Assignment 7A: Testing the Hypothesis

Checking Vitamin/Nutrient Levels Quickly Before The Problem Arises

• Opportunity:
• Americans are at the mercy of making doctor appointments just to know something as simple as vitamin/nutrient levels in order to be at their optimal health. 
• The Who: Americans who care about their health
• The What: They are unable to know what their levels of certain vitamins are in a timely and efficient matter.
• The Why: Must make doctor appointments and pay the high price. 
• Testing The Who: People who don't actively care about their health are either just too lazy to do the research or don't have the leisure of going out and buying as many vitamins/supplements as they need. The "who" can be these people as it is a quicker way to know your health status and can help you save money in the long run; however, I believe the majority of the "who" are those who actively care about your health.
• Testing The What: The ultimate challenge I believe this opportunity faces is the technical side of things. There may be constraints on how possible it is for urine to test your vitamin levels. Maybe it can only test certain vitamins and not others. More research is needed. https://www.b12-vitamin.com/urine-test/
• Testing The Why: Some people may not care about the high prices of medicare and only care about the quickness of the results they receive. Some people may solely think this is a need due to the high price and not because of the time it takes to go to the doctors and receive your results days later.

• Interview #1: This interview was conducted with a mother who is currently not working and raising two children. Her worry of health, based on a scale of 1-10, is high up there along with the worry of finances. She said that she would say her worry is a 9 because if you are not healthy then what good is life. Finances were a big worry for her as well and she says if you do not have good health it will definitely affect your finances as well. The money she has spent on vitamins/supplements in the last year is up to almost $1000 since that is what is needed to be a premier member of Dr. Mercola's website. She said it would be nice to know what to focus and spend money on and what is actually going to waste since she does buy vitamins/supplements often.

• Interview #2: This interview was conducted with a female college student who actively cares about her health. She would rate her worry of health as a 7. The only supplements she takes are immune system gummies and she spends the bare minimum on vitamins/supplements because she does not know which ones she is deficient in. She would consider herself a healthy person as she goes to the gym but she would like to develop better habits. She wishes to be more consistent with being healthy rather than deciding one to day to be healthy and one day to not. The social norm of "freshmen 15" and binge drinking is worth addressing. College students don't realize the long term and internal affects since they seem to only worry about their outward appearances.

• Interview #3: This interview was conducted with a male college student who does not actively care about their health. He would rate his worry of health as a 4 as it is not one of his top priorities. He only takes immune system gummies whenever his roommate has them. Vitamins/supplements isn't something he cares for in general. I learned from him that his dad runs a business where you can spit on a cotton swab and send it in to the company to get results back weeks later of daily supplements that are perfectly customized to the person. I did not know this was out there but there is still a problem of quickness and efficiency. 

• Interview #4: This interview was conducted with a female who just graduated college. Her rate of her worry of health out of 10 is 9. She says that now that she is fully living on her own and working five days a week her health has become more important to her so she can be more productive. Since she has just started working on her own, she only spends about $150 a year but she wishes she could spend more. The vitamins she takes are vitamin c, b and d as well as probiotics, omega 7, ginger and collagen. Just being out of college, she knows all about the social norm of binge drinking and freshmen 15. She believes that if students were to know how they were affected by what they eat, freshmen 15 could be easily avoidable. However, she believes binge drinking will always be a norm in college no matter if students could see what they are doing internally.

• Interview #5: This interview was conducted with one of my male professors with a family. He would rate his worry of health as a 7. He estimated that he personally would spend about $200 a year on health related supplements but his wife probably spends more than that for the two of them. He takes Men's One A Day, thermogenic protein and bcaa glutamine. He believes that the problem with doctor visits isn't the quickness but the unnecessary prescriptions and insurance which causes the high prices.

• Given your interviews, what do you know about the opportunity that you didn't know before? 
• These interviews taught me that this opportunity may not be applicable to college students as they have other more important worries such as their school work. Now that I have confirmed that, I have an other idea for college campuses. Putting my product in the student union of colleges may increase the health of college students as now they won't directly have to pay for the product and not have a place to install it. This opportunity most likely applies to families rather than individuals.