Meeting With the Undertaker

To test our different hypothesis' and assumptions, we had to get in the field. Through one of our friends it was relatively easy to meet an undertaker, who was willing to help us out with our questions. The meeting was very friendly and informal.

First we were curious about the process an undertaker has to go through, once called by the family of the deceased. He explained that it was his responsibility to arrange for all the details of the funeral: the priest, a coffin,the invitation, the flowers and the cars. The Insurance companies did not take care of anything other than the pay out of the Insurance money. This explanation took away one of our main assumptions, where we assumed that the Insurance scheme's included some basic types of coffins, depending on the sum that would be paid out. It also gives us a choice of neglecting the Insurance companies completely or the possibility of proposing schemes with our designer coffins for them to sell. This is something we would have to discuss further in the future.

Another one of our assumptions was that undertakers must have a space problem, because in the Netherlands there is no space to store all the coffins. The information we got did not confirm that. Some undertakers have a shop in the outskirts of big cities. This is meant for people who shop for their own funeral. This group of people is willing to drive outside of the city to choose a coffin.
For the rest of the funerals, the undertaker has a number of coffin suppliers he can contact to deliver a coffin within 24 hours. As far as the custimization of coffins go, these can be painted and dried in a specific color by the supplier, within 24 hours as well. With this information we know that we should design a product in such a way that a customizable and designer coffin would be available within 24 hours. Our initial thoughts  towards sleeves and/or palleting can be a potentially good answer to thos.

When going to a family, the undertaker has a book with some sample materials available, so that a coffin can be chosen. He emphasized on the fact that the niche market that he was mainly hired by, Surinamese people, always chose for the basic coffin, because the emphasis was on the rituals instead of on the coffin. With this information available, we know that we don't have to put a lot of energy into marketing our product to this group.  David and Vandana allready had a discussion about the catalog that should be available for undertakers. There is even a possibility to provide the undertakers with an Ipad so they can show the customer a 3D model of what the coffin would look like.

When asked about the materials a coffin was build with, he said it's very simple chipboard, because this is easily decomposable. There is a small group of people who want a massive wooden coffin and are willing to pay for it. He also gave us the information that the margins of his coffins range from 50% to 100%, on the chipboard coffins only. He markets his services through different schemes and he even has one scheme where the coffin is 'free' and customers only pay for the services. This is interesting for his target group, because he focusses on a very select group of people who emphasize on the rituals and not at all on the coffin. For us it would be interesting to work with the chipboard coffins, because this would make our margins more interesting.

During our investigation we found that it is a very simple process to order a coffin online and have it delivered within 24 hours, without intervention of an undertaker. We were curious to know what percentage of people ordered the coffins without the intervention of an undertaker. It seems that almost everyone in the Netherlands orders their coffins through an undertaker, except for the gypsies. The reason that the gypsies don't order a coffin through an undertaker, is that they want to decorate the coffin themselves and they put a lot of time into it. There are no coffins available for this special niche. With this information we can carefully conclude that there is a market for designer coffins, even if it would be for a small niche group.
 
We wanted to know who we should market our designer coffins to. Should it be directly to people shopping for their own funeral, or should it be to undertakers who sell to the family of the deceased. According to the undertaker, the proportion of people shopping for their own funeral is 30% vs. the 70% of people who arrange the funerals of their family members. As a reaction to this question he offered to display our designer coffins in his shop, when they were available, for people shopping for their own funeral. He admitted that he was very excited about the product because as he said ...' there is nothing more frustrating and boring about the job of an undertaker, than offering the same boring coffins every time...I personally certainly believe that there is a market for this product'... This enthousiastic reaction is a big motivator for our group.  The undertaker also suggested that we would have a look in his shop and also at a coffin producer in Katwijk. These visits have yet to be planned in, but we are sure it will give us more insights about coffin materials and the production process.
 

Week 2

Week 2: Problem-Solution Fit

Step 2.1: The Value Proposition Canvas
During the past week we worked on Value Proposition Canvas and started to “get out of the building”.

We are trying to understand the following questions:

• Who are our customers? What jobs are they trying to get done?
• What pains and/or gains do they experience while they are trying to get this job done?
• What is our product and service offering (our Value Proposition) going to be? What will be its features?
• How does our offering result in pain relievers and/or gain creators? A powerful way to describe this is to tell two stories: (1) how does the day in the life of the user look like before they bought/started to use your product; and (2) how does the day in the life of the user look like after they bought/started to use your product.

Further Value Proposition Canvases were created based on the following BMCs.

• Freemium:

• No Frills Low Cost

• Pets

Step 2.2: Testing the Problem

During this week we started applying "going out of the building" for that we have interviewed an undertaker.

