Looking for Opportunity

• To start off with this assignment I'll use the decreasing gas prices as an opportunity from an economic trend.
• I found a great article that talked about the reasons why gas prices had dropped and the consequences of it, that article can be found here.
• After getting towards the end of the article it explains because of the low prices more traveling is done.  This seems pretty obvious, but with that increase it also means more car accidents. The first nine months of 2015 saw an increase of 9.3 percent more accidents, which is just some number right? But that's 26,000 more recorded deaths in America. This is what truly made me believe opportunity existed.  There must be a way to make traveling more safe.
• The prototypical customer in this scenario is anyone who is likely to travel more now that gas prices are lower. More specifically though I'm thinking those who have less income and maybe don't have as nice of cars with better safety features are the real target.
• The opportunity could be difficult to exploit. It really just becomes a numbers game. More drivers means more accidents, that's the unfortunate truth. The key is to make the most safe car at the most affordable cost. Here is a list of safe cars for under 25 grand, but I still think that these would be too expensive. VW and Volvo are known to be well built cars but they may still be too expensive for the target market I've identified. 
• Why did I see this? Last December I was involved in three car accidents.  Two parking lot fender benders, where people on their phones had hit me. The third accident a drunk driver hit me and pushed my car into the other side of the road into oncoming traffic. Luckily I was never hurt, but it was a dangerous situation and made me think about the safety of me in my car. So when coming upon this NYT article online I immediately realized I had found something that could be turned into an opportunity. I also think other people can realize this since it is backed up simply by numbers. More cars on the road equals more accidents taking place. 
• My second economic trend is fairly vague, but allows for a lot of creativeness.  The rise of consumer spending as the country continues to get out of its slump.
• The link to the article can be found here. It mentions four other trend in the article, but the shortest one is the one I'm focusing on.
• With more spending from the consumer, more products and services are being sold and more businesses are profiting. This is an easy opportunity to see. 
• The prototypical customer would be the consumer who recently acquired discretionary income since the end of the recession.
• I think this opportunity is easy to exploit compared to the opportunity mentioned above.  More people have more money that they'd be willing to spend on items that are not needed. 
• I saw this as an opportunity because I think anyone that has more money that they can spend on non-essential goods and services is inspiration to entrepreneurs to create the next 'unmet need'. For example, over summers I work full time and my 'discretionary' income increases greatly. For the first few weeks I tend to spend money on things I don't really need because I'm not used to having all of this extra money. I think this is similar to what the country is experiencing with the recession closing and unemployment rate decreasing. 
• My first regulatory change that provides opportunity could be directly related to the trend mentioned above. New overtime rules for hourly and salary employees.
• The article I found on this topic can be found here. It explains what the new rule is and how it affects some small businesses.
• I believe this is an opportunity related to discretionary income as previously stated.  Workers will either get a raise or get new overtime protection. More or less they have the chance to receive more money.
• The prototypical customer is someone who earned a lower salary but now gets an increase to meet the new minimum requirement. While overtime will not be payed they at least have a higher income.
• It might not be easy to exploit. It depends on how the company or management decides to use the new rule. They could lower the wage and pay overtime to their advantage making the employee not earn anymore than they have been. It also could mean the employer hires more employees, but this may not mean the new worker makes enough to have discretionary income still.
• As an employee for an employee leasing company I'll start to see the results of this change rather quickly.  It will be interesting to see how companies react to this new rule and how they manage their employee's pay.
• The last regulatory change I'd like to discuss is more of a governmental stance. I think regulated use of drugs, specifically marijuana is a huge opportunity for entrepreneurs.
• The article I found talks about support for legalization of the drug. For the sake of the assignment I'd like to assume the drug will be allowed in every state of the country at some point tin the future. 
• With this drug available to everyone in the country I see a lot of opportunity. From taxing to decreased incarceration rates and sales of all the 'accessories' there are many opportunities. I'd focus more on products that could be sold along with the drug at stores.
• The prototypical customer in this scenario would be any consumer who buys the drug at a store. I think the key here if opening up a store would be to make it more user friendly and more appealing than the smoke shops are today.
• I think the opportunity is easy to see and exploit. Once the drug does become legal to all the economy could boost from all of the sales and taxes associated with it.
• Why did I see this? I think it is safe to say that most people whether they like the use of recreational drugs or not could agree that the selling of it could at least benefit the economy in one way or another.