What is the market size analysis for hotcakes?

Market sizing is one of the most important business planning aspects for a high tech firm. Fortunately, pancakes are a relatively stable and predictable market and a lot will depend upon the quality of your innovation, applicability of your technology to the unique quality of the pancake experience, and marketing capable of attracting buyers from an already crowded market.

While clear figures aren't always available, it is reasonable to extrapolate market size from figures of related products such as dry pancake mixes and popular American restaurant chains which focus primarily on the pancake experience such as IHOP.

Both of the following comparisons contrast sales figures for both IHOP as well as dry mix markets in 2004 and 2007, then collate this information to determine the relative growth in the number of "pancake experiences" per capita.

The dry mix market has been documented by Chicago based firm Symphony IRI at approximately $160 million in 2004, growing to $250 million at the end of 2009 or about an $18 million growth rate per year (or 11.25%). This means that the dry mix market grew by approximately 34% during 2004 through 2007.

Correspondingly IHOP increased its number of locations from 1186 in 2004 to 1344 in 2007, a 13% increase in the number of locations. However, revenue from these IHOP stores grew from $188 million in 2004 to $330 million in 2007, an increase of 75%, double the revenue increase from corresponding dry pancake mix sales.

Considering that the US population grew from 290 million to 300 million in the same period (and discounting the obvious impact of pancake preferences among demographic groups entering the pancake market), an increase of only 3%, it is clear that the demand both for dry mix as well as restaurant pancake experiences grew significantly per-capita during the same 2004-2007 sample period. It is a possible theory that a market shift has occurred during this period and that Americans are both (a) eating pancakes out more often as well as (b) relying more heavily on mixes than handmade products.

Even conservative estimates make it clear that Americans are engaging in pancake experiences more frequently within these markets. While based upon conjecture, assume that each person who visits an IHOP spends approximately $12 per pancake experience. This means that in 2007, Americans had 27.5 million IHOP experiences. For dry mixes, the number is significantly greater (using a serving size of 28 per container for Bisquick) at approximately 1.21bn pancake servings created using dry mixes (up from 905 million in 2004).

With an aggregreate increase of 33% in pancake experiences among Americans during that period, vs a 3% population growth, evidence suggests that in 2007 Americans were almost 1/3 more likely in 2007 to enjoy a product-based pancake experience than they were in 2004 and appear to want to do so in the privacy of their own homes.

Thus, the market sizing for pancakes in 2010, assuming a modest 10% growth from 2007 would be a minimum of 1,361 million pancake experiences per year just for dry mixes and IHOP alone with a significant growth rate. Further extrapolation based upon the much larger number of diners and restaurants, as well as hand-made recipes surely multiply this figure by at least a factor of 5 to 10, meaning that Americans engage in pancake experiences at least 1 to 2 times per month, per capita, on average.

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Set a personal best high score in Robot Unicorn Attack

It's true that games provide an easy and clear sense of accomplishment, feedback, engagement, etc., than we often get from the messiness of real life. But (with due respect to Jane), the vast majority of accomplishments in games are illusory. You finish a level, beat a boss monster, complete a game -- yay! You get the quick emotional boost of having done something.  

But wait, what have you actually done? What do you have to show for it? What real accomplishment do you have? What real change have you affected? Despite Jane's rosy assessment, the actual answer (again, in the overwhelming majority of instances) is that you have absolutely nothing.

In this sense (and I say this as a long-time game developer) games are the new opiate of the masses. We're no longer content to live illusory lives through soap operas or "reality" shows, now we get that direct jolt to our brains when "accomplish" something in games.

Now it's true that there are or can be ancillary benefits to achievement in games -- there are indications that some people feel more confident after "winning" in a game for example, and others have built social or leadership skills through their time in multiplayer games. But these are tiny diamond chips in a sea of dross. Games are a fine amusement, a diversion -- but when they become our focus rather than a temporary diversion from what we focus on, then the illusion can take over.

In that case, not surprisingly, people find themselves in the situation you ask about: why do I feel for a moment like this is the best thing I've ever done (and often unspoken: and yet I realize in my heard that this is an illusion, ashes, worthless in the larger scheme of my life)?

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Here's a recommendation: watch this TED video of Martin Seligman on "authentic happiness" and positive psychology (http://www.ted.com/talks/martin_...). One of the key things he points out, taken from a lot of research, is that there are three primary sources of happiness: pleasure, engagement, and meaning.  

Pleasure is what we get from sources like games, food, sex, etc. Very sensory, very quick -- and it's quickness is one of the reasons it's what we reach for when we're unhappy and we want to be happier right now. But it doesn't last, and we're left unsatisfied.

Engagement comes from doing something well -- exercising a skill or the like. Games can hit this one too. But, since the experience ends when the game ends, in the case of games (as opposed to honing a skill with some durable value in the real world) this feeling of well-being also evaporates when the game is done.

