Forming an Opportunity Belief

In this next assignment, I am exploring opportunity conceptualization. Since I was thirteen years old, I have always had issues finding jeans and pants that fit me properly. I could go a whole day shopping for bottoms and would be lucky to come back with one pair that fit well enough. Once I finally found a pair that fit, I would wear the heck out of them until they became too worn, and before I knew it, I would have to start the hunt all over again. Women have so many different body shapes, I can't imagine that I am the only one with this issue. Because I have such a hard time finding bottoms, I tend to steer towards dresses and skirts to avoid the hassle, and I'm sure many other women do the same.

I believe there is a huge opportunity in retail to create clothes for women customized to different body shapes and proportions. Perhaps I am overestimating the actuality of this opportunity existing because it is so relevant to me, but I would say I am around 70% confident that the opportunity exists.

To prove or disprove this belief, I interviewed three different women.

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So who did I target?

The prototypical customer for this opportunity would be a woman who has difficulty finding clothes to fit them properly. She can be of any age, body shape and size.

The three women I interviewed were all different heights, ages, and sizes, which allowed me to determine if my belief is just specific to a singular body type.

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The Interviews:

I've attached links to my audio recordings from SoundCloud. The interviews I conducted were fairly short because there are only so many questions you can ask people about their clothes not fitting. People don't usually have long, detailed stories about how their pants don't fit, and for many people, this topic may be a bit touchy. A lot of women have trouble coping with body image and finding clothes that make them feel beautiful, so it was hard for me to come up with questions that would not "cross any lines". For those reasons, I decided to keep the interviews minimal and the information I collected from them was enough to determine if my belief exists. 

1) Interview 1

For my first interview, I was still learning how to use my audio app, so part of the recording is cut off in the beginning. The part that was cut off just involved me giving a background of my belief and asking the prototypical customer if she had any similar experiences and struggles finding pants that fit well.

Going into this interview, I had expectations that this prototypical customer probably experienced similar difficulties. My expectations were met but I was a bit surprised when she said that did not have any specific brands she could rely on to find pants that fit a little bit better.

2) Interview 2

The second interview went a bit more smoothly. I thought that it was very informative when this next prototypical customer mentioned that she started to notice fitting issues after having kids. That totally made sense because oftentimes women gain weight after having kids. That made me think that maybe older women struggle more with this problem than younger women. The interviewee also showed me how she rigged her pants. It turns out she was using a paperclip in addition to the alterations she made!

3) Interview 3

After speaking to the second interviewee, I thought that maybe only women who have already had kids are suffering from this problem. As I interviewed my third prototypical customer, I realized that women of all ages, kids or no kids, had this issue. The third interviewee was younger than the other two and told me that she also had these issues since maturity in her teenage years. I also found it interesting that she was able to find a brand that was a bit more successful and consistent for her, and that the material the brand used was stretchier. It seems like stretchier material would allow for more contouring to different body shapes and curves.

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What I discovered:

After going back and re-listening to my interviews, I realize that I could've gone into a little more depth with my questions without being too personal and invasive. I was afraid to ask questions that were too personal and I was on a bit of a time crunch, though. Since I was interviewing staff at my dentist's office after an appointment, these ladies did not have a lot of time to sit down and actually go into more details. That being said, the information I did collect from these interviews gave me some great insight.

Based on the responses from my interviewees, it appears that most of my original opportunity is still there. Women still have issues with finding good quality pants and jeans that fit right, regardless of their age or size. This issue could easily be solved by creating some system to produce custom pants with specialized measurements.

After interviewing the second woman, I noticed that there was also another opportunity. Instead of tailoring the pants to fit the women, a solution could be to create an easier way for women to alter the pants they already have.

What I've learned from this exercise is that it is so important for entrepreneurs to listen to their prototypical customers, since these are the people they market to. If the customers have different needs that don't align with the opportunity, I think that it is extremely important to adapt. Customer feedback is so crucial because it is them essentially telling us what their needs are, and as entrepreneurs, our goal is to meet those needs. Adaptation is key. If you choose to ignore customer feedback, you shouldn't be surprised when customers aren't as receptive to your ideas and inventions.