Day: March 13, 2021

For the past two weeks, I have reached out to various companies and startups through email, contact forms, Facebook, and Twitter. Getting someone to respond to me has been so much harder than I thought it would be. Unfortunately, none of the below companies have gotten back to me. I even reached out to a Founder on Twitter, who ignored my mention, even though he has been active on the platform. To his defense, he has no obligation to reply to me.  From this experience, however, I have noticed that many startups with similar ideas to mine have failed. The Founders of these various ideas attempted to launch their restaurant wait time software, but now, their websites and emails are no longer valid. This makes me wonder what made them scrap the idea. Was it too hard to get off the ground? Was there not enough interest? I had hoped to interview these past companies to see what went wrong but received no response. 

People/Companies I reached out to 

1. OpenTable
2. Seamless
3. GrubHub
4. Ritual
5. Caviar 
6. UpFront 
7. QLess 
8. StoreWaits 
9. Bryan Edelman
10. FoodJunky
11. DoorDash 
12. Density

For this assignment, I decided to create a product for my cousin Anna. Anna is a big water drinker and brings a reusable water bottle with her everywhere she goes. Unfortunately, many reusable bottles are way too big and bulky to fit in a standard purse. Because of this, she often resorts to holding her bottle separately, or bringing a larger bag. She has even spent money to buy larger purses, in addition to buying less bulky bottles, in efforts to alleviate the hassle of carrying the bottle everywhere. Since she has spent money to actively fix this issue, I know that it is a problem for her. 

During my research, I found some roll-up bottles and flat rectangular bottles. Anna would not like either one because they are both made of plastic, and she tends to avoid this. During this process, however, I found that others also experience the same issue. Some companies even marketed their flat bottles as “purse bottles.” For my design, I created a flat rectangular bottle that comes in multiple sizes. They can also vary in material: either glass or stainless steel. The glass bottle has a sleeker design, but the stainless steel bottle would keep drinks at their desired temperature. I added silicone grips around the side to make it easier to hold, as well as to prevent cracks and leaks. For the bottle top, I added a circular ring that comes with a band/carabiner so that she can easily hold it. The carabiner allows the bottle to clip on to purse straps which means that she can easily bring her bottle with her anywhere, regardless of purse size. For larger bags, the bottle can be clipped to the inside so that she can easily locate it in the giant mess that is her purse. This bottle would solve her problem of reusable bottles being too bulky to carry in purses.