Snow Hawk E-Scooter Business Case

The question

E-scooters are a large and growing market, but almost none are built for snow, cold, and wind. The team had to decide whether a winter-ready scooter could earn back its launch cost at a price students would pay.

What I did

• Sized the opportunity at 9.8 million people aged 18–27 in cold-weather Midwest and Northeast markets and mapped competitors against a $37B e-scooter market growing about 10% a year.
• Owned positioning, prototypes, target audience, sales channels, and the pre- and post-launch marketing plan.
• Built the financials with procurement and operations: $467.56 unit cost against a $750 price, a $960K launch investment, and tariff scenarios that raise unit cost by up to 25%.

What it showed

The product only worked as a niche: a specific customer, a specific season, and a price that covered a higher unit cost. Naming the tariff risk and the mitigation plan made the GO recommendation credible rather than hopeful.

This was the primary output of a product development class. Our team worked through the full launch question – product design, target customer, market size, pricing, and financial viability – before making a go/no-go recommendation. I liked seeing how a product idea had to survive both customer and financial scrutiny.