Is there a large enough market for this online business?

[manbearpig0]

So some background, I want to sell motorcycle stunt/crash cages. Im majoring in engineering. I came up with a design that will allow me to produce each one approximately 8 times faster (literally) than they are currently being made today by motorcycle shops AND at a lower production cost. I plan to sell these stunt cages primarily online and probably have other motorcycle shops sell them for me and pay them commission.

I want to accurately calculate how much i will be selling. How would I go about doing this? There seems to be plenty listings of them on ebay, none on craigslist, and a few on motorcycle forums. Is there an accurate way I would be able to determine how big this market is?? i am EXTREMELY excited to get started on this as i know i will blow my competition out of the water :D

[Freelancier]

Are there magazines for this particular market? If so, call their news editors and ask if they have come across one of the firms who do that type of research for that market segment. My guess is you won't find the information if the market isn't huge, but you never know. Don't be surprised, though, if you have to purchase that kind of research from the company who did the research... and that they charge a LOT for it.

[BrandGeek]

Really interesting business. I can't speak to any hard numbers about whether there's a market for this. What I can say is that if you're going to do it, it requires an intense brand focus and a really aggressive marketing effort. This is exactly the kind of business I can see discussed as a success story in Inc. magazine. All the branding needs to be spot on, and the marketing needs to be in line with the brand, and it needs to be relentless. Good luck with this. I really would love to see you turn this into a niche market monster.

[Wozcreative]

As Kevin O'leary said it, get a patent and sell or license the royalties to big name companies. You are not going to make much $ on such a niche market since the majority of motorcycle industries have a very tight nit community of brands that are trusted and used. Have them worry about marketing which is going to cost you TONS of money. The cages aren't anything that too many people can probably have in their own back yard. You will have to market to the bigger guys.. people who own motorcycle tracks, maybe a few store locations, and trade shows.

I am myself looking into getting into dirt bikes and would never have any space for something like a cage. Sell the idea to cage makers and show them how to make it faster. Patent it first.

[Freelancier]

Sell the idea to cage makers and show them how to make it faster. Patent it first.

That's likely the best advice you'll get. Get the patent. Then use it to make money without having to worry about details like market size.

[Brian Altenhofel]

Patent first is definitely the best route to go... whether it's the design itself or the manufacturing process. I'd bet there'd be a lot of startup costs to do it yourself between the manufacturing tooling, testing, legal fees, more testing to ensure that a design flaw can't open you up to liability, marketing, etc.

By getting a patent, you could approach well-known and well-respected manufacturers and try selling them an exclusive license to use the patent for X time in Y region(s).

I'm assuming you're talking about something like these: 03-06 HONDA 600RR STUNT CAGE - STAGE 2 - $399.00 : On-Point Performance, Motorcycle Stunt and Performance Parts (http://www.onpointperformance.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=97)

[manbearpig0]

Thanks for the feedback guys.
Right Brian, thats the cage. I think the people above you thought it was supposed to be something massive by the word cage but its actually not lol.

Unfortunately the design wouldn't be patent-able. Without getting into too much detail of how I will be producing this (for obvious reasons), what I'm essentially doing is applying a combination of technical knowledge from other skills in a succession of steps, none of which hasn't already been done before. It just hasn't been done with this product, it seems (it shows in the shape and welds of every design I have seen thus far). I think it's because since a majority of stunt cages are made by motorcycle shops, their methods of production are quite limited (i.e. welding).

The startup costs won't be too expensive. The most expensive thing I'll need to get it started is a 3d printer but I can just use the ones at my college so that shouldn't be a problem. At most it will cost 700$ To BrandGeek, as far as the target audience goes, I'm a stunt rider myself so I understand their psychology quite well :D

Logically I cant think of a reason why this would fail, my estimates came out good every time even with worst-scenario calculations, but Im still young so I probably dont know much about business to begin with.

[Brian Altenhofel]

Unfortunately the design wouldn't be patent-able.

Perhaps. Perhaps not. At the very least the method of manufacture might be. On the design, patents only require specific differentiation from what is already patented or commonly-used. It's worth looking into.


Without getting into too much detail of how I will be producing this (for obvious reasons), what I'm essentially doing is applying a combination of technical knowledge from other skills in a succession of steps, none of which hasn't already been done before. It just hasn't been done with this product, it seems (it shows in the shape and welds of every design I have seen thus far). I think it's because since a majority of stunt cages are made by motorcycle shops, their methods of production are quite limited (i.e. welding).

The startup costs won't be too expensive. The most expensive thing I'll need to get it started is a 3d printer but I can just use the ones at my college so that shouldn't be a problem. At most it will cost 700$ To BrandGeek, as far as the target audience goes, I'm a stunt rider myself so I understand their psychology quite well :D

Logically I cant think of a reason why this would fail, my estimates came out good every time even with worst-scenario calculations, but Im still young so I probably dont know much about business to begin with.

Once again, I think you're probably underestimating the possible legal costs. An aftermarket product, especially one that alters how a vehicle reacts to a crash, carries with it a lot of liability issues. A simple label that says "provided as-is, without warranty, at own risk, yada-yada" is not always enough according to the ambulance chasers.

The other issue is the college's 3D printer. Usually (at least in the US), colleges have policies for their equipment that require products of their equipment to be for educational purposes only with any profitable purposes resulting in some sort of rights (often exclusive) to the product for the college absent any other legal agreements. This is universally true with public colleges because a student or person using the equipment for personal or business purposes would be misappropriation of public assets.