25 - What's Next?

Existing Martket
Step 1: the market I am targeting is that of educational presentations at summer camps, public or private events, and school programs. I think a natural expansion of this venture would be a YouTube channel that produces videos showcasing animal care and topics that don't fit into the presentations. This way, new audiences can be reached, and we can share the individual stories of the animals more. If the channel were to become successful, there is potential for it to become monetized as well, which means we could earn additional supplemental income off of a service that is free to the consumer and therefore more accessible. That income would not be reliable, but the purpose of the organization is the spread of information, which YouTube is good for. Independently, there is also a lot of potential for merchandise featuring the animals and any slogans we may have.

Step 2: I reached out via email to some people who fit the main customer segment. Not all of them responded in a timely manner, but the ones who did respond gave mostly positive feedback and said that they though my current ideas all had a lot of potential. One person suggested having an service where customers can essentially pay to have our animals featured in their advertisements or music videos. I think that is an interesting idea that could have value, though there are several things I would need to work out in order to make sure such a service would be executed in an ethically sound way for the animals. 

Step 3: I think my venture is most likely to start with private clients hosing small events, and our reputation would grow largely by word-of-mouth in the beginning. Once some credibility and reputation is established, along with strong online resources such as a good website and social media page, Animal Discovery will be more visible and on the radar of clients booking programs for larger events at schools or libraries. Once that stage is reached, we would very likely stay in that market for quite some time and it is as this point that I expect to truly establish a consistent amount of revenue that we can examine and rework a new budget from. It is important to note that Animal Discovery will almost certainly be very small at the beginning, and I will probably have some separate source of income until the venture gets off the ground. The goal is for Animal Discovery to be self-sustaining, where the money earned from providing services to customers is enough to cover my basic needs and the expenses of animal care. If the income grows, it will allow me to improve the animal care and potentially take in more species.
            I really like the idea of creating a YouTube channel for Animal Discovery, at the very least as a place to make advertisement videos that I can share in other places. Ideally, it could be a place where I can create additional content about different topics from what goes into the presentations. Things like animal training techniques, species spotlights, individual animal's rescue stories, proper husbandry of common pet trade species, etc. There is an entire segment of the YouTube platform where this type of content is popular, so I believe there is real potential for reasonable success with this. I have several acquaintances that have moderate social media followings that could potentially give the channel an initial boost in visibility. I also think the idea I received from one of the people I interviewed, about possibly offering a service for certain animals to be featured in music videos or advertisements, has potential and I will keep it in mind.

New Market 

Step 1: A different market we could potentially target would be the market of the reptile pet trade, though it seems counter-intuitive at first. One problem regarding the reptile pet trade is that certain species are "harvested" from the wild populations, meaning a lot of individual animals available to a person looking to buy a certain species are actually wild-caught. Not only is this practice harmful to wild populations and not sustainable, but the wild-caught animals themselves are subjected to immense stress and are often unhealthy as a result. If more captive-bred individuals are made available for vulnerable species, it will be help preserve the wild populations and allow for the pet trade to exist in a more sustainable way, especially in cases where the demand for these animals is going to exist either way.

Step 2: An example of a species that could be a candidate for this would be gargoyle geckos and other New-Caledonian gecko species. They have relatively simple husbandry and are fairly reasonable to keep as pets, but they are growing in popularity such that there aren't enough captive-bred individuals to meet demands, and they can be quite expensive compared to wild-caught. If we are able to obtain a few species from good sources and produce more captive bred geckos, we can help to decrease the demand for wild-caught ones. I would want to make sure to vet interested buyers to make sure all the animals I produce would end up in homes where they are properly cared for. This is quite different from the main market I intend to target with the educational presentations, but I believe there is room for both services to exist alongside each other. 

Step 3: This step was actually fairly easy because I am acquaintances with some reptile store owners who are both in the market of buying animals from responsible breeders and producing their own. people like them could potentially be both competition or a customer. I also talked to a zookeeper friend of mine who is a reptile enthusiast and has over a dozen pet reptiles. Everyone I talked to supported the idea of increasing the supply of captive-bred reptiles. My zookeeper friend was also someone I talked to about the existing market, and he said a YouTube channel could be very valuable to this market because I could document the breeding process and give my customers a chance to see exactly how the parents and babies are cared for, which is important information for customers in this market.

Step 4: There wasn't very much that I learned about this market that I didn't already know. I was actually more familiar with this market to start with than I am with the main market I'm planning to target because I myself am a customer of it. I know what I look for as a customer of this market, so I have a better idea of what is important. I still think the main market I've been outlining thus far, with the educational presentations being the focus, is a better market for Animal Discovery. If I participate in the reptile pet trade market at all, it would be as a side venture and nothing more.