For the 2008 Business Planning Integrative, our group looked at several trends: micro-finance, baby boomers and emerging markets trade. We were however swayed towards a business idea that seemed scalable, profitable and 'current.'
In a recent survey conducted by Harris Interactive, bottled water was the number one choice of consumers when asked to identify the bottled beverage they most associate with a healthy lifestyle.
As the #1 beverage in the world in 2007, and with annual sales of $20B in the U.S alone, we believed that the market for bottled water would continue to increase exponentially over the next 10 years. We looked at another interesting trend in the retail sector - pet care. Americans spend $41 billion a year on their pets, more than the gross domestic product of all but 64 countries in the world. That puts the yearly cost of buying, feeding, and caring for pets to be more than what Americans spend on the movies, playing video games and listening to recorded music combined.
After careful analysis of the trends in consumer behavior and gaps in the pet-care sector, we believed there was a definite market for safe, tasty, flavored, bottled, vitamin-enriched water for pet dogs - PupVita.
In our plan, PupVita will be a source of good health, strength, and high energy for all pets. We are innovating with environment-friendly packaging, allowing pet owners to carry a $ exi-bottle that has
an extended dog bowl, and creating a stickpack with vitamins and flavors that can be mixed into a bottle of water instantly.
The revenue drivers of our business will be channel sales through vets, breeders, events, and boutique stores, and direct sales through a web storefront. We had discussed potential partnerships
with a prominent bottler and beverage distributor to target affluent pet owners through our channels in North East and Mid-Atlantic metropolitan areas.
We intend to get water from our own artesian well and enhance it with our "Nutraceutical" formula of vitamins and flavors. PupVita will retail in environment-friendly, cornstarch-based bottles.
In the final round, we competed against three other good business plans. Final round judges included prominent venture capitalists from the Mid-Atlantic, Dean Aggarwal and our Professors. Our scalable concept, quality of presentation and answers seemed to win over the panel and PupVita was judged as a winner!
By Raghavan Narayanan, Kiman Choe,
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