Innovation

ParaBand is a brand new innovation that the company started when Victor Ayoub, the founder of ParaBands LLC reached out to his friend Lawrence about his invention of a resistance band. Victor sold it first on QVC, but he then made a poor business deal where he made fifty cents for each one he sold. After a period of time, they decided to explore the Canadian market, and after one commercial, they sold the invention for $49.95, and in ten minutes, sold out all five hundred units. But then QVC legal department said they didn't want to sell any of them because these bands were dangerous. Moreover, according to their research, there were over ten thousand injuries every year. Thus, they decided to do something to reduce the injury rates caused by resistance bands, which led them to conduct research in consumer product safety council.

Inspiration

Both the founder and the co-founder, as well as the customers were involved in the innovation and inspiration process. ParaBands LLC’s external stakeholder, an infomercial buyer, once informed Victor, “Build a safe resistance band, and you will be the winner”. The dialogue immediately caught Victor’s attention and urged him to make some improvements on the resistance bands to reduce injury rates. Victor then did some research on injury rates and contacted the internal stakeholder, Lawrence, to work on the product safety improvement. ParaBands LLC then invented a new resistance band which comes with a ripstop layer that prevents injuries to occur. At the same time, the layer is able to prevent the rubber from getting damaged. The invention is self-funded by the co-founders, and ParaBands LLC has the mission to reduce the number of injuries occurring during the usage of resistance bands, hence aligning with the UN sustainable development goal #3, good health.

Overall impact

The ParaBands will change the world with its efforts and will “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages”.

First, the influence for the customer is that the product helps people to work out in a more convenient and safe way, and it provides low-cost, high-quality training equipment for different people at all ages all over the world. Their product offers the chance for people who need physical therapy to work out in a secure and controllable way, and further promotes life quality for disabled people. Second, the prevalence of obesity is 39.8% and affects about 93.3 million US adults. Not to mention that overweight and obesity rates for children and teenagers age 10 to 17 is the highest, reaching 37.7%. And that is an opportunity for Parabands to help encourage people, especially children, and teens, to exercise and make exercise more accessible. Lastly, people with disabilities represent about 12.6% of people living in the U.S., yet with such a large number, there is a negligible proportion involved in physical activities. “The sooner you start to use, the safer you may experience.” -Lawrence C. Edelman

The short-term effects will decrease the probability of getting hurt while using Parabands in comparison to other bands. With their ease of use, Parabands will help encourage people, especially children, and teens, to exercise and make exercise more accessible. People with disabilities will also be able to exercise and enjoy a healthy living. In the long term, customers become healthier and reduce the risk of becoming obese and reduce the chances of diabetes, heart problems and the occurrences of other ailments. From the society and environment point of view, this product will raise people’s intention to exercise.

Business benefit

For other existing resistance bands, the portable exercise equipment, the innovation itself is a conversion from an old product. It changes the original target customer, the market, and the duration of the product cycle. All these transitions will bring the business to life and thrive in a competitive landscape with the new value. “ We are trying to target obesity, general health, and physical fitness in a safe way. Our products are also used by people in wheelchairs.” - Lawrence C. Edelman.

The original design of resistance bands is targeted at healthy adults who choose to exercise and build their body. The target customer is automatically constricted to such age and physical condition range. ParaBands successfully alters the situation and expands target customer group, from only adults to including children and from healthy people to including people with disabilities. There are over 73 million children, representing 23% of the total population of the United States, and people with disabilities, about 12.6% of people living in the U.S. The expansion of the target customer range brings more people to exercise with ParaBands.

By 2017, the market share of resistance bands was $87 million. For future growth, 39% of market growth will come from the Americas. From market and data analysts’ perspective and estimate, the entire market will be accelerating growing steadily at a compound annual growth rate close to 12% by 2022. ParaBands, as an upgraded version of the resistance band, will quickly join the rising market and account for a large share. Also, ParaBands could increase the barriers to market entry because of its several technical patents.

All mature brands and products need to be worried that they might enter a phase of decline. For the product cycle of an old product like resistance bands, the market share will gradually shrink. However, the product cycle for ParaBands will last longer than resistance bands. The innovative ParaBand prevents all the pressing issues of the resistance bands and provides favorable attributes to customers. These will prolong the growth and maturity stages in the PLC and help ParaBands stand longer and steady in the competitive market.

Social and environmental benefit

According to the data provided by the founder of the company, over 10,000 people get hurt by resistance bands every year. However, this innovative product can dramatically reduce exercise injuries compared to low-quality resistance bands because it provides the most user-friendly and safest resistance band on the market. A survey has suggested, the overweight and obesity rates for children and teens ages 10 to 17 highest can reach 37.7% and disability rate can reach 12.6% in the U.S. Because the ParaBands is lightweight, portable, multi functional and low-cost, it can encourage people to exercise more anywhere and anytime in the daily life. “From the society and environment point of view, this product will raise people’s intention to exercise. ” - Lawrence C. Edelman

Therefore, the ParaBands innovation is a very useful innovation to improve the health of people at all ages, especially children and teens with obesity, help a lot of people in physical therapy and improve the life quality for people with disabilities. In the long term, if ParaBands LLC is able to deploy this innovation into a wider sales market in the future, ParaBands will have a broader influence on schools, gyms and health recovery centers all over the world.

Interviews

Lawrence C. Edelman, Co-founder

Victor Ayoub, Founder