25a. see GIF

Existing Market Research

In my venture, I suspect the next source of inspiration will be in ways to expand the line of products and try to cover different styles i.e. business suits, dresses and other gear that can be worn in non-conspicuous ways. My assessment still lies with blending into clothing rather than make clothes themselves anti surveillance as that has more startup costs that I would have to work out calculations for.

For my interviews with people already in my existing market, they were first concerned with physical surveillance as a complement with video surveillance. If the materials included anything that can trigger a metal detector, as my second interviewee brings up, what security and safety implications are there for something that is primarily meant as a tool for subverting surveillance? My first and third interviewees also talked about physical surveillance but in a different method: if someone were to be patted down, what guarantees are there for the attachments to not become dislodged? Creating not only discrete but detection resistant products will require more testing to see if these products can handle physical roughness and/or property/materials surveillance. Another thing that was brought up was not only attachments but accessories, my first interviewee talked about the use of a necklace as an accessory with an LED built into the design as to make it less obvious. 

I knew i wanted to make some new designs for different situations, but the mention on being physically checked definitely adds a new layer of problems to solve, both design and lifetime issues being challenged with handling. The inclusion of accessories with almost hidden qualities was surprising to me, and could honestly be delved into a bit with the necklace idea and some other designs.

New market research

For this, I would actually see to target security firms and other companies that provide security gear and services to see if they would implement it. 

For those businesses, the best that my products could do to add value is add a layer of operational security for their customers who do a lot of work in public spaces or are trying to keep themselves well protected from surveillance threats, whatever they may be.

I got a hold of two security shop owners who had some online presence. When I pitched the idea and then asked for feedback, both said that it would be a good standalone product that distributors would carry like themselves, but in the case of their businesses would think of bundling it with either other security gear or thinking of doing multiples for redundancy of product in the case you forget your baseball cap with it still attached but have a spare in the car. The first interviewee asked if this had any method of turning into a service or product/service mix to make continuous revenue from the same customer, but I don't think anything currently works for my product in that capacity.

When looking at the market for this B2B sale, they seemed at least interested and didn't dismiss the idea right away. Most other products in "spyware shops" is usually surveillance items themselves, so that definitely surprised me when they were interested in something that could accidentally negate other parts of their sales. While I'm not well versed in B2B sales and marketing, I assume other businesses with a handle in videography or privacy can take use of them in some way.

I will have to do more research to verify if this niche is actually open to a product that meets the narrow scope I am trying to cover. It has initial interest, but I want to see if there's any federal worker I can possibly meet that could provide feedback about its use and applications in that world.