creativity
What product or service to stay ahead
On October 4, 1957, Russia launched a beach-ball-sized satellite named Sputnik, which orbited the Earth in just over ninety-six minutes. The previous frontrunner in the space race, the United States, was now the runner up. Our only competitor had trounced us, seemingly out of nowhere. A month later the Russians
Who is passionate about my product
I’ve never shopped at the online craft marketplace Etsy.com or even any of its competitors. Not an area of interest for me as I’m not often in the market for hand-knitted iPod cozies, customized guitar cables, or the like. As for my wife and daughters – they are
What is surprisingly inconvenient about my product
What is surprisingly inconvenient about my product? The designers and engineers who work at HP face many challenges in getting their ideas signed off on. It’s a long process from an idea to a finished prototype. Before any product can hit the market, it faces one final test. I
How Can My Product Change in 5 Years
Do you sell atoms or bytes? Do you think that your answer could change over the next five years? Think about Amazon and the Kindle. Jeff Bezos asked, What is my role going to be if the nature of books changes? He realized that to stay relevant and necessary his
Where do we perform research and development
Where do we perform product research and development? Where else could this be done? What is your organization’s philosophy about design and development? Do you keep everything in-house, or do you outsource as needed? There are two schools of thoughts on this. By keeping the design process in-house, a
In What Order Do You Do the R and D Process
In the traditional R&D process, the product is developed and then handed off to the design team to “wrap” it and make it look pretty. The drawback is that this approach is out of date; in the last ten years consumers have become much more design-savvy. Consumers want
What emotional psychological or status benefit could people derive from my product
What emotional, psychological, or status benefits could people derive from using my product? Do you have diamonds stashed away that you reckon you can sell if times ever get tough? Say, a family heirloom, or an engagement ring from a failed marriage? Perhaps you know how much the diamond was
What is the process used by my customer to discover my product
Do you have a digital twin? The concept first formed on consumer sites like Yelp, but it’s becoming a catchphrase in marketing and sales. The idea is that dedicated users of sites like Yelp eventually notice that there are other users whose tastes, interests, and “favorites” match their own.
Who am I not selling to because I think they can’t or won’t pay for my product?
Who am I not selling to because I think they can’t or won’t pay for my product? Price is king, right? “Build ’em cheap and stack ’em high” is practically the motto of most segments of the tech industry Naturally, there are some notable exceptions for companies producing
What are your unshakable beliefs about what your customers want
One thing is to know what your customers want to do, another is to understand how they intend to get it done. It’s easy to look at their goals and tell yourself that your product will match their needs. However, if you don’t understand their internal philosophy about