Yes, I’m back at it again. I have another idea for a product that is sorely needed in our modern lives. As I’ve stated in my previous Seeking Venture Capital articles; I’m not afraid to share these ideas with the world because I’m not afraid of idea thieves. After all, IP thieves are soft and lazy; they do not have the perseverance to execute on an idea that would require any sort of effort, so there isn’t really a Venn Diagram between idea thieves and actual winners. Besides, even if I’m wrong and an idea thief does actually execute, I’m still better off. One can steal a single idea of mine, but they wouldn’t be able to innovate any further without my ideas.; if they were capable of innovating, they wouldn’t be idea-thieves to begin with. Just accept that my brain works differently than yours.
So, as the title implies, my idea is a simple one; we need couches and the seats of cars to be ergonomic. The typical American lives an incredibly sedentary lifestyle with little to no exercise during the course of their days. The CDC recommends two and a half hours of exercise per week to stave off health issues, or literally only 1.2% of the week spent working out. With that said, most Americans have chosen, consciously or otherwise, to not heed this advice. Given that the answer to so many of our health concerns could be solved by moving more, yet Americans won’t do it, we simply need another approach.
The medical device industry hasn’t failed to notice either. Flip on the TV and one is bound to see commercials for more advanced insulin pumps, or for blood glucose monitors that are less painful/require less blood in order to function. These products are overwhelmingly marketed towards patients with Type 2 diabetes. The true answer is to prevent Americans from getting to that point to begin with, however we have opted to not do that, so instead we’ve decided to innovate products with slightly better features to optimize our sub-par lifestyle choices.
With all of that said, we can now simply account for the fact that the average American will not willingly move during the day and will spend nearly all of their hours sitting. Therefore, making car seats that are specifically designed to be ergonomic would be a wise investment. While the go-to-market strategy will be selling these seats as after-market products, this has its limits. Generally speaking, most Americans do not change the seats of their cars; whatever set of seats the car has installed when it comes off of the assembly line is usually the same set of seats that the car will wind up in the junkyard with at the end of the vehicle’s service life. Therefore, the long-term move is to work out a deal with car companies to have them installed as standard features in their vehicles. Once a feature has become standard in enough vehicles, the feature tends to stay in place for future models; this includes everything from cupholders to GPS navigation and everything in between. Licensing the intellectual property to auto manufacturers will provide a large recurring revenue source.
Not all car brands are created equal, so the licensing of this ergonomic car seat design would be limited to mostly SUV’s and luxury brands. Teenagers and younger adults are not as concerned about ergonomics as their middle-aged and elderly counterparts are, so installing the ergonomic car seats into a Toyota Carolla would have less of an impact than installing them in a Lexus. Middle-aged and older people have more disposable income yet have atrophying muscle tissue, stiffening arteries, and softening bones relative to younger drivers. Thus, older drivers will be both more willing and able to pay extra for the ergonomic seats.
When the typical American comes home, they’ll generally spend time on the couch/recliner and watch TV for an average of two and a half hours per day despite not having time to exercise. Therefore, ergonomic couches will be an absolute lifeline to those looking to stave off back problems caused by sitting nearly 24/7. “Dan, we’d become just like the Pixar movie Wall-E if this idea was set into motion!” a disgruntled reader will ask. Yes, exactly: society has clearly decided that is the course of action, and thus my ergonomic seating company will allow the future to happen. I don’t recall this much backlash when Steve Jobs made the future happen in the late 2000’s and early 2010’s, so there is precedent on entrepreneurs turning sci-fi media into reality receiving heaps of social leeway.
“Well Dan, what makes you think that there is even a market for your product in the first place?” a sassy investor may ask. Ergonomic office chairs already exist, and they are fueling demand of office seating, so it is clear that people will pay (and more importantly, pay extra) for ergonomic seating. While the first few models of my car seats, couches, and recliners get sold, I’ll use some of the venture capital money and profits to fund scientific studies that confirm the link between proper posture and positive health outcomes. Further purchased studies could even show no correlation between cardiovascular exercise and [insert positive health outcome here]. The aim isn’t to win over the scientific or fitness community, but merely to create just enough confusion amongst the scientifically illiterate American. Once enough doubt has been sowed, then the marketing machine can take over and shove the highly sensationalized media headlines down the throats of Americans, thus further boosting my market share. For those that say that idea is unethical; feel free to stop drinking Coca-Cola, stop buying gas, quit smoking, give up fast food, and put down the bottle (hint: Americans aren’t going to do any of those things).
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