For more information you could check it in our blog "Meeting With the Undertaker".

On the other hand we have started preparing the questionnaires to be done to final clients and also undertakers.

After the interviews we will continue reviewing our hypotheses and also our model.

Step 2.3: Testing the Solution

By this moment we are not with our final model and we have 4 preliminar models.

Then after review our analysis we will define our final model to be worked.
 

Step 2.4: Your Rules of the Game

The Evolution of A Box for the Dead

To many it must sound either weird or even horryfying ...the evolution of a box for the dead..,but if you think about it carefully death is the only certain thing in life. This is what motivated our group to look into the market that serves the dead.

Funerals are known to be a very sad and confronting occasion. It's all about saying goodbye to loved ones. If we have a look at funeral services, in the Netherlands in particular, these are very cold and emotionless. Except for the flowers, the setting is very sober and the choice of coffins is very limited. Our group wants to explore if there is a market for designer, and even customized, coffins. The idea is that a coffin is the last tangible thing one can buy for their loved one, so a bit more personalization and exclusivity would be welcomed by the family. A designer or personalized coffin would also be representative of what the deceased stood for in his/her life and would represent his/her values depending on the design that was chosen. This would give the family a chance to express emotion through a tangible last pursuit for the deceased. With this product we aim to make funerals less sober and more interactive.

The aim would be to design the coffins out of biodegradable materials. It would consist of a standard wooden coffin, that would be completed with a designer sleeve, as per the customers wishes.  These sleeves would be interchangeable. Initially our team want to produce 25 designs of sleeves, which would be complemented by a service that gives customers the possibility to order a customized design in a later phase.

As we embark on the journey of investigation of our product, we realize that we are dealing with a rather exclusive market and customer. In the Netherlands, the customer can be seen from different perspectives: Undertakers, Insurance companies, people ordering their own coffins or family members that buy a coffin for ther loved ones. To get all this customers on board for the product we need to know what drives them in a decision of selling or ordering a coffin. We also need to proof some assumptions to ourselves, before we proceed. The main assumptions we are looking to jusify are:

• There is a market for designer coffins
• Our product pricing will be reasonable and attractive to our customers
• Customers will be wanting to spend money and time on it
• There are biodegradable materials available that can be used in the production process
• Just In Time delivery will be possible for the customized coffins
• There is less competition in this market

No matter what the outcome will be at the end of our project, one thing is for sure: we are about to learn a lot about a very interesting market and business, one that was not discussed in any MBA case. If the conclusion at the end shows that the production of this product is not viable, at least we will be able to conclude that we have a lot of knowledge about FUNerals.

Kick-Off of "Six Feet Under"

On Friday October 24th, the team met to finalize our Team Contract and to construct our Business Model Canvas (BMC).

1.1: The Business Model Canvas 

Our initial concept is to create a standard box coffin that is simple and inexpensive.  From there, the customer can choose from a series of 'sleeves' to add to the exterior of the coffin.  Initially, we will focus on marketing this product in the Netherlands because it will be easier for us to meet with the customers.

Value Proposition: help customers customize coffins easily and affordably.

Below is our initial BMC.

Six Feet Under - Initial BMC (created on Oct 24th using canvanizer.com - link to original)

We also looked into other business models and created BMCs for these alternate ideas:

• The first alternative is to target pet owners wanting to personalize a funeral or service for their pets.  The details can be found in the following BMC: https://canvanizer.com/canvas/nwRezS9kAf0
• The second alternative is a freemium model that covers both the customer arranging the funeral and pet owners. It explores the possibility of giving the sleeves away for free, and that the revenue may come from advertising fees from funeral homes, insurance companies, local veterinary clinics and local pet stores that would be advertised on our website.  The details can be found in the following BMC: https://canvanizer.com/canvas/VLFAuVjskZQ
• The last alternative is a No Frills – Low Cost option for both customers arranging the funeral and pet owners.  This option would offer a choice from afixed number of sleeves.  There would be no option for a customised design.  The sleeves would be sold via our website, in retailers such as supermarkets, DIY stores, pet shops and Funeral Homes.  The details can be found in the following BMC: https://canvanizer.com/canvas/-17AIux_6eU

We started creating our dashboard during our meeting on October 24th, and over the course of the weekend all of us took turns adding to it.

What is our customer-problem hypothesis?

