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CURRENT EFFORTS

Understanding the Market

UND CENTER FOR INNOVATION

As you might expect, designing, certifying and manufacturing airplanes is a capital, regulatory and talent intensive initiative.  Because I, in no way, possess the capital nor talent to fully support such an effort, understanding the market before seeking outside investment is imperative.  To that end, I met with the staff at the UND Center for Innovation and presented my design and SCORE business plan.  Subsequently they brought me in as one of their tenants and helped the venture qualify for the Innovate ND program.

 

To learn more about the UND Center for Innovation and Innovate ND please click on the links above.  Both entities strongly promote the Venture Design Process to entrepreneurs as a mechanism for market comprehension.  The Venture Design Process (VDP) was developed by Alex Cowan (see link).  VDP has been a powerful tool that has helped me move the venture from a technical perspective to a market focus.  VDP provides the methodology that puts entrepreneurs in direct contact with their market (people) and offers the tools that help validate venture worthiness for a particular product.

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The core elements of VDP are:

  1. Personas

  2. Problem Scenarios & Alternatives

  3. Value Propositions & Assumptions

  4. Customer Discovery & Experiments

  5. User Stories & Experiments

  6. Product & Promotion

INNOVATE ND FOCUS

Initial cuts at VDP Steps 1-3 are done so my efforts are now almost entirely focused on conducting Customer Discovery interviews.  Currently, the group of stakeholders that I would like to interview most are airport administrators at communities that have been awarded funding through the Small Community Air Service Development Program (SCASDP).  These communities are at the top of that list because:

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  • They are directly involved in local marketing, operational and regulatory efforts to sustain air service for their communities.

  • As SCASDP awardees, these communities represent proactive collaborations between airport authorities, local governments and private investors so I do, very much, want to talk to these folks.

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I am also equally keen to speak with airport administrators at communities that have completely or partially lost Essential Air Service (EAS) routes over the past 10 years.

A SEGUE

As you might have already guessed, I have designed an aircraft with the  3rd Level market in mind, and it's pretty cool.  That's not just my opinion, it's shared by a small group of trusted individuals who have seen the design.  It exists only as a conceptual model and, for obvious reasons, I hold that design very close, along with other business concepts that go with it. 

 

This is not something I came up with yesterday; the conceptual design was developed and put to CAD drawings more than twenty years ago.  Due to a number of technical and funding hurdles, I've been forced to pause the venture a number of times; sometimes for several years. 

 

At this writing, a lot of the technical concepts have been plausibly addressed so now it's time to work on the funding piece.  That is daunting aspect for sure, and that is where UND C4I, Innovate ND, VDP and this site come into play.  'Understanding the Market' is the next crucial step towards driving the success of this venture.  Hang on kids!

OUTREACH

Between this website, the blog, and my LinkedIn page I hope to connect with various industry stakeholders and encourage their participation in this effort.  The interviews focus on understanding the interviewee's thoughts and observations that pertain to their efforts towards providing commercial air service to rural and small communities.  I try to keep these interview to 30 minutes or less.

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In addition to SCASDP and abandoned EAS communities, I would also be interested in opportunities to interview the people who's roles are included in the Persona categories listed below.

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  • Lessors/Financiers/Banks

  • Insurance Providers

 

If you are in this group of Personas and would like to volunteer as a participant for an Airplane 3 Customer Discovery interview, please see the 'Contact Us' tab, or better yet, mash the 'Let's Talk' button.  I would also appreciate any referrals you might want to arrange, and thank you in advance if you choose to do so.  

 

If I can interview enough people in the next few months, and the interviews indicate a plausible market, the next step will be to find the funding necessary to develop Technology Demonstrator/Proof of Concept prototypes.  More than likely, that work will be focused on grant writing for federal funding.

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