{"id":4525,"date":"2021-03-04T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-04T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/?p=4525"},"modified":"2021-02-19T12:12:52","modified_gmt":"2021-02-19T20:12:52","slug":"do-you-really-want-to-be-the-first-to-market-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/?p=4525","title":{"rendered":"Do you really want to be the first to market?"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

My stories of missing the context of the times<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Over the years, as I managed my several computer companies as CEO or executive \"\"chairman, I made the decision to go to market with a brand-new product that had never before been exposed to my customer\u2019s marketplace.\u00a0 In each case, after overwhelming publicity, certainly noticed by a great number of potential decision makers, and after record-breaking sessions at industry trade shows to introduce these to the potential buyers, the products failed in the marketplace.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Artificial intelligence thirty-four years ago<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I recall the introduction of artificial intelligence into the hotel reservation process, a \u201cone-up\u201d on the airline method of yield managing the price of airplane seats.\u00a0 With the cover story in the industry trade journal, record-breaking overflow education sessions at the international trade show, and even glowing reports from the first hotel user\u2019s management, the product failed to attract more than two customers and had to be withdrawn from the market, even though it was an unqualified success for the first users.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Changing the rules to fit the market<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u00a0As a side note, we returned to market with the application as a software-only product without artificial intelligence and without some features, reduced the price from $150,000 to $8,000, and had a subsequent hit on our hands.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In another instance, we introduced the first kiosks for hotel lobby check-in.\u00a0 They were large, a bit clumsy looking, and gathered cobwebs in the lobbies of some great hotels.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cDo you have the resources to evangelize?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

[Email readers, continue here…] <\/span><\/em> These and other efforts to be first over the years have led me to ask my current crop of CEOs as I serve on various boards, \u201cDo you have the resources to evangelize the market, educate your potential customers, AND sell your product?\u201d\u00a0 The answer is invariably \u2018no,\u2019 because the cost of evangelizing a new product is \"\"completely unknown.\u00a0 A marketing professional or the marketing department certainly can work to obtain good press, appealing to curious journalists and early adapters. Early meetings with potential customers will yield enthusiasm for a \u201cfree test\u201d of the new product.\u00a0 But if it is a radical departure from the comfort zone, the cost of promoting and marketing the new product will be beyond the capability of most small or medium sized companies.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Apple as a surprising example<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Even Apple rarely attempts this, with all its resources. \u00a0Apple is well known for building upon the work of early adapters.\u00a0 After failing with its early Newton tablet, Apple waited for fifteen years before reinventing and repositioning the tablet as a much friendlier consumer device.\u00a0 The same occurred with the iPod.\u00a0 Apple was not first or second.\u00a0 They just added the infrastructure needed to seamlessly purchase and download content to their offering and produced a friendly way to use a product (iTunes) that previously required early adapters to manually download songs to their devices. \u00a0For argument\u2019s sake, let\u2019s credit the iPhone with igniting an entire product class.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

My unexpected advantages of being first<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I will readily admit that the half million I spent on the artificial intelligence system that failed generated the greatest positive press we ever had.\u00a0 As a corporate promotion, it was a hit. As a product marketing effort, it was a failure.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Set your expectations if you still want to be first<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

If you are going to be first in a market, plan on a very long time from introduction to acceptance.\u00a0 Triple the time you estimate for the effort and add four times the cost you estimated for marketing.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Remembering a massive first-to-market failure<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Does anyone know how much Toshiba lost with its HD DVD format marketing effort?\u00a0 First to market over blue ray with what some say was a better product, Toshiba dropped over a billion dollars into that one and lost it all.\u00a0 There are numerous examples like that one.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

You might be an exception.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Chances are that you\u2019d do much better by inventing a better mouse trap, and marketing it for its advantages over a product that the consumer already understands.\u00a0 But there is always a winner at a table with the odds stacked against the player.\u00a0 It just doesn\u2019t happen often enough to expect success.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My stories of missing the context of the times Over the years, as I managed my several computer companies as CEO or executive chairman, I made the decision to go to market with a brand-new product that had never before … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-finding-your-ideal-niche","category-positioning"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4525\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}