Three Challenges Products Must Address
Dr. Hemang Shah ??
LinkedIn Top Voice | I share insights on innovation and strategy | Incubate startups in India | Here to learn
One day while watching Shark Tank USA, I came face-to-face with a terrible blindspot. They were showing products that sell by three millions on TV infomercials. My engineering eyes did not see technical breakthroughs in them. Yet those were hugely successful products. That's when it hit me.
Innovation is not just about technological breakthroughs
In one of the courses on innovation I learned about this trifecta that leads to innovative products. You can call it the the product challenges or give it any other name.
Innovation is realised at the intersection of people, technical, and business challenges.
People
The people challenge addresses the number of people who are interested in adopting your product. They must face a pain point. Existing solutions must be clunky or expensive or inefficient. When something new is introduced, this customer base will try your product out. There's much more to this but in short, you're trying to estimate your market
Think of products that seemed so far out but that is mainstream for us today: online entertainment, ebooks, recliner seats at movies, and Indo-Chinese food.
领英推荐
Technical
Technical challenge addresses the advancements or product's functional improvement
Pick any product and evaluate how much it works better considering it's prior versions. One easy pick for me is how my phone has replaced the digital cameras we used to carry on vacations.
Business
The third challenge is the business or financial hurdle. The product must be able to sell for what it costs to make. That's when you can make more, scale, and make it a thriving business
Many technological advancements fail in this challenge. Funding or early adopters
Please analyse products
That's it for today.
Happy Ideating!
Hemang.