Design Project 1 | Preparing for Elevator Pitch

Use this page to collect your initial thoughts about issues to be addressed in your Elevator Pitch. Please jot down a few ideas in each of the follow sections.

Adoptability

• What are the considerations that will affect peoples’ decisions about whether to adopt and use your design idea.
• Buyers will have to consider whether composting is necessary for them—this product is for homeowners who have a small garden and garden frequently.
• Buyers will also have to consider the price point—-while they will be saving more money in the long run—the upfront cost is pricey—about $300
• Are there potential barriers that will slow down adoption, or that you’ll need to overcome.
• What aspects of the existing situation will need to change?

Pricing Model

• What’s the pricing model for your idea?
• $299.99
• Is there an upfront cost? Or a subscription cost?
• The “CompostMate pods” are a recurring purchase after you use the initial pack that comes with the CompostMate. However, they are inexpensive—only about $5 for a pack of 20.
• Are there any rebates or other financial incentives that will help lower the cost and reward the behavior?
• With compost that is rich in nutrients, the consumer will no longer have to spend excessive amounts of money on fertilizer and mulch which range from about $20 to $50 per bag.

Sustainability Impact

• How does your design idea improve sustainability?
• Reducing Food waste—My design effectively eliminates food waste created by a standard American household, 220 pounds created per year by the average American
• Improving the quality and health of plants in a garden
• What delta will this make? How can you quantify or measure the impact of your design idea? And how big a difference could your design idea make?
• Eliminating 220 pounds of food waste created by a household, improving the health of plants, saving homeowners about $500 a year on gardening products,

Competitive Advantage

• What else is available to your users now? What options do they have?
• Are there other products or services that promise similar results?
• Other at-home composting kits exist but they often do not properly instruct the user on what ratio of greens, browns, etc to put in the compost, resulting in smelly, rotten compost
• How do you compare to them?
• Because the CompostMate has an app that monitors the ratio of certain elements of the compost, it takes the “mystery” element out of composting and makes it much more accessible and easy
• The CompostMate also has a special bucket with holes at the bottom, kind of like a salt shaker, that allows you to evenly distribute the compost across your garden bed, which other products do not have

Use of Design Thinking / Human-Centeredness

• How does this design idea address the essential need identified in your POV statement?
• How did your design idea evolve based on the steps in the design thinking process? (Observing > Interviewing > Defining a POV > Ideating > Prototyping > Testing > Interating)

What’s the Roadmap?

• Is there an path of future development that could evolve from and extend your design idea?
• How could your design idea grow?