SwiftTech
“Providing a durable, technologically advanced smartphone for the outdoor adventurer.”
Problem Domain
Outdoor enthusiasts are confined to using smartphone that have easily damaged hardware and are incapable of providing features for their exploration needs.
Customer Benefits
“I’ve found it challenging to match my eco-friendly lifestyle with my long-term product needs. SwiftTech’s smartphone meets my durability and off-grid needs while easing my concerns about environmental and ethical impacts.”
Example Customer Case Study
Jessica has changed her lifestyle in recent years to live a majority of her time in a remote cabin in rural Virginia. Not only is cell coverage sparse, but the surrounding environment challenges her. In adopting this lifestyle, she has “ruggedified” her dwelling, vehicle, clothes/gear, and her living infrastructure. Jessica swapped her iPhone for a SwiftTech phone to adapt to this lifestyle two years ago. She uses the satellite connectivity features daily to reach the net when she needs to, and frequently finds herself using the enhanced GPS features when taking her grueling hikes and off-roading adventures. Jessica has dropped, submerged, and nearly frozen her phone on these adventures a few times. Her SwiftTech phone remains unscathed, and she does not bat an eye when paying the recurring $150 subscription for the capabilities she uses daily. The high product quality limits her need to fix the phone, and she is relieved she never has to ask “Genius” questions again.
Areas of Uncertainty and Exploration Plans
- Is the percentage of outdoor enthusiasts interested in our product larger than our target market share of 15%?
- This could significantly impact our projected market sizing, profits projections, and ability to scale and grow in the future.
- Will users purchase an “investment phone” if it is known to be durable and can last them on the order of 1.5-2x longer than that of a top-tier phone?
- This is a critical part of our fiscal structure model and getting quality research to understand the viability of our current business model.
- Users will pay for a phone subscription on top of the price to purchase the device
- This is a core part of a revenue model so we need research to determine customer reception of this unique smartphone pricing model.
- Would users be willing to buy a phone from a company that ethically produces their smartphone as opposed to an unethical big name brand phone (such as Apple, Google, etc.)
- This would help determine if producing our phones ethically would help increase customer interest and make us more competitive in the smartphone market. Depending on the answer, we could decide to have an ethical emphasis in our marketing or not if it is not relevant.
Prior Research
From our market research, we found that there are generally three types of substitutes to our product: the rugged phone, outdoor enhanced devices, and regular smartphones. However, we didn’t find anything close to what we are offering: a rugged phone with enhanced capabilities designed for outdoor enthusiasts. The rugged phones are only rugged in nature with limited capabilities including camera and connectivity. Outdoor enhanced devices, including handheld GPS, mostly do not have other capabilities including camera, voice assistance, or emergency calling. Regular phones have different software applications but are fragile for the outdoor environment and do not tailor to outdoor enthusiasts. Thus, SwiftTech would be a first-mover in the space of rugged smartphones with enhanced capabilities for outdoor enthusiasts. In addition, from previous customer interviews, we have identified important features and technologies for our product as listed in the next section.
This product can not only bring sustainable financial impact to SwiftTech, but also wider sustainability impact to the community. With the device price of $1000 and annual subscription fee of $150 after the first year, coupled with an estimated 15% of market capture in the first five years and a SOM of $1.2 billion annually, this product can increase SwiftTech’s revenue by 163% and profits by a significant 377% in five years. This means a 21.9% Return on Investment for this product which is an evident sign to further pursue this investment. At the same time, by recycling more than 50% of the product and its packaging, incorporating trade-in programs, and practicing leading work ethics, this product can help SwiftTech further expand on its current sustainability and ethics efforts with larger impacts to the community.
Leading Signals
- Average phone product rating from online platforms
- Percentage of customers who return to purchase/upgrade their phone to the new phone
- Percentage of customers that renew their service subscription after their free trial
- Percentage that continue to renew year after year
- Sentimental analysis of reviews about our smartphone
- Number of loyal customers purchasing the phone and customers from the outdoor community
Other Considerations
- Basic, cheap, rugged phone focussed on minimal and simplistic design: This idea focusses on extreme durability and battery life while minimizing smart features to keep costs low and extend battery life. We decided this approach was not the best since it might limit the appeal to a wider audience seeking a balance of durability and smart capabilities (and also prevent us to tap into the wealthy community of the outdoor community). It could also render the phone less competitive against other smartphones with more features.
- Focus on modular design for customization: This focuses on developing a smartphone with a modular design so that we can sell many parts and allow users to customize or upgrade a base model of the phone to their liking. We decided that this would introduce complexity in design and manufacturing preventing us from keeping our durability promise across all different customization plans.
- Expanding our target audience to a broader consumer market outside of outdoor enthusiasts. Unfortunately this approach would dilute our brand value and prevent us from taking advantage of this niche market. The smartphone market is already saturated so this would further thrust us into a highly competitive market.