1.2: Business Model Search

Hypotheses	Level of uncertainty	Explanation	Data Sources	Potential Interviewees	Leap of Faith	Experiments
There is a market available for it	2	- Will people want to customize their coffin?	- Undertakers maybe able to tell us if they get requests for customized coffins. - Final consumers may be able to talk about their needs and if we solve something for them	- Undertakers - Final Consumers	-There is a market for this kind of product
Pricing will be reasonable	2	- We need to verify that the boxes can be made inexpensively, and that panels can be created such that they can be placed on the box easily and securely. - As well, if making the boxes overseas we need to figure out shipping costs and import duties. - Also we need to figure it out How much the people is willing to pay for it	- We will need to get a design first. Then we can try to get quotes from factories? - Basic Box price - We can get the information of potential supplier from Internet -We need to get potencial shipping price - Duties (from Internet)	- Undertakers - Potential Suppliers	The price of the sleeve + basic coffin (inexpensive) gets a reasonable price (like a regular or expensive coffin)
Customers will be wanting to spend money and time on it	2	- We need to find evidence that people plan their funerals.	- Undertakers	- Undertakers - Family and friends - Colleagues - Potential Consumers	- People is willing to pay more to get a customized coffin
There are biodegradable materials available that can be used	2	- Wood is biodegradable - Cardboard couldbe used also - The design that we will provide could be biodegradable? - What kind of raw material could be printed with good presentation - We need to go through the environment laws to see if there are some restrictions of use of some materials in this kind of products	- From Internet	- Potential Suppliers	- There is no restrictions on the materials that could be used
Undertakers and insurance companies will be available as partners	3	- We would need to get an undertaker to agree to show our product to his customers.	- Undertakers
JIT Delivery will be possible	1	- The advance purchase, is almost null for these kind of products, so we will need a good time of response - We need to think about if we will have a printing supplier or if we will have our own machines - How much time do we have to give the product to the undertaker	- Machine prices - Supplier prices - Supplier time of response - Warehouse prices	- Printing house - Undertakers	- The product will be delivered as soon as possible so we can solve the customer needs
There is less competition in this market	2	- We need to research to see if the concept exists. If there is a market we need to know our competitors	- Undertakers - Also an internet search.	- Understakers	- There is a low competition on this area so it will be easy to get competitive advantage from other competitiors
Everybody in Holland uses an undertaker	2	- What does Dutch law say? - Do they have to use an undertaker?	- Internet search	- People who live in Netherland	- The people always have to go through an Undertaker company to get funeral services
How many coffin sizes there are in the market	2	- We need to know if the are standard coffin sizes	- Undertakers	- Coffin supplier	- There are standard sizes of coffins in the market
Chinese supplier is the best in terms of price, quality and speed?	2				- The Chinese supplier will be the cheapest and also capable to respond to our needs

1.3: Testing Low Uncertainty Assumptions 

Our team still needs to come up with a plan to answer the following questions:

• Which companies did you (or will you) investigate to collect specific pieces of evidence and to shape your current business model? 
• Who did you (or will you) interview to collect specific pieces of evidence and to shape your current business model? 

1.4: Leaps of Faith

The leaps of faith assumption are listed below in the Dashboard.

1.5: Dashboard

Leap of Faith	Hypotheses	Measures	Tests	Findings	Conclusions
-There is a market for this kind of product	There is a market available for it
- The price of the sleeve + basic coffin (inexpensive) gets a reasonable price (like a regular or expensive coffin)	Pricing will be reasonable
- People is willing to pay more to get a customized coffin	Customers will be wanting to spend money and time on it
- There is no restrictions on the materials that could be used	There are biodegradable materials available that can be used
	Undertakers and insurance companies will be available as partners
- The product will be delivered as soon as possible so we can solve the customer needs	JIT Delivery will be possible
- There is a low competition on this area so it will be easy to get competitive advantage from other competitiors	There is less competition in this market
- The people always have to go through an Undertaker company to get funeral services	Everybody in Holland uses an undertaker
- There are standard sizes of coffins in the market	How many coffin sizes there are in the market
- The Chinese supplier will be the cheapest and also capable to respond to our needs	Chinese supplier is the best in terms of price, quality and speed?

1.6: Our Goals

Briefly report what it is that drives you as a startup entrepreneur? What do you want to achieve? What do you want your startup to achieve? How about the goals of the rest of your team?

David: I enjoy solving problems, and doing this as an entrepreneur gives me the flexibility to truly be innovative.  I hope to learn a lot from the "Six Feet Under" startup, and plan on applying the lessons that I will learn in my next venture.

Felicia: "My goal is to learn the steps required to turn an idea into a viable business model."

Lorena: "My goal is to take everything learned from the course and also my team to be able to use if after on some personal ideas that I want to develop later"

Vandana:"My goal is to be able to critically look at a business and Judge it's profitability and feasibility. I also seek to learn about the different steps prior to the launch of a venture."