3 Reasons New Products Fail: Build-out
The last post focused on the 3 most likely reasons new products fail during the pre-build stage. You get it wrong from the beginning it is almost impossible to end up getting it right. But even if you...
View ArticleDon’t say Goodbye to Retail Yet!
I disagree with Marc Andreessen’s recent proclamation about the death of retail. There are many great physical retail experiences like Zara (who has addressed the speed to market issue he says...
View ArticleGetting a New Product Right
It gave me great pleasure to read a recent article in The New York Times outlining the process of Nickelodeon’s newest digital product – an iPad app for kids. Like any new product there were some...
View ArticleAereo vs Broadasters in the New Product Economy
One company’s cannibalization is another company’s disruption. This is the conundrum of our time. Companies are hesitant to cannibalize their own business, which opens them up to others disrupting...
View ArticleWill Facebook Home End up in Foreclosure?
Let me start by saying that based on my past experience launching new products: Facebook Home is likely to fail. I do not say this with malice, I’ve just seen a lot of new products come and go, and...
View ArticleHow G.E. is Thriving in the New Product Economy
One of the tenets of The New Product Economy is that big companies should make size an advantage. The idea of a cumbersome, slow-moving big company has to be eradicated if big companies want to...
View Article“In hindsight, I slid into arrogance based upon past success.”
Wow! I can’t tell you how impressed I was about this amazing statement from Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, in response to the debacle that occurred last year after raising prices and splitting DVD...
View ArticleBe Paranoid … and Then Do Something
If you’ve read through my report on The New Product Economy, you know my first tenet is that companies need to be more paranoid. But being paranoid isn’t enough if it is just about fear without...
View ArticleNew Product Strategies
Last week I had the opportunity to be the guest for a webinar about New Product Strategies hosted by Patty Azzarello from the The Azzarello Group – a business leadership consultancy whose focus is to...
View ArticleYou Can’t Build Products in a Conference Room
One of the biggest reasons for product failure is that too many companies come up with an idea of a product and, assuming they know what is best, immediately start to build it … usually from inside a...
View Article2 Things You Should Know About Customers Before You Build that New Product
As I mentioned in the prior post, companies can be too insular in their approach to building products. Way too often product failure can be traced back to not really understanding the customer and...
View ArticleMy mission: Eradicate product failure!
It kills me when I hear about a product that has failed upon or shortly after launch. Unfortunately, this is not a rare occurrence! A common figure is that 9 out of 10 products fail. Think: New Coke …...
View ArticleProduct Failure: Microsoft Surface
Just yesterday I posted about colossal product failures and (my bad) forgot to mention a major one in the making: Microsoft’s Surface. Microsoft has just written-down $900 million in unsold inventory...
View ArticleWhy Knowing your Target Market is So Important
I’m going to start with the big gun – because Clayton Christensen says so! Okay, that is not exactly right but if you believe he’s right about segmenting customers by “jobs-to-be-done” – it means you...
View ArticleNew Product: Mobilizing your Documents with Quip
I think every new product that is launched is a learning moment. And with mobile being such a great focus of many businesses (and disrupting many others), I want to take this moment to focus on one of...
View ArticleFast Times in Product Development
Back when I wrote a series of posts about how things happen faster (e.g. delivery of information, adoption of technology) and the need for immediacy – the idea of binge TV watching was a nascent idea...
View ArticleIt’s the User, Stupid
When I read Mark Suster’s recent post How To Avoid a Common Product Mistake, especially his remark: “Design for the novice, configure for the pro,” it brought back memories of my days at AOL. When...
View ArticleGetting a Dashboard Right
January is just ½ a month old and already I’m sensing this could be the year of the dashboard. I’ve had several inquiries in the last two weeks from companies looking to add some sort of...
View ArticleThe New Product Economy
Product cycles are shortening. Markets are becoming more niche. New players are displacing old ones. Welcome to the New Product Economy.
View ArticleSix Things That Will Kill Your New Product
I am on a mission to eradicate product failure! When you are building a new product doing any of these 6 things will kill it.
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