing it no matter what. As long as people keep guns in their car, guns will continue to be stolen out of cars. Essentially if the gun was able to be attached to the car, far fewer guns would be stolen. Therefore, guns used in crimes would go down too.

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1


The opportunity that I would like to pursue is trying to solve the issue of stolen guns out of vehicles. A large number of guns are stolen out of vehicles every year in the U.S. because there is no great way to keep a gun safe in a car. A lot of the firearms stolen are out of vehicles and in particular, unlocked vehicles. A vast majority of those guns are then used in crimes.

The who: Gun owners who keep guns in their cars
The what: Stolen guns from vehicles that are then used in crimes
The why: The vast majority of guns stolen from vehicles were from vehicles that were unlocked.

These are the 5 people that I talked to. I talked to 2 people in law enforcement and three gun owners.

The two people in law enforcement reiterated what my main point was that most of the guns stolen are from UNLOCKED vehicles.
WHO: The people that keep guns in their vehicle sometime forget to lock their vehicle. They said that some people just never lock their car. They also mentioned that quite a few guns are stolen from houses.
What: Most of the guns stolen are handguns. There are some people that keep long guns in their vehicles but that is uncommon. Criminals are after handguns because they are easily concealable.
Why: The why for this need is that people who don’t own guns are impacted by this problem too. Innocent people are hurt by those stolen guns. Not just the gun owners who lost the value of their property.

Who: The next three people that I talked to were gun owners who keep guns in their cars. They are all extra careful to lock their vehicles because they store guns in their car.
What: They all keep handguns in their car so that is the extent of their need. They wouldn’t need something to lock up their long gun.
Why: Even though they lock their cars, they are still worried about people smashing their windows and stealing their firearms. Locking your doors doesn’t mean that you are safe. Also, they could forget to lock their cars.

After interviewing people in law enforcement and gun owners, I think there is definitely still an opportunity. I thought that most firearms are stolen from vehicles but according to the people in law enforcement quite a few are stolen from houses too. Although, breaking into unlocked cars is definitely the easiest way for people to steal firearms. At home, you can lock your firearm up in a safe but there is not really an easy way to do that in a car.

Saturday, September 14, 2019

Identifying Opportunities in Economic and Regulatory Trends


Economic trend: Baby boomers aren’t retiring fast enough.
Many baby boomers aren’t retiring because of the 2008 recession. Semi-retirement is becoming more common for them. I found this on the website The Balance. They are having a big impact of the economy. This leads me to believe that millennials aren’t having enough jobs when they go into the job force. I believe that there is some sort of opportunity for a job finder company directed toward millennials. If millennials aren’t being able to find jobs, that is definitely an unmet need. Millennials would be the prototypical customer for this service. I think that the opportunity would be somewhat difficult to exploit because there are already job finding companies. I don’t think there are not any job finding companies that are directed towards millennials though. I saw this opportunity because I am worried about getting a job after I graduate. I’m going after a business degree so that is a broad field, but I am worried about finding a job that I love.

Economic trend: Climate Change is causing more natural disasters.
This is having a major impact on the economy because these natural disasters are costing so much money. I also found this on The Balance. I think this information leads me to believe that an opportunity for some sort of weather advising service exists. I think people that live in coastal areas are worried about their homes and sea level rise. I think they would pay good money to have an “expert” look at their situation and see if they are in danger of the impacts of climate change. I think the prototypical customer would be people living in coastal towns. I think the opportunity wouldn’t be too hard to exploit. People are worried and I think they would jump on the opportunity to see what risk they are in. I thought about this opportunity because I have a family member that lives near the ocean and is at risk for sea level rise. I am also personally worried about the effects of climate change.

Regulatory: Illinois Hunters can now wear Pink clothing while hunting.
I believe that an opportunity may exist because I have only seen pink hunting clothing once before unlike the usual orange. I think there would be a market for a quality lineup of pink hunting attire. I think that the prototypical customer would be breast cancer survivors or guys that just want to rock pink. I think that the opportunity would be difficult to exploit because the clothing market is a difficult one to get into. I thought of this opportunity because I know people who are breast cancer survivors, hunters, and would wear this.

Regulatory: Kids in Ohio will be required to write in cursive by the 5th grade.
I believe that an opportunity might exist for an online course that would teach cursive to these students. If students are going to be required to know how to write in cursive by the 5th grade, there are bound to be kids that don’t understand how to at school and have to learn at home. I think the prototypical customer would be parents buying the course for their kids. I think that the opportunity wouldn’t be too difficult to exploit because people will need some way to teach their kids if their kids can’t learn at school. I thought about this opportunity because I never really learned when they taught cursive in schools. I learned how to sign my name but that was really the extent of it. If there was an online course that taught it, I think I would have understood it better.