{"id":1758,"date":"2015-11-03T17:16:50","date_gmt":"2015-11-03T17:16:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/?p=1758"},"modified":"2015-11-04T17:17:50","modified_gmt":"2015-11-04T17:17:50","slug":"4-ways-to-ensure-adoption-for-a-new-product-or-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/4-ways-to-ensure-adoption-for-a-new-product-or-service\/","title":{"rendered":"4 Ways to Ensure Adoption for a New Product or Service"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"4<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n
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\"Jesse<\/a><\/p>\n
JESSE TORRES<\/div>\n
CONTRIBUTOR<\/div>\n
Speaker, Thought Leader, Influencer, Radio Host and Author<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Image credit: Shutterstock<\/a><\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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It\u2019s every entrepreneur\u2019s dream to develop the next killer app, the next game changer —\u00a0the one innovation that turns an industry on its head. But, while most entrepreneurs fear being late to market, just the opposite can occur, too.<\/p>\n

Related:\u00a04 Steps to Innovation Every Leader Needs to Follow<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

So, what happens\u00a0when an innovation is actually\u00a0so good, the market is not ready for it? Examining this phenomenon,\u00a0Mary Jo Frederich and Peter Andrews wrote\u00a0in their book Innovation Passport: The IBM First-of-a-Kind (FOAK) Journey From Research to Reality<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>that,\u00a0\u201cAt times,\u00a0FOAK projects have been shelved because the market just wasn\u2019t ready to test them.\u201d<\/p>\n

FOAK brings to mind the challenge automated teller machine makers had when they developed the envelope-free ATM. According to the Wall Street Journal<\/em>, thefirst ATM<\/a> in the world was installed at a Chemical Bank branch in Long Island, New York, in 1969. Since that day, U.S. banks have required that\u00a0ATM customers stuff cash and checks into an envelope, then insert that envelope into the machine. Bankers never really knew if the envelope contained greenbacks or green Monopoly money. And customers never really knew — until they checked their account balance the next day — whether the money would be counted and properly credited.<\/p>\n

While ATM makers addressed this pain point as long ago as the early\u00a02000s, the slow-moving U.S. banking industry was not ready for the next phase: the\u00a0envelope-free ATM that counts\u00a0cash and checks at the time of deposit (in addition to providing other innovative features such as selling stamps and other products). For more than 10 years, ATM makers were forced to first test and deploy their highly innovative machines in foreign markets.<\/p>\n

It was not until several years ago that the U.S. banking market was finally ready, allowing ATM makers to begin cashing in domestically on a decade-old innovation.<\/p>\n

Now, consider Kozmo which, unlike ATM makers, never had the luxury of waiting ten years to institute\u00a0its innovation, and thus never saw its day in the sun.\u00a0Founded in 1998 in New York City, Kozmo, an\u00a0online company, offered free delivery of small goods within an hour. While this concept created lots of buzz within the ranks of early adopters, Kozmo did not sufficiently penetrate the general market and lacked the revenue it needed to remain viable. In 2001,\u00a0Kozmo closed its doors<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fast-forward to 2007 and the launch of Amazon Fresh<\/a>, which provides a service similar to Kozmo’s, but with a subscription-based business model (Amazon was actually an investor in Kozmo<\/a> a decade earlier). This time, the home delivery market was ripe\u00a0for the innovation of home-delivery service, and the business model generated the revenue necessary to keep things going.<\/p>\n

Eventually, Amazon Fresh expanded from a successful single-market beta test to broader deployment in several markets throughout the United States.<\/p>\n

My business partner, Randy Fenton, who’s\u00a0the founder and CEO of Boldface, has touched on this subject of innovation adoption.Talking to an interviewer\u00a0asked about his innovation in backpack design, Fenton acknowledged that,\u00a0\u201cI would be lying if I said I was not initially worried about market acceptance of theBoldface<\/a>\u00a0backpack. I knew our customizable backpack was a winner. I just did not know if the market was ready for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fenton was right to worry. His\u00a0product, which focuses\u00a0on the $2.7 billion U.S. backpack market, allows consumers to create customized on-demand backpacks with interchangeable faces, and to\u00a0upload those images to create the backpack \u201cface\u201d or cover, then to change out those images when they tire of the look.<\/p>\n

