Web Case $02$: Biolife LLC $1$Web Case $02$Biolife LLCClearing HurdlesSource: Michelle Leder, The Problem, Inc., June $2004,$ pp$.4466,$ www$.$biolife.com andwww.woundseal.comWhen it comes to the hurdles that every start$-$up faces, Biolife has already cleared a few. Its firstproduct, Quick Relief $($QR$)$a patented powder that stops bleeding within secondswas unlikeanything in the marketplace when it was first introduced, impressing retail giant Walmart and theCVS drugstore chain. Both companies gave QR valuable shelf space in several thousand stores.Plus, the head athletic trainer of the Los Angeles Lakers had been seen using QR on national TV$.$But the hard part of CEO Doug Goodmans job was really just beginning: he needed to figureout the best way to convince the world to give QR a try.It was back in $1999$ that Jim Patterson and John Alf Thompson first developed QR$.$ Thetwo men were long$-$time research scientists who formed Biolife with the goal of discovering anew way to purify water. They never solved that puzzle, but one day, while working in the lab,Patterson either pricked his finger accidentally, or sliced it on purpose $($the story has changedseveral times, Goodman concedes$),$ leading to the discovery of QR$,$ a patented combination ofresin and salt, the two components Patterson had been experimenting with at the time.In $2002,$ the company sent some samples of QR to Gary Vitti, the head trainer for theLakers. After testing it for several weeks during the off$-$season, Vitti used QR one day during aregular$-$season game, prompting the on$-$air announcers to wonder why Vitti was sprinklingpepper on one of his players. QR was never mentioned by name, but it was the products firstappearance on TV and it started to create some buzz for the company, at least among sports fans.Wooing Vitti made sense, Goodman says, because the product is especially useful to the NBA,which allows only $30-$second timeouts to stop a player from bleeding.According to Vitti, there was something about QR that managed to catch his attention. Atthe time, he was using another product that neither he nor the players were particularly crazyabout because it stung and left dark stains on the skin. I gave this a try, and I was reallysurprised, says Vitti. This one popped out because it was so different.Goodman estimates that as many as $75$ percent of the teams in the National HockeyLeague and NBA use QR regularly.Without real missionaries like Vitti, as well as several prominent doctors on the westcoast of Florida, Biolife might not have had any sales at all. In $2002,$ the year QR was launched;Biolife had revenue of $$1,500,000.$ In $2003,$ after convincing more health care providers to tryQR$,$ Biolifes sales increased tenfold. The company began by training $16$ pharmacists at CVSstores in the Tampa Bay area, figuring that people often ask pharmacists for medical advice. Butafter an initial bump in sales, interest in the product, which costs between $$5$ and $$10$ a box andWeb Case $02$: Biolife LLC $2$comes in four different packages designed for different uses, such as Nosebleed QR$,$ quickly dieddown.Along the way, the company has experimented with packaging and image. The companycreated unique packaging in an attempt to not look like a typical medical product. On the Kidspackage, for example, Goodmans eight$-$year$-$old, Bakie, is seen riding his bike and kicking asoccer ball. Actually, all of QRs boxes feature employees or investors. On a new package ofUrgent QR$,$ an extra$-$strength version of the product, Charlie Entenmann $($Biolifes mainfinancial backer$),74,$ is shown rappelling down a mountain. Most recently, the companychanged the name from QR to Wound Seal.Eventually Goodman hopes that ordinary consumers will be as enthusiastic about WoundSeal as Vitti has been. If that ever does happen, Wound Seal just might replace the box of Band$-$Aids that most people have in their medicine cabinets.Questions$1.$ Chapter $2$ discusses three types of start$-$up ideas: Type A$,$ Type B$,$ Type C$.$ Which ofthese is illustrated by Biolifes start$-$up based on its QR product?$2.$ Most new business ideas come from personal experience, hobbies, accidental discoveries,or a deliberate search. From which of these sources did the idea for Biolifeslaunch come?$3.$ Considering what you have learned about this start$-$up and its development, would yousay that the founders followed more of an outside$-$in or inside$-$out approach to identifythis business opportunity and launch the company? Explain your answer$\mathrm{.}4.$ Conduct a SWOT analysis of the company. What do you think are Biolifes mostsignificant strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats?$5.$ How would you characterize the strategy that Biolife is following? Is it a cost$-$based ordifferentiation$-$based strategy? Or is it a focus strategy centred on one of these twofundamental strategies? Be sure to identify the facts or assumptions on which you based your conclusion.

Give answers in detail