Entrepreneurship

Hello! David J here again bringing you more of the steps on my journey toward financial independence.

Part of what financial independence is all about includes entrepreneurship - looking for a need in the community and building a business by filling that need.

So, to help, here's an idea or two from my personal experience.

Two of the most under-served markets I've found are products for the elderly, especially the Vision Impaired.

Needed products for the vision impaired include:

- Laundry gear: Washers and Dryers
- Microwave ovens
- Radios, music players
- Clocks
- Others

One of the biggest challenges to the vision impaired is the appliance industry's near-total reliance on tiny buttons, membrane keypads and digital displays. The vision impaired can't see the keypad to press individual spots, can't see the digital displays to get visual confirmation that their inputs were correct, and can't find the start "button" on a membrane keypad. Among the elderly, vision impairment is typically coupled with hearing impairment. So, audio feedback is similarly useless to them.

To be the most useful to the vision impaired, such appliances must have simple controls.

For a washer, for example, the vision impaired should be able to just drop the clothes in, pour in some liquid detergent, close the lid and press one over-sized, easy-to-find button to start it.

Same for a dryer: toss the clothes in, add a piece of a dryer sheet, close the door and press one over-sized, easy-to-find button to start it. A self-cleaning lint-screen would be big selling invention, also!

Microwave ovens need a mechanical keypad laid out like either a telephone (top, down) or a calculator (bottom, up) with big, easy-to-find keys, and press one over-sized, easy-to-find button to start it.

Radios need presets, like old-style car radios: big, easy-to-find buttons that someone sets for them once (or they can maybe learn to set themselves!), over-sized, easy-to-find volume knob, over-sized, easy-to-find on/off switch. Same for music players: over-sized, easy-to-find controls and other features.

(Forget about remote controls, by the way - the vision impaired can't see them.)

Clocks need voices - actual digitally-recorded human voices, not stilted, hard to understand speech synthesis, and need to include the day of the week, day of the month, month of the year and the year. Again, press one over-sized, easy-to-find button to start the announcement. Remember also that among the elderly, vision impairment is typically coupled with hearing impairment. Recorded speech must distinct with clear enunciation, and IT'S GOTTA BE LOUD! ...or have the ability to be loud!

Another market which needs to be served: the elderly and physically impaired who cannot operate can openers, microwave ovens or stoves to prepare their own meals.

This market needs tasty, nutritious products that either keep at room temperature or above (since the elderly typically prefer to live in sauna-like conditions) or in the refrigerator.

The key feature MUST be: open it, and eat it - no further preparation required.

Oh, yeah - I've thought about granola bars and such. Y'know, the kind of provisions one might take on a camping trip or keep in stock for disaster preparations. To paraphrase a line from the movie, "Crocodile Dundee": "Well, you can live on it, but it tastes like dirt!"

So, there's a couple of thoughts for nearly totally unserved markets. Living with an elderly, vision impaired mother with mobility challenges, I've been searching for products fitting these needs for years.

With the aging of us "boomers" and our offspring, those markets will certainly grow by leaps and bounds over the next decade or two or three or ... Fill those needs, and you could be the next Steve Jobs, Nikola Tesla, Howard "Rory" Johnson, or other great inventor.

We'll talk again soon!

Take care - be well!

Much Success!