'Sky-Helmet' by VeloDrama Team

Positioning Statement: Bicycle Communications Device

Our product, a wireless communication device for bikers traveling together, is the best biking accessory for casual bikers that seek to improve their coordination with fellow bikers will riding and decrease the likelihood of biking accidents occurring. Our marketing strategy will primarily consist of working through retailers and bike stores to increase penetration of our product within the amateur and enthusiast biker segments. We believe a real market need exists for improved communications between bikers and consumers will buy readily available, moderately priced products that solve this need. We plan on coupling the product with helmets and selling the product through specialty bike stores and mass-market retailers.

Through primary research, we’ve observed that many bikers ride in pairs. These couples include friends, couples, parents with young children, and kids. We observed that bikers frequently attempt to converse with each other while riding. Most bikers do not ride next to each other in order to prevent collisions. Instead, they typically ride with a distance of 10 to 30 feet between them. We observed on numerous occasions that riders were yelling at each other and neither rider was able to hear the other one. We also found that bikers typically took their eyes off the road and turned their bodies in order to project their voices over the noise of nearby cars. This is clearly dangerous as accidents and collisions have a higher likelihood of happening when this sort of behavior occurs. Our observations led us to conclude that a clear need exists for a device that helps bikers communicate with each other while also maintaining their focus on riding. Furthermore, many parents take their children on bike rides during the weekend. Through our observations, and personal interviews, we unearthed a need for parents to be able to provide advanced warning to their children of dangers, such as oncoming vehicles, while maintaining a safe riding distance. The wireless communication helmet will create a safety net allowing parents to more comfortably, and safely, ride with their children, thus fulfilling an emotional need for connectivity.

The bicycle helmet market is a large, slow growing market that is quite fragmented. We estimate that the bicycle helmet market is around $200 million in sales annually in the United States. The market is slow growing – increases in units sold are offset by decreasing retail prices due to both economies of scale and retailers applying pressure to manufacturers. No competitive offerings currently exist in the market that addresses the market need that we are going after. A few patents have been filed around the area of biker communication, but products have not been introduced to the masses that truly leverage short wave radio technology. Additionally, we visited both large retailers and specialty bike stores and found no products that were similar to our offering.

Helmets are primarily sold in the United States through mass-market retailers (Walmart, Target, Toys-R-Us) and specialty bike stores. Manufacturers range from large corporations that produce products in numerous bicycle accessory categories (Bell Sports, Schwinn) to specialty manufacturers that sell specialized helmets for professional cyclists. Our strategy will be to sell one version of the product that is bundled with the helmet and sold through mass-market retailers. We also plan on selling a standalone version of the product in specialty bike stores. We know that we can quickly gain market share and gain shelf space at large retailers by partnering up with Schwinn and Bell Sports. We can leverage their marketing expertise and existing relationships and follow a high volume low margin strategy. For the specialty stores, we plan on pricing at a higher point than we would for the mass- market retailers. We plan on educating salespeople on the benefits of the product and hoping that they will eventually evangelize the product for prospective customers.

Bhandari, Raj
Dash, Somesh
Desai, Arpit
Frick, Jonathan
Mahajan, Tarun
Vance, Austin