4A – Forming An Opportunity Belief

Beginning Point

I believe there's an opportunity present for a product that helps alleviate people who are addicted to nicotine products. Smoking nicotine related products such as the popular. JUUL have made it easy for teens to become hooked on nicotine because it is mainly used in a lot of social settings in high school and college. E-cigarettes were created mainly to help people get off real cigarettes because it's supposed to be better than the actual thing. While this has helped in some cases, it also introduced our generation of teens to something that can be highly addictive. I believe there's a need for a product that will help people get themselves off of nicotine devices, so they don't have to worry as much about future health repercussions from it. Nicotine patches have been the answer for the nicotine addiction for a long time, I think that we should try and help eliminate a person's need for it all together. I think instead of solving the addiction with what's causing the addiction, there's a 75% chance that a product similar to a nicotine patch could be created without introducing more nicotine into the body and that this could be achieved realistically. 

56 year old man who hasn't personally experienced nicotine addiction, but knows a family member had it

I asked the older gentleman if he smokes anything with nicotine in it. The man replied with a no, but I further continued my interview with him. I asked him next when he became aware of nicotine addiction. He responded by saying that this problem was around even before I was born. A question I was planning on asking, but couldn't was how they were addressing the nicotine problem, but I felt it was kind of a bad question in this case. Instead I asked if anyone in his family was ever addicted to nicotine and he said that his sister was and that it became apart of her everyday life, that's how bad it got. I then asked him if my potential idea for a patch that would help fight this addiction that doesn't introduce nicotine to the body would be a good idea and he responded by saying that it was a nice start to something that could be eventually made, but he also said that developing a patch like this is years away from becoming reality.

19 year old girl who was introduced to nicotine in college

I interviewed one of my neighbors that I know uses a nicotine device in order to interview someone who personally uses these types of products. I asked how often she uses her device and she responded by saying that she uses it in social setting only. I then asked if she feels like she is addicted to nicotine and she said that she can go a while without using a JUUL (nicotine device), but after a certain time frame she begins to feel a craving for it that won't go away until she uses one. I asked how long she has been somewhat addicted to nicotine and she said she was introduced to it once she got to college and has been using one ever since. I brought up my idea to her about a patch that doesn't contain nicotine and would help control these cravings that she was having and her response was that she didn't believe there could be a patch that could do that and that she wouldn't want to wear a patch anyway because it would look bad

18 year old boy who was introduced to nicotine in high school and owns a JUUL

I interviewed another one of my neighbors who I know owns a JUUL. The first question I asked was how often he uses his JUUL and he said that he hits it very frequently throughout the day, everyday of the week. I had a feeling after hearing this that he was definitely addicted to nicotine, but I still proceeded to ask him he felt he was addicted to nicotine and he just nodded and said yes. I asked how long he's owned a JUUL before and he said that during his senior year of high school and he bought one because he had friends that used one too. I then asked him if my idea for a patch that could help with addiction without containing nicotine would be a good idea and he said absolutely and that he would probably buy a product like that to help him out because he also said that it's almost a necessity for him to use that in order to go about his day.

Reflection

Through these interviews I learned that there's definitely an opportunity for a product like this and a market of people that this would apply to, but as the first man I interviewed mentioned, it would take many years to actually develop a patch that could effectively work to reduce nicotine addiction. Honestly, the most surprising thing I learned was how many people in our generation actually use nicotine devices. They're everywhere and from my two interviews each person knew another handful of people that owned these devices such as a JUUL.

Summary

To summarize, my interviews with the three people proved very insightful to my potential idea. My opportunity belief didn't actually change too much besides the fact that I see there's even more potential for this product because there's a multitude of people that are using nicotine products in this generation because it's almost seen as a social norm to own a nicotine device. I also believe that my opportunity belief is still fully there after my interviews. In addition I believe my new opportunity is more accurate because I was able to actually get more feedback from potential customers and that means a ton when trying to develop a new product. Finally, I believe that entrepreneurs should definitely adapt their opportunities based on feedback to a certain extent. It's your product at the end of the day, so it should reflect the vision you had in mind, but the trade off is that in the end of the day you're selling a product designed for a need and it also has to fit the vision of those potential people buying the product.