Instruction
You have just been hired by Brink Markle, the founder of Avatech. Inspired by his enthusiasm for back country skiing, he founded a startup based on the idea of proactively detecting avalanche risks for the safety of skiers. Markle and his cofounders have developed a working prototype of a proprietary snow pack sensor.From his own life-threatening experience as well as through talking to other enthusiasts and professionals, Markle is convinced that he has identified an important “pain point:” the current safety equipment was targeted at reacting to situations when users are actually trapped by an avalanche, rather than proactively avoiding one. As they were showcasing the prototype and pitching their ideas to a group of investors, Markle and his team have realized that different investors were seeing different potential outcomes for the business.Reflecting on different feedbacks that he received, Markle has developed four potential “models” for bringing Avatech to market:
The Intellectual Property Model. Under this approach, Avatech would focus on building a reputation and intellectual property portfolio for being the leading innovator in snow safety. The goal would be to hire expert researchers and engineers in this field and aim at building a solid patent portfolio, which they would license out to other sporting equipment manufacturers.
The Collaboration Model. Under this approach, Avatech would focus on building tight partnership with other established sporting equipment manufacturers. This strategy will allow Avatech to take advantage of the existing supplier and distribution channels and become a complement to the incumbent companies’ existing product portfolio. This would require Avatech to hire additional experienced business development people to build partnerships.
The Leading Innovator Model. Under this approach, Avatech would focus on positioning itself as a differentiated sporting equipment brand with strong technological expertise. They would particularly aim at penetrating the early adopter group. In order to strike out on their own, Avatech would need to build its own value chain of suppliers and distributors.
The Platform Model. In this model, Avatech would transform itself into a digital ski safety platform that integrate multiple sources of safety data, from Avatech users to forecasting services. This would require Avatech to hire software developers and data scientists to build the platform and analytics.
Markle has asked you to consider the strengths and weaknesses of these four alternatives.Considering that the snow detecting equipment industry is still in its infancy,which of these approaches (or a variant of your own design) would help a startup such as Avatech establish a customer value proposition and also position Avatech to be able to succeed on an ongoing basis? Provide a detailed action plan and the rationale for justifying your choice.
Your response should be a 600-word memo