Products That Went Astray and Products That Saved The Day
Steven Blank is a retired entrepreneur, and teaches both Entrepreneurship and Customer Development at Berkeley’s Haas Business School and Stanford’s Graduate School of Engineering. He has been involved in 8 startups over the course of his career. His book, "The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Succesful Strategies for Products that Win" is a great presentation about rethinking the product development process and is certainly worth checking out if you are looking to fall in the second group presented here, rather than the first. Consider the following products:
Segway: Thought their market was everyone in the world who walked and confused world class public relations with customers with checkbooks. Still searching for their real markets. Cost to date: $200 Million
Apple’s Newton: They were right about the Personal Digital Assistant market but five years too soon. Yet they spent like they were in an existing market. Cost: $100 Million
Sony’s MiniDisc players: A smaller version of the CD wildly popular in Japan. The US isn’t Japan. Cost to date: $500 million after 10 years of marketing.
R.J. Reynolds’ Premier and Eclipse smokeless cigarettes: Understood what the general public (nonsmokers) wanted, but did not understand that their customers didn’t care. Cost: $450 Million
Motorola’s Iridium satellite-based phone system: Engineering triumph and built to support a customer base of millions. No one asked the customer if they wanted it. Cost: $5 Billion. Yes, billion. Satellites are awfully expensive.
And, there are many more in the Products that never were column…
A few in the Winners’ Column:
Proctor & Gamble’s Swiffer: A swiveling, disposable mop-on-a-stick. Sophisticated planning and consumer research have resulted in a $2.1 billion market in 2003 that could double by 2008.
Toyota’s Prius: They’ve found a profitable niche for their electric hybrid car. As a classic disruptive innovation, sales will grow and Toyota will continue to eat the existing US car companies for lunch. In its first five years, sales grew to $5 billion. By 2015, hybrids could make up 35% of the US car market.
General Mills’ Yoplait Gogurt: Yogurt in a tube. The goal was to keep their yogurt consumer base of toddlers and little kids for as long as possible. Research led to the tube packaging, making yogurt easier to consume on the go.
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