Behind each invention is an everyday person trying to make it big, says innovation expert Tamara Kleinberg. They had a frustration in their daily life, something they felt could work better, and spent the time and energy to solve it. That solution is their invention, and they are hoping it will change the world, and their place in it.
In reality, most new ideas never make it. Why? Because there are dozens of inventions that do exactly the same thing. They lack originality and they don’t target a very specific need or pain point.
Kleinberg is a guest speaker at the 2016 PPAI Women’s Leadership Conference, taking place in Atlanta, Georgia, this week. She’s tested thousands of new products and services on her web community, TheShuuk.com. In all that testing, she has discovered seven critical tips that separate those who rise to the top from those who fail. Yesterday, Promotional Consultant Today shared three of key tips for invention success that she wrote about in a recent issue of The Huffington Post. Today, we share four more.
1. Have an anchor. Innovative concepts need a familiar anchor to minimize the learning curve and increase comfort. Silk® Soymilk, for example, was an extremely new concept when it launched. While it was made out of beans, the word “milk” gave us something to hold on to, a way to say, “This is like that thing I already buy, but kind of different.” If you are going to be totally disruptive make sure you give your customers an anchor that gets them to your new world faster.
2. Have a large but hyper-specific ecology. Having an extreme niche, a highly specific community within a target audience, is critical to success. You can’t be everything to everyone, or even to most. But you need to be something of value to a select few.
CrossFit® is the fitness craze sweeping the globe. CrossFit is for a very specific type of person in the health and wellness arena—those who like extreme challenges, dynamic movements and measuring their progress in a community—driven program. That’s not the same person who goes to 24 Hour Fitness to run on the treadmill—and that’s a good thing. When you are hyper specific, you and your community know what you stand for.
3. Have ongoing, real-world feedback conversations. Having ongoing access and feedback from early adopters in your category is critical. OxiClean™ is now a household name. It built the business by, among other things, always connecting with customers by hosting weekly panels. Whether it is a small tweak in your product, your packaging or your marketing language, or even coming up with the second product, successful inventors know that getting feedback from early adopters—those willing to engage and help you take it to the next level—is an ongoing part of the process, not a point-in-time exercise.
4. Grow champions. Identify internal and external advocates to continually hawk it for you. Bulletproof® Coffee is delicious and now it’s everywhere. Why? Because people that tried it loved it so much they told everyone they knew about it. It wasn’t TV ads or even social media posts that powered the momentum behind this brand. It was advocates eager to share their new find.
Apply these seven tips from today’s and yesterday’s PCT for a greater chance at invention success.
Source: Tamara G. Kleinberg is serial entrepreneur and innovator. She is the founder of The Shuuk, an online marketplace where awesome people sell innovative products and where entrepreneurial spirits engage. She is a sought after keynote speaker on innovation and entrepreneurship and the author of two nationally published playbooks, including her most recent, Think Sideways: a game-changing playbook for disruptive thinking. Kleinberg presents her WLC General Session, “Up Your Innovative Quotient & Gain The Edge,” today at 9 am.