6A – Identifying Opportunities in Economic & Regulatory Trends

Economic Trends

1)      The decline of Pine Tree planting in Florida.

a.       Where You Found It: I work for a company that is the largest pine tree planting company in North Florida. I am involved at an executive level at managing the planting of over 8000 acres a year. These are the trends I have observed.

b.      What Leads You To Believe That An Opportunity Might Exist: Pine trees have to be planted at a certain time of the year and at certain temperatures in order for them to grow properly. We have found that the climate condition for this has been slowly eroding for many years. This will cause less viable healthy trees to be able to be grown and a shortage of Pine straw, the main product of pine trees.

c.       The Prototypical Customer: Customers of pine straw exist at every level so the Prototypical customer would be another company that resells the pine straw to the final consumer. This opportunity would be in a supplier role to a large company that uses pine straw.

d.      Is The Opportunity Relatively Easy Or Relatively Difficult To Exploit? Why? This opportunity would take a large investment to pursue as you would have to create a connection in Georgia with landowners and labor companies to take advantage of the shortage in Florida.

e.       Why Did You See The Opportunity? Simply put, it's my job. I am involved with a large company that operates every day with a large amount of Pine straw. Observing macro trends as a way of risk management is important to my position. I have observed firsthand the challenges of Climate change on the Florida environment.

2)      Driverless Trucking/Maintenance Company

a.       Where You Found It: Macroeconomic trends of automated driving show that trucking will be one of the largest affected. Class Lecture.

b.      What Leads You To Believe That An Opportunity Might Exist: These drivers will need to work in a transitional position between totally driverless and automated driving. At first, drivers will still be required to be in the vehicle while the vehicle is operating. Parking and Loading will still require driver assistance.

c.       The Prototypical Customer: Truck driver that is out of work driving due to automated drivers but can be retrained to provide maintenance and road service to the automated trucks. Trucks will have an on-board mechanic.

d.      Is The Opportunity Relatively Easy Or Relatively Difficult To Exploit? The opportunity is relatively easy to exploit as the mechanic training would be done in groups and would take 6-8 weeks. These drivers would then be paid to pilot the automated trucks. Automated trucks would require a large investment.  

e.       Why Did You See The Opportunity?  I have a family member who does road service for truckers. He gets paid very well to drive to the broken down trailer and change tires or other servicing.  This is due to the service requiring special licensing and tools.

Regulatory Changes

3)      Change in the Size of Potatoes

a.       Where You Found It: Current regulations as to what qualifies the correct size of a potato.

                                                   i.      https://cei.org/blog/week-ridiculous-regulations%C2%A0%C2%A0%C2%A0-11

b.      What Leads You To Believe That An Opportunity Might Exist: Many potatoes that are under the correct size will be undervalued and will be sold at a cheaper price.

c.       The Prototypical Customer: Companies that create potato products such as mashed, or tots. They use potatoe but they don’t need them to be whole.

d.      Is The Opportunity Relatively Easy Or Relatively Difficult To Exploit? This is an easy opportunity to exploit. You would have to know someone growing these potatoes and sell them to a consumer. Transportation costs would be a factor.

e.       Why Did You See The Opportunity? Farming is a great free market business that creates an opportunity to leverage connections and other factors.

4)      Florida will not allow dog racing. Dog racing in Georgia or Alabama.

a.       Where You Found It: I was first made aware of this change during the last election when I was researching the ballot.

b.      What Leads You To Believe That An Opportunity Might Exist: Professional Dog breeders and Racers will continue to where it is allowed as they have sunk thousands of dollars into their animals and will not stop.

c.       The Prototypical Customer: Dog breeders or racers racing out of state.

d.      Is The Opportunity Relatively Easy Or Relatively Difficult To Exploit? Easy, you could exploit it by running dog tracks, to creating kennels near dog tracks. There are many possible opportunities to take advantage off.

e.       Why Did You See The Opportunity? I have a friend that complained to me about the dog racing law because it only allowed the practice and not the act itself, with breeding and sale not included.