Greedy, what you have said is perfectly valid and logical. As a...

Greedy, what you have said is perfectly valid and logical.

As a complimentary device to the mouthguard the eye-app would seem viable, provided the mouthguard is being utilised first.

Don't get me wrong, the HIQ device appears intrinsically sound and the mention above of saliva tests could potentially open other avenues for the device to aid sports performance management if additional monitoring sensors were added.

My fear would be in the last line of the article which referred to parents (aka junior sports where the market is substantial) as an indicator where perhaps the vendors of the eye-app may wish to take the product. If the HIQ mouthguard isn't being utilised first then there is the potential that the eye-app could be seen as a replacement tool rather than complimentary, especially in junior sports when all eyes are on the actual contest taking place. Similarly, not every player needs the app, nor does the subscription need to be taken out for the full year - a club could take out one just subscription for the term of the season per team for training/medical staff, which could then be compared to the cost of the HIQ device with the additional price differential over a standard mouthguard multiplied by the number of players.

My concern with management is that by concentrating on elite sport first and then a trickle-down strategy over the years, rather than a bottom-up approach with community sport, they are leaving a substantial market open for competitive technologies that may (and I mean "maybe yes, maybe no") be seen and an alternative rather than a complimentary tool. As a parent I shouldn't need to count how many times I have had to replace equipment as the children grew, which included almost a yearly replacement of a mouthguard over many years - if the product was marketed at a school level then by rights I should have purchased about 10 of the HIQ devices by now. If one considers the private schools who have policies demanding all children in all contact sports wear mouthguards and seem to have supply contracts with dental appliance providers to deliver same, then that market alone would swamp anything the VAFA could deliver.

Personally, I feel that management have selected the wrong market/s to commercialise the product right from the beginning and have lost a significant level of "first-mover advantage" - which creates a risk for investors.