First or fail?
Are assumptions the kryptonite of successful product design?
If you’ve spent any time in and around marketing circles, you’ll be familiar with the age-old trope of “first to market, first to feast”. You might know it differently, but at its core, this idea states that if you can get a new product to market before your competitors, you will capture the lion’s share of the market. It is referred to as first-mover advantage (or FMA), and it’s a lie.
As I write this in 2019, FMA is still taught in business schools around the world. A quick search online will easily a stream of bloggers espousing this advice to budding entrepreneurs.
But is being first really better?
Ask any marketing exec, and you’re likely to hear a resounding “Yes”. Their belief is strong, because it’s reinforced by their environment, culture and their peers. But, just like the ideological bubbles we curate for ourselves on social media, so too do we accumulate fallacies in our professional capacity.
Yes, when we start making the assumption that we know how the world works, we stop seeing what’s actually around us. And that’s where a belief in something like FMA can land you in trouble.
Consider the curious case of Segway, the first brand to introduce electric personal transportation devices to the masses. Their hype was akin to Tesla today and in 2001, Segway was touted as the next “revolution in mobility”. For a while it looked like the predictions would hold true. VC’s showered it in capital, reporters did giddy fluff pieces zipping up and down parking lots, and Jeff Bezos even rode one onto the floor of the New York Stock exchange.
A few years down the road however, Segway had become the punchline of every joke. So, what went wrong?
Despite being first to market, the feast never quite arrived.
For one, the company had way overestimated the demand for their product the Segway PT. By 2007, the company had met a mere 1% of their projected sales. Added to this, the awkward and clumsy nature of the PT device made it easy to ridicule. It looked so geeky, that no one under 35 wanted to be seen on one. The hefty $5000 price tag also kept it off most Christmas lists, and a flood of wipeout videos that followed its release raised safety concerns among parents and civil groups alike.
Soon investor confidence had turned sour. The revolving door of ever-changing CEO’s started spinning overtime. Culminating in a now infamous PR nightmare, where, in 2013, the then-owner of the company passed away after seemingly driving his Segway off a cliff. Ouch.
And herein lies the point: As marketers, creatives or designers, we have a tendency to favour assumptions over reality. We assume our product will take off because it’s the first of its kind. We assume that because it can solve a problem with speed, it doesn’t matter how it looks. We assume that what people post online wont affect our sales or our image.
This subconscious bias allows us to move forward with our projects but it can also blind us. Often, we see the brands who get swept up in their own praise or publicity, fall into the trap of preaching at users rather than listening to them. Think Blackberry, think Snapchat, some even make this argument for Bitcoin.
A positive perception of a product can be as (or more) advantages than being first to market. And to know what our customers think of a problem, you have to ask them. As designers and marketers, we should be mindful of assuming we know what our customers want, because if we don’t listen, our products will never speak to our users.
P.S. If you’re still wondering what’s up with Segway, here you go.
Fortunately for the company, the last six years have been much kinder than their first 12. After weathering the PR storm, they found a CEO that stuck around and steadied the ship. Segway was eventually sold to Chinese company, Ninebot in 2015. Soon after they started making scooters. Today, they’re the suppliers behind rideshare apps like Bird and Lime.
A happy ending after all? Only time will tell.