Venture Concept #1

The first part of my Venture Concept idea is opportunity. My original opportunity lies within my college demographic, but as my MentalEdge Company grows I think I can branch out to a much larger target market, including anybody who enjoys energy drinks. These are every day people like you and me who get groggy throughout the day and need a boost of energy to keep them going with peak performance. Fortunately for me, the market is nationwide and ranges from young to old. Customers are currently satisfying this need with unhealthy sugar packed drinks like monster and redbull, but I want to come up with a quality energy supplement for study aid, and follow up that product with an energy drink to target a wider market. I think this is a huge opportunity as I constantly look for a way to gain energy but don’t enjoy taking energy drinks that give me the jitters and eventually lead to a massive crash. Since energy drinks are such a huge market I don’t see this window of opportunity closing. People were drinking energy drinks when I was born, and they will be drinking them when I die!

The next part of my venture concept is innovation. I believe this continuous innovation to energy drinks will definitely be revolutionary. My product will stand out because of the quality ingredients and the low level of caffeine. I plan to concoct a formula that will be not only delicious, but nutritious that provides long lasting energy. Basically, I want to make a drink that has the effects of five-hour energy, the taste and appeal of monster, but with much healthier ingredients. I know this sounds hard, but I definitely think with determination and the proper minds working on this it can be done. Once this drink catches on, it would be a huge success. There are no name brand energy drinks that are known as healthy. Plus with economies of scale we would be able to produce each can for a fraction of the cost we would sell them at, clearing high profit margins with relatively low overhead costs.  I feel that we could make these drinks for as low as 25 cents a can and sell them at competing prices with redbull and monster.

And finally, my venture concept all comes together. This is where my continuous innovation addresses my specific opportunity. This is where my new healthy energy drink not only reaches my original market of college kids, but also reaches a wider variety of people who enjoy a pick-me-up. Customers will buy my innovative product because of the growing health craze in the United States. Everyone is going green and everyone is trying to drop weight, and with the obesity epidemic there is no better time to come out with an energy drink that is healthy. With energy drinks already being an extremely popular market, I feel that mixing this market with the health industry would be a home run. Customers will switch to this product and become loyal consumers of MentalEdge when they realize that they can get the same lasting energy with a much healthier drink. As long as I can make the product taste great too, I think it won’t be hard to get customers to switch over. My competitors are huge companies including redbull, rockstar, and monster. I think that their weakness is their lack of innovation. Any company can come up with different flavored drinks, but a real dynamic product is one that completely changes how the industry is viewed. With my product being healthy, I definitely think it will set me apart from the competition. Packaging, pricing, distribution, customer support, and customer experience all play a huge role in my venture concept as well. Without proper management and all of these aspects being in line, it would be impossible to have a competitive energy drink with the other massive companies. I would have to have my business structured properly in order to complete this. I think production lines controlled by employees would be the way to go. It would mostly be automation, but also have people there managing the process and making sure everything goes smoothly. With automation, I would have less labor costs but still be able to mass-produce the product keeping costs low. I would assume that I would need at least 50 employees to manage different parts of the factory, including sales reps, marketing professionals, and general managers.

Three minor elements:

1. I think my ventures secret sauce will be perseverance. You can’t fail if you never give up!

2. The next opportunity I would tackle would just be continuous innovation on the products I have. Perfecting the formula and creating new flavors of  product.

3. In five years, if everything went as planned, I would see myself running this venture and continually adding to it and making new products. I would do most of my selling through retail stores and online, and just continue to grow my company. In the next decade I’d like to become financially free, and these venture would definitely help me do that. I want to be able to do what I want, when I want and not have to work my life away for a paycheck.