Identifying Opportunities in Economic and Regulatory Trends

1. A regulation that recently went into effect was the legal age to buy tobacco related products was raised from 18 to 21. I found this opportunity while reading an article on the Wall Street Journal and seeing that vape stores and gas stations raised the required age to buy tobacco related products to 21. I believe there now exists an opportunity because of the fact that so many people are already addicted to the nicotine that is in these products so there is a market for these people that is currently unreachable. This customer is those that are in between the ages of 18-20 and are unable to buy these products. This opportunity is definitely a difficult one to exploit. The reason is that it takes a lot of work to overturn and change a government regulation. I found this opportunity because of the fact that I have been around these products a lot as many of my friends use them and I l have also used them before. I don't think I particularly am the only one who sees this opportunity because a lot of people I know have the same problem.
2. Another regulatory trend that has happened was the banning of plastic straws in Alachua County. I found this opportunity because I started to notice a trend that every restaurant I went to in Gainesville was giving out paper straws instead of the plastic ones that I was accustomed to. I then looked it up and figured out that they were banned around Gainesville. I believe there is an opportunity because these straws less quality than plastic ones. They tend to whittle and get soggy the longer that they are in the drink. I also personally think that it is not pleasant drinking out of them. I think there is an opportunity to make a renewable, biodegradable straw that is still of good quality. The customer that would buy this is a restaurant that is under the paper straw ban or any company trying to be more environmentally conscious. This seems like a relatively easy opportunity to exploit. I stumbled upon this opportunity because I personally find it very irritating to drink out of the paper straws.
3. A recent economic trend is the increase in completely electric cars. We see it everyday with the Tesla and other similar electric cars. Now, the big motor companies such as Ford and Volkswagen have started coming out with their own flagship electric cars with the Ford Mustang Mach E and Volkswagen's Audi e-tron. Electric cars are only getting cheaper and I believe that they are here to stay. I believe that there is an opportunity to open up multiple electric charging stations around the country. These spots would be just like a gas station, but would have multiple fast charging stations for people with electric cars. The customer of this opportunity is anyone who owns an electric car and is driving further than the range that they have in their car. I think that this is a difficult opportunity to exploit because there seems to be a high barrier to entry especially monetarily. It is an expensive opportunity. I saw this opportunity because while watching the Super Bowl I noticed all the ads for new electric cars. My thought was that electric cars were going to start becoming mainstream and there needs to be a way to charge them other than just at an in home charging station.
4. Another economic trend that I have taken notice to is that Americans have started to put more of their budget to eating out. I noticed this opportunity by reading an article about how people are cooking less and eating out more. With more people eating out there is going to be an increase in the wait time in lines at restaurants. I think that there is an opportunity to create an app or some other software that tracks the amount of people in a store at any time of the day. This way, when your are in a rush to get somewhere, you can check the wait times at restaurants and figure out what your best option is. I think that the customer that would use this application would be the average American who tends to eat out. I think that this is a relatively difficult opportunity to exploit because of the fact that there is software that needs to be built and you would probably have to get approval from restaurants to do this. I think that I was able to find this opportunity because I hate waiting in lines whether it is car traffic, lines at stores, or rides at theme parks.