Finally, meaning is gained from doing something for someone else. Seligman describes an example where doing something for someone else leaves you feeling better about yourself and your life for a week afterward.

Engagement (with real, not illusory skill) and meaning are by far the largest contributors to feeling a sense of worth, fulfillment, and accomplishment in your life. When you have those then the sense of pleasure from immediate things (including games) is as he says, "the cherry on top" -- it adds a nice touch to the fulfilled life. But chasing after feeling good about your life through pleasure will never work.

So, to return your question, my guess is that you're feeling the pleasure of accomplishment, but not fulfillment. And if hitting a high score in Robot Unicorn Attack seems like the best thing you have ever done, I'd suggest as I did before that you are focusing on the wrong things and soon (if not already) will find that that sense of achievement from a game like this will quickly fade and leave you feeling worse than before.

Rumors about iPad 2 again

Apple iPad 2：No Retina Display & Mini Display Port

Sigh — all those rumors about the iPad 2 sporting a Retina Display seem like too good to be true — given Apple’s history of providing only minimal hardware upgrade in the past. So now, we have a John Gruber, who has correctly predicted specs of future hardware — and some incorrect ones, we may add — that squashed our dreams of seeing a higher resolution iPad.

According to his sources, the iPad 2 will still feature the same old 1024 x 768 screen resolution — like the one you’re holding right now to read this news.
But that does not mean that we won’t see any incremental update to the display. He said that the display of the iPad 2 may feature better, brighter power consumption. And as per the many iPad 2 cases — the display will be thinner.mov converter mac

So, forget about the super high resolution of the iPad 2. In hindsight, it is rather far-fetched to expect the next gen iPad to feature a better resolution than even Apple 27-inch LED Cinema Display.

John likens the iPad 2 with the iPhone 3GS. It will definitely have better internal — such as faster processor and bigger RAM — but the same screen resolution. convert mov to mp4 mac We’ll take that.

Other sighting includes a new port that seems to be designed to accommodate a mini DisplayPort jack. The opening is located between the headphone port and the camera hole. On the current iPad 3G, this is actually where the micro SIM slot is located.

Apple iPad 2：SD Card Slot

This time, the source is one Chinese accessory supplier — that labels the case as for the next-gen iPad. The new case reveals some port openings that seems to be specifically designed to accommodate an SD card slot. This gives us fresh contents and allows us to speculate that the iPad 2 will come with one — finally. This particular opening is located on the rear upper left corner of the casing. For your information, the exact spot is nothing but an empty area on the current iPad.

Apple iPad 2：Host the Same Camera

（techd.in）There are a lot of things that can be revealed through the supplied iOS developer builds. Since Apple released the 4.3 beta just a couple of days ago, developers have found new features and revelations that even Apple hasn’t officially announced yet. But this new revelation may not be the one that we’ve hoped that the iPad 2 would have.

In the latest SDK, developers have found four files that reveal the iPad 2’s shutter screen and camera. While it’s not exactly unexpected that the new tablet will sport camera, it is the supposed resolution of the images that got people murmuring.

Opening up the camera shutter images reveal that the resolution is 1024 x 768 — the same resolution of the current iPad. but wait, isn’t the new iPad 2 supposed to be sporting a new Retina Display of 2530 x 1897? We don’t know what to believe now.

Apart from this revelation, last week a new feature called Find My Friends was unearthed. We can assume that this new feature will offer the same functions as Google Latitude app. Other upcoming features include personal WiFi hotspot, in-app AirPlay video support and a slew of multitouch gestures.

Do iOS icons confirm iPad 2 front-facing cam?

It’s almost considered certain among fanboys that Apple’s next iPad–which so far we’re imaginatively calling the iPad 2–will come out in the next couple of months. It might be as early as April, as it was April of last year that saw the launch of the original iPad, which now has 87 percent of tablet market share.mp4 to mov converter mac

Because the supposed unveiling is so close–some say within the next few weeks–the gossip mongers are in overdrive trying to find out what it will and won’t have. And the latest rumor, which we spotted on Mac Rumors, features what may be evidence of something people have wanted since the original: a front-facing camera.

Of course, a front camera almost seems a given, since the iPhone 4 and the latest iPod Touch both already include such a device to allow FaceTime to work. Besides that, a graphic in the latest beta of iOS 4.3 for iPad has new default icons on the homescreen that appear to show a few applications that utilize such a camera. One’s simply “Camera;” one’s “PhotoBooth,” an app that every MacBook and iMac currently ships with; and the last is “FaceTime,” Apple’s mobile video chat software.mov to flv converter mac

The icons themselves are small, as is the graphic they’re part of. But blow them up, like we did above using Photoshop, you can extrapolate what the text under the icons say, with very little imagination.

It’s possible that Apple is just throwing us a curveball (were I an Apple engineer I, too, would be tempted to mess with the minds of fanboys), but this looks legit. While we may not get Retina with the next iPad, it’s indeed looking like we’ll get at least one camera.

 

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