Our company, “Personal”, helps budget-priced eyesight-impaired consumers who want to design their own custom lenses for a reasonable price. We are an eyewear web platform that allows users to fabricate their own custom glasses and allows designers to sell fitted glasses to their customers in order to make buying eyewear cheaper and customizable through 3D printing.
Key Partners
Our key partners and suppliers would include 3D printing companies such as: FormLabs, SLM Solutions, Revolution 3D Printers, Ultimaker North America, etc.
Strong partnerships with these companies are necessary for initial outsourcing of 3D production, before we have acquired manufacturing capabilities ourselves.
In order to keep initial capital costs low and to make testing possible, we will need to develop a MVP by outsourcing the initial prints to other firms in order to see whether or not this product is viable.
Key Activities
Our initial activities would include helping the customer design their glasses in a 3D workplane, and to facilitate the printing of their glasses frames.
A concern for some of our customers during the research process was that these custom lenses would take a long time to arrive after initial order. In order to promote efficiency, we would primarily use a “mass customization” approach, which means that we would have a few base 3D modeled frames that are able to be slightly customized, allowing our customers to receive their product quickly.
Key Resources
Necessary Key resources include:
- The design team (in-house or partners) to help design glasses for customers that don’t want to design theirs from scratch. From my expert interview, this design team could not only help with classic eyewear designs but can also help with the design of innovative eyewear such as “no-hinge” glasses.
- 3D printers and print materials are either outsourced to a 3D printing company or leased to us for initial MVP testing.
Although price leadership will be difficult to obtain in the initial testing phases, we will still be able to differentiate ourselves by showing customers the capabilities of 3D printing.
Value Propositions
Personal allows our customers to break free from the streamlined designs of modern eyewear, giving them the ability to design their own glasses, turning eyewear purchases into a fashion choice rather than a long-term necessity purchase. Like customers said in the interview there are so expensive that purchasing them is often thought of as “let us pick something that will match with everything”, which prevents them from making more outlandish choices in color/style. With Personal, not only are we trying to allow them to choose their own style but also to take hints from our in-house designers to push them along in the process.
Customer Relationships
Our customer segments need us to deliver on high quality and fashionable goods. Most of our customers will also be a little lost in the amount of customization possible, so we need to simplify and provide assistance/ideas during their design process. For our MVP, we can assume that customers will not be familiar with 3D modeling software, so it will be a manual process done over a phone call initially in order to test out the product.
Since we are initially trying to appeal to the high-end market, we will need to deliver on quality at the expense of possible delays in the customer getting their product. We also need to ensure that the customer’s design is actually viable and isn’t so customized that it sacrifices durability and quality.
Channels
Our customers most likely want to be reached through online advertising instead of brick-and-mortar shops. They are currently forced to enter shops to try on glasses.
Since these shops are our direct competitors, we want to reach them in a way that disrupts their current channels, through online advertising.
The key channels that we will initially target are fashion influencers and fashion shows, just to get our product out there. Our target demographic would be frequently looking at both of those channels, so it becomes easier to reach our target market.
Customer Segments
Our most important consumers are younger, budget-priced people who need glasses but are unwilling to pay high prices. Before they become acclimated and fall into the branding of larger retailers, we have to market that there is a “new way” to purchase eyewear, without breaking the bank.
Initially, we are targeting the “fashion forwards crowd 20-40 years old in NYC that wants to design their own glasses”. According to my expert, unless we have all manufacturing capabilities, our initial product offering will have to be on the higher end, luxury side of the market, making it important to differentiate and appeal to these “fashion forwards individuals”.
Although our eventual goal is mass market, this will not be possible without first targeting a smaller willing/able to pay the higher price premium. Eventually, when we get to a mass market scale, we can do mass customization through injection molding.
Cost Structure
Our primary manufacturing costs will be our negotiated prices with 3D print companies such as Shapeways.
Fixed costs would include – Rent, Partnerships with 3D print companies, Design Team salaries, advertising/marketing
Variable costs would include – 3D Print materials, warehouse salaries, Shipping costs, Customer support salaries.
These costs will be imperative in the determination of our initial product price, although initial focus would be on Quality management rather than turning a profit.
Revenue Streams
Our main revenue model would be a basic buy and pay model. Our customers, the fashion forwards cohort, would prefer to pay around 100-300 dollars per pair of glasses.
People would obviously prefer to pay as low of a price as possible but during my market research, people said they had not only become acclimated to the high current prices but would be willing to pay more for a high-quality product. With the addition of customization into the mix, we would be able to charge a higher premium for the customer value provided.