Yet, while the process of creating the customized backpack, and swapping the faces, is simple, Fenton recognized that at its start, the idea\u00a0was so new it required more education of consumers than he’d\u00a0envisioned.<\/p>\n

Certainly, being first to market can be\u00a0a competitive advantage. And doing so with a game-changing product or service is the entrepreneur\u2019s Holy Grail. But sometimes FOAK products and services are\u00a0so innovative that the market is simply not ready. Here are four tips that\u00a0entrepreneurs can follow if they too want to ensure adoption of a FOAK product or service — and to avoid becoming\u00a0the next Kozmo.<\/p>\n

Related:\u00a0The 3 Biggest Roadblocks in Product Development<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

1. Forced innovation.\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Within certain markets, entrepreneurs have the ability to force innovation regardless of the market\u2019s desire or awareness. For example, in 2015 it is difficult to find a new car that does not include Bluetooth functionality as a standard feature. In this case, innovation was forced upon consumers as a safety precaution that promotes hands-free phone conversations.<\/p>\n

While not all consumers will make use of the Bluetooth functionality, the technology is still implemented and ready for use. In short, entrepreneurs can ensure success if they can force the market to adopt the innovation. This works best in cases where the innovation addresses a safety, regulatory or legal concern.<\/p>\n

2. Find an alternate market.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

ATM manufacturers did a great job of enhancing their machines through the implementation of innovative features that solved pain points associated with ATM deposits, including the elimination of paper, the streamlining of the reconciliation of ATM deposits and the creation of new channels of revenue through the sale of other products such as stamps and\u00a0bus passes.<\/p>\n

Despite the advances, the market was not ready for full scale adoption. In an effort to make full use of the new machines, ATM makers focused deployment in more receptive foreign markets while the U.S. market slowly moved towards general market adoption. The alternate markets allowed ATM makers to earn revenue from the new machines while creating buzz in the U.S. and eventually making the move to the domestic market.<\/p>\n

3. Seed the market.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In some cases innovation comes in the form of incremental improvement. The innovation may even be so slight that it doesn’t\u00a0get much notice. This might include changes so intuitive that users don\u2019t notice any difference in the use of the product or service. At other times, however, an innovation is so game-changing that it is unlike anything previously in place.<\/p>\n

Boldface’s customized backpacks were so different that the company had to develop a grassroots campaign with schools, nonprofits and local businesses to start in-depth conversations about the product. Once buzz began in the local market, it became\u00a0easier to develop general market adoption. The\u00a0buzz was then leveraged to obtain national attention.<\/p>\n

4. Educate the market.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The challenge with many innovative products or services is convincing the market why it cannot live without the innovation. I remember a day back in the late 1990s when my employer asked me to begin carrying around a cellphone. My initial response was immediate rejection. I did not understand why I needed to carry a phone when we had a perfectly good voicemail system where messages could be left.<\/p>\n

It was not until a few years later that I fully bought into the idea of carrying around a cellphone. At times entrepreneurs must realize that their innovation, while solving major pain points, is not going to immediately resonate with potential users without some hand-holding. Entrepreneurs must recognize the need to identify for users how the product or service makes their lives better and then\u00a0continuously remind them of that fact.<\/p>\n

Related:\u00a0The World Is Embracing Robots But America Keeps Them at Arms Length<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JESSE TORRES CONTRIBUTOR Speaker, Thought Leader, Influencer, Radio Host and Author Image credit: Shutterstock November 03, 2015 It\u2019s every entrepreneur\u2019s dream to develop the next killer app, the next game changer —\u00a0the one innovation that turns an industry on its head. But, while most entrepreneurs fear being late to market, just the opposite can occur, … Continue reading 4 Ways to Ensure Adoption for a New Product or Service<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marketing","pmpro-has-access"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4MGMb-sm","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1758"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1759,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1758\/revisions\/1759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}