For any singer who wants a comfortable and private practice experience.
Sing your heart out — wherever you want, whenever you want.
Customer Segmentation
The primary customer segment consists of singers, ranging from amateurs to professionals. This is a broad but relevant target audience since they all share the need for privacy and a conducive environment for practice.
Secondary customer segments include vocal coaches or music schools that may purchase the product to offer it to their clients. This segment can help expand the customer base.
User: The primary users of the product are the singers. They will directly benefit from the privacy and features the product offers, such as live audio feedback and recording.
Customer: The customers, in this case, could be the singers who purchase the product individually. Additionally, vocal coaches and music schools can also be customers when buying the product to provide to their clients.
Producer: Analytical Product Design Group Members.
Due to the lack of market data, product popularity was used as a measure of determining market share. This was accomplished by taking the number of reviews on Amazon and averaging it with the number of Facebook followers. In cases where only one number was available, this number was used to determine its percentage. These percentages were then multiplied by the number of chorus singers as reported by The Chorus Impact Study, 54,000,000, to find a target number of singers.
Market Gap and Opportunity
The market gap becomes evident when we consider the strengths and weaknesses of some of the existing solutions (market share information can be found in Competition Analysis). This analysis was done using some of the reviews left for each product:
Belt-Box provides some voice dampening but has several drawbacks, including discomfort and limited effectiveness in reducing singing volume.
Porta-Booth offers good acoustics but still requires additional equipment, and it doesn't fully address the privacy aspect. It also lacks portability.
Scream Jar is compact but lacks aesthetics and requires users to hold it, which may not be ideal for longer practice sessions.
The opportunity lies in catering to the needs of singers who want privacy, comfortability, and live audio monitoring (hearing yourself) in a single, user-friendly package. This product addresses a gap in the market where existing solutions fall short in terms of comfort, functionality, and convenience.
Our product, which combines voice dampening, breathability, and other audio capabilities while being comfortable and portable, aims to address several key shortcomings of existing solutions. It aims to offer a comprehensive solution for singers, from beginners to professionals, allowing them to practice effectively without disturbing others.
Risk Assessment and Mitigation
One potential risk when developing a product is the chance that it could restrict breathing, especially if going down a route similar to BeltBox. In order to mitigate the risk, it is vital to carefully select materials after thorough testing to select the one that provides the best comfort and breathability to the product's design. Beyond just material testing, user testing should be done to see if our theory translates to practicality.
Another risk might be the lack of comfort. The customer analysis showed that they value comfortability highly, to the point that they were willing to sacrifice the lack of privacy between them and their roommates. The goal of the solution space is to allow them to have both comfortability and privacy. To ensure this, there must be attention on selecting materials that will be comfortable for the user to wear and that allow their body/mouth to move freely. This can also be user tested to confirm during the creation process.
Finally, there is a risk of there being a high cost boundary between the singer and their access to this product, especially if it is made using expensive parts. This risk can be mitigated by prioritizing the inclusion of just one or two essential features to keep production costs manageable. Any features beyond that will not be designed to be as optimized as the main ones. Ensuring affordability for the target market was an important takeaway from the customer research.
Market Estimates
According to the Chorus Impact Study: Singing for a Lifetime published by the National Endowment for the Arts, an independent federal agency that is the largest funder of the arts and arts education in communities nationwide in the United States, choral singing is a significant part of the American life, with more than 54 million adults and children participants in choral groups today.
Primarily the target audience is anyone who wants to sing without disturbing or imposing on those around them. Using the figures of those involved and recorded in choral groups aim to capture those actively participating and indulging in the act of singing.
The aim for the final mass manufacturable deliverable would be to be able to capture a five percent market share, that roughly translates to 2.7 million individual units.
Referencing back to the four primary competitors mentioned, factual details were captured from their individual Amazon sales and estimates based on their Best Seller Rankings (BSR) from Seller App in a spreadsheet that can be referenced here. We see a stark variance in the bounds of the individual unit price limits for the competitors, thus, resulting in using details about BeltBox as the reference line in most cases.
However, for the vast majority, due to the lack of accessible market data, the primary estimate would be pricing the product at par with the main competitor, BeltBox, in the range of (45-50)$ and having access to selling around 2.7 million units, approximately leading to a sales generation of 101 million dollars.
The amount of profit and cost pricing in this overt value will further be subject to valuation in the business model proposal prospect of the project.
Design Problem Statement
Improving singers need space to practice their singing. However, many feel constrained in their ability to do so due to a lack of privacy, which often leads to apprehension and limiting their practice productivity. Our goal is to innovate a product that provides rising singers with a portable, comfortable, and private practice experience. This product should prioritize muffling as much sound as possible without the expense of breathability. By ensuring comfort, we aim to provide singers with an unparalleled practice experience that promotes long-duration sessions.