Evaluating Your New Product Idea

By Ty Hagler

One of my favorite conversations starts with the statement, ‘So I’ve got this idea.’ As an innovation consultant and industrial designer by training, these words spark an engaging discussion that gives me a chance to not only share my expertise, but also to learn something new about my field. When someone forms an idea for a new product, there is a tangible thrill and excitement that I find infectious, and I always welcome the discussion.

Having recently spoken with several inventors, pre-funded start-up ventures, and generally creative people, it has struck me that many of the conversations start with a request for validation of their ideas, but ends up with a discussion of process. The discipline of industrial design teaches that the first iteration of an idea is rarely the best idea. 

This concept may seem counter-intuitive, but the merits of an idea depend on the customer’s problem the idea is trying to solve:

• Is this problem a real point of pain or frustration for a segment of the population? 
• How large is that population segment?
• Is the pain or frustration strong enough that people are willing to purchase a solution?
• What is the process that customers follow to seek out a solution to this problem?

Answering these questions is a critical part of the due diligence that will be required of any investment in your idea, whether you’re pursuing a license deal or full commercialization. A number of research tools help us find the answers to these questions, including customer mapping and concept validation studies. Ultimately, these tools all fall back on the overall concept of Kenichi Ohmae’s 3C Model—the corporation, the customer, and the competitors.

While the aforementioned questions address the customer aspect of the 3C Model, people with ideas must also examine their competitive landscape. When we engage in this type of work, the odds are highly likely that someone else has observed this problem and launched his own solution. How many competitor or substitute solutions currently exist to address that same pain point?  It certainly makes sense to know what the patent landscape looks like for your particular domain.

In my conversations with investors, be they venture capital firms, angels, or otherwise, I find that their initial focus is on “who” versus “what.” That is, investors focus their first-pass screening criteria on the corporation aspect of the 3C Analysis, because this typically overlooked by start-ups. Investors are just as interested in placing their bets behind a talented leadership team that is committed to their vision as they are in the details of a specific business opportunity. Launching a product takes an enormous amount of energy, and, to be successful, it ultimately takes a team of tireless, talented people. Of the many decisions you face when pursuing your idea, your ability and willingness to organize a team around your vision should have the greatest impact on the decision to license or commercialize.

As you evaluate how to best develop your idea, you should assess your capabilities at the very beginning of the process.  Full commercialization takes a lot of fortitude, determination, and the ability to recruit the right mix of talent to clear the initial hurdles, whereas inventors who want to stick to what they do best—inventing—may choose the patent-and-license route. Regardless of the path you choose to follow, the process of bringing an idea to life is a skill to be developed and you will find there is a whole ecosystem to support you in your creative contributions to the economy.  

Branding to Reach New Heights: Thought Leader Select Engages Trig Innovation to Kick-start a New Generation of Innovation--Part Two

Part two of last week's article about the collaborative process between Trig Innovation and its client company, Thought Leader Select, showing the behind-the-scenes exploration of a rebranding project for a maturing company.

Of particular interest was the competitive landscape data that Thought Leader Select had processed in the months prior to engaging Trig Innovation. Many of Thought Leader Select’s competitors employ a completely different model where they try to evaluate doctors through software and web searches—an approach that simply commoditize the data sets that reflect actual medical careers. These technology-driven companies don’t have the same intellectual appreciation for the medical professionals they are profiling and are prone to missing the deeper nuances that have a big impact on the selection of doctors to evaluate developing medicines.  In example after example, TLS explained the downsides to this approach, making a convincing case that their competitors can’t provide the same depth of analysis or collect the same quality of information.  Its employees, like Napier and her fellow research managers, Lynda Scott and Clarissa Noureddine, have decades of experience in both clinical practice and medical research.

As it turned out, there was already a lot of brand equity in the check mark of the existing logo, which the company had utilized since its initial year in business, beginning in late 2005.  In generating the updated logo, the different versions provided a creative path forward while remaining grounded in the company’s solid reputation.  Successful iterations used the check mark in negative space to allow experimentation with new formats and color fields.

The existing logo had too little emphasis on the word ‘select,’ a word had come to define the company at a much deeper level during its development.  In laying out the typography, the balance shifted to increase the size of ‘select’ while not overwhelming the total composition.  Admittedly, Thought Leader Select is long for a company name, and finding the right balance in text placement presented a challenge.

Images selected for the new company website shared a  striking blue color that did not match the existing logo palette.  The blue stethoscope belonging to one of the physicians in the signature home page image formed the basis of a new palette providing inspiration for the subsequent greens, blues, and browns that would be created and added. 

At the end of the process, both parties realized that the end was just a new beginning—a new beginning for the Thought Leader Select brand, well-positioned for the immediate future, now with a logo ripe for expansion as the company continues to expand its branded suite of services and tools for facilitating engagement with medical experts.

To see the development process from start to finish for the Thought Leader Select logo, please check out our Flickr page.