Q1: The business challenge our new product faces is the right to use the literature we hope to publish. This will only be made readily available if publishing companies choose to give us permission to use their work.
Idea Description
Basing our product off of the e-book innovation, we have created a similar product that will focus on textbooks. As students, we have experienced and observed our peers struggling to carry around study materials, specifically textbooks, that vary in size and weight. Student's are usually required to purchase numerous textbooks for a single class which can add up. To solve this problem, we have created a product that stores textbooks, files, and presentations on a singular device. With this product, students can carry around an organized device that will allow them to access their class textbook(s) as well as take notes and upload documents with the ease of a flat paneled touch screen.
What will you do if you win $10,000 for this idea?
With our winnings, we hope to further establish our idea by gaining information from informed industry members. Winnings will be put toward continued research, technological advancements, and product development to better target our desired consumers.
Vote for it now.
Actually, that is not your business challenge. Publishers will jump at the chance for a product like this IF you can prove that it is a worthy device; after all, it's not like people haven't come up with this idea every week for the last 10 years. Not to be a Debbie Downer, but this heavily sought-after idea all-too-often fails to answer the most important questions (which you should be answering by now):
1. How will students receive their material? Does the product have Wi-Fi or Bluetooth or would students use kiosks you would place on campuses? Or something else entirely?
2. What's the cost? If the device breaks (and many will, especially at colleges), how does one go about replacing the device and re-obtaining all of their materials? Do they have to buy them again, or will you have some sort of web service running in the background that stores that information? And if it is a web service, will you be charging an extra subscription fee for that as well?
3. With E Ink technology overcoming regular LCD displays commonly used in current Tablet PCs, how will…more you overcome that technology hump, which will happen very early in your product's life cycle?
All in all, you're addressing a major problem and that takes a lot of guts. You're on the right track, but I think you should answer the questions concerning your solution (not your product, as they're 2 very different things) before you move on to bigger questions involving publishers.
All the best!