7A- Testing the Hypothesis
The economy in the United States is always changing, with expansionary gaps and recessionary gaps. As of now, our economy has been in an expansionary gap for quite some time now, on a slow and steady incline. But when is this bubble of the healthy market going to pop? United States residents may not be aware of the ever-growing (or recessing) and changing economy and what kind of gap that is being experienced. My opportunity is a mobile app that tracks the expansionary and recessionary gaps of the economy each day and compares the current cycle of the economy to past trends. While comparing the current economic cycle, the mobile app would also show the historical context of the period of a similar economic trend while showing the economy’s impact.
The Who: United States residents
The What: Residents are not very informed to the economic cycle and whether it is in a recessionary or expansionary gap.
The Why: They are not able to easily access all this information on a single mobile platform.
My hypothesis is that this opportunity exists, but maybe the who is a little smaller than I anticipated. Yes, all US citizens would benefit from an application like this; however, are they really even that interested? Also, citizens may be more informed than we think, or on the other side, they are not informed because they simply do not care about what the current health of the economy is. Speaking about the why, maybe citizens think that it is not that important to know about the economic cycle and what the health of the economy is. Some people genuinely just do not have any interest in the current state of the economy, and maybe that is why they are so uninformed.
When interviewing my five people, I decided to do two adults (my mom and uncle) and three college students (my roommates). When speaking about my opportunity, both my mom and uncle loved the idea. My uncle, since he works in an industry dependent on the economy, was really interested in the mobile app as well as being interested in seeing if there were any alternatives to what I have proposed. My mom was just as interested, but for different reasons. My mom spoke about how if all of this information could be compiled into one single application that it would be the most convenient way to become informed about the economy. My mother spoke about how busy many adults are with children and careers, that so many people she knew would be interested in my opportunity because the push to be an informed citizen as well as the sheer convenience of it all. On another hand, all three of my roommates really enjoyed listening to my opportunity idea; however, they did not seem as interested in the platform itself. One of my roommates explained that she did not feel the need to become informed about the economy as she does not think it directly affects her. Another roommate liked this idea of the ease of access to economic trends and she shared that if she had a platform that presented data in a way in which it was fairly easy for her to grasp, she would be very interested. Overall, I learned that my prototypical customer may not be all US residents or even residents over 18, but maybe it leans more towards citizens with careers and families.