Why Now
Participation in outdoor activities grew significantly more post-pandemic compared to pre-pandemic. YoY growth for the sporting goods industry also grew from 6.7% on average to an annualized projected CAGR of 9.7% post-pandemic. At the same time, with better satellite connectivity and AI capabilities especially in the recent 2-3 years, this is the right time to enter this market with a first-mover advantage with SwiftTech’s competitive advantages. If someone else moves into this market before SwiftTech, they could own a large portion of the market by being innovative and a first-mover, capturing attention and interest in a new premium outdoor tech product. This would result in SwiftTech’s inability to capture the projected 15% market share, higher marketing costs, slower financial return on the investment, and potentially more design and development costs to offer more innovative products in this new market. Thus, SwiftTech must act fast to become the first to enter this market and capture all expected returns and benefits from this investment.
Summary of Technologies Involved
- Off service navigation/GPS system
- No service required to activate and use navigation/maps on the smartphone
- Enhanced AI vocal assistant
- Similar to Siri or Alexa in terms of being able to hear verbal queries and respond with a viable output
- Requires significant NLP algorithms and ability to input collected speech to those algorithms
- AI similar to ChatGPT or Bard that can quickly find comprehensive information from internet to respond to user
- LLMs that are trained on large sets of data so can answer a variety of questions
- Similar to Siri or Alexa in terms of being able to hear verbal queries and respond with a viable output
- Shock Proof Durability
- Ability for phone to be dropped from significant heights without breaking or creating internal or external damage to the phone
- Water Proof
- Ability for the phone to go in significant depths of water for significant time periods without breaking or malfunctioning during or afterwards
- Dust Proof
- Ability for the phone to encounter dust and not malfunction or stop working
- Sustainable OS and battery system so that the phone can last up to 10+ years with its current technology and hardware
- Disable and enable capabilities for features within internal system of phone so that features can be turned on or off based on user’s subscription purposes
- Manual process or machine to turn recycled phone materials from flip phones to usable parts for smartphones
- Normal features and phone components for smartphone
- Home screen, email, text messages, call, etc.
Time Frame
- 1-2 weeks: Have all assumptions from customers tested and collect direct surveys with potential customers to complete solid first design
- 4-5 months: Create a prototype using recycled materials from our old SwiftTech phones and updated outdoor technology to field test.
- 1 year (4 quarters): Completed Beta testing of first prototype and revised to one or two additional prototypes with updated functionality and features based on testing results.
- 1.5 – 2 years (6- 8 quarters): Market and start launching products on market, with partnerships of outdoor brands.
Competing Option
A potential competing option that might outcompete our product might be one developed by a bigger brand. Although our product would have innovative features, a rugged design, and sustainability and ethics, a similar product developed by a bigger brand might have bigger brand recognition and customer base. Thus, SwiftTech must capture the market first as a first-mover.
Addressing Potential Future Failure
If product doesn’t work in 1 year, 3 possible scenarios of why this would occur are:
- The product couldn’t survive or prosper in a competitive market.
- Smartphone market is competitive with many current monopoly stakeholders.
- Niche branding or features were not enough to sway users who already were established with monopoly brands.
- It was not feasible to make an extremely durable phone.
- The durability we wanted to achieve was not possible to the extent we wanted.
- The product was not water proof enough, shock proof enough, etc.
- The durability we wanted to achieve was not possible to the extent we wanted.
- The AI features or capabilities are inaccurate or disliked by users.
- Accurate LLMs that are trained on large data sets take a long time to develop.
- A year could be too short of a timeline to create this technology which means either the product lacks this feature (making it less competitive on the market) or it is not ready to be produced because this feature is not finished.
Mechanisms for Reflection
During the work, regular team meetings and progress reviews provide opportunities to assess decisions against emerging data and feedback especially against our leading signals, allowing for real-time adjustments and pivots. This iterative approach ensures that the product evolves in response to actual user needs and market dynamics. Post-launch, conducting a thorough review of the product’s performance against initial objectives and expectations is crucial. This involves analyzing key metrics, gathering user feedback, and evaluating market/customer reception. Such reflection not only offers insights into the effectiveness of the decision-making process but also identifies areas for improvement and innovation.
Corporate and Non-Profit Partnerships
SwiftTech leverages its eco-friendliness to get and foster lasting business partnerships.
- Patagonia: The brand’s eco-friendly production aligns perfectly with StfiTech’s vision of recycled, quality tech. Design collaborations and limited-edition releases of Patagonia x SwiftTech phones strengthen the brands’ working relationship while contributing proceeds to mutually agreed upon eco-friendly initiatives
- Solidarity Center: The US-based international labor non-profit works to quell the stresses of climate-change labor impacts on laborers across the globe. Aligning the two entities’ visions, both organizations fund initiatives researching sustainable labor practices and development for the long-term betterment of the planet.
- Other climate/labor NGOs and private enterprises: SwiftTech’s pivot toward sustainability lends itself to widespread collaboration across the sustainable labor and eco-friendly production sectors. Through thoughtful corporate diplomacy, SwiftTech and its partners join forces to tackle issues in these areas.
