6.1 Riding the Crest of Innovation
Have you ever wanted to go surfing but couldn’t find a body of water with decent waves? You no longer have a problem: the PowerSki Jetboard makes its own waves. This innovative product combines the ease of waterskiing with the excitement of surfing. A high-tech surfboard with a forty-five-horsepower, forty-five-pound watercraft engine, the PowerSki Jetboard has the power of a small motorcycle. Experienced surfers use it to get to the top of rising ocean waves, but if you’re just a weekend water-sports enthusiast, you can get your adrenaline going by skimming across the surface of a local lake at forty miles an hour. All you have to do is submerge the tail of the board, slide across on your belly, and stand up (with the help of a flexible pole). To innocent bystanders, you’ll look like a very fast water-skier without a boat.
Where do product ideas like the PowerSki Jetboard come from? How do people create products that meet customer needs? How are  ideas developed and turned into actual  products? How do you forecast demand for a product? How do you protect your product ideas? These are some of the questions that we’ll address in this chapter.
PowerSki Jetboard High-Speed Chase Down the Colorado River
1. Define “product.â€
2. Describe the four major categories of product developments: new-to-the-market, new-to-the-company, improvement of existing product, and extension of product line.
3. Contrast a calculated risk and an unnecessary risk.
4. Indicate how entrepreneurial decision making can be improved.
Basically, a  productSomething that can be marketed to customers because it provides a benefit and satisfies a need. is something that can be marketed to customers because it provides them with a benefit and satisfies a need. It can be a physical  good, such as the PowerSki Jetboard, or a  service, such as a haircut or a taxi ride. The distinction between goods and services isn’t always clear-cut. Say, for example, that a company hires a professional to provide an in-house executive training program on “netiquette†(internet etiquette). Off the top of our heads, most of us would say that the company is buying a service. What if the program is offered online? We’d probably still argue that the product is a service. But what if the company buys training materials that the trainer furnishes on DVD? Is the customer still buying a service? Probably not: we’d have to say that when it buys the DVD, the company is buying a tangible good.
In this case, the product that satisfies the customer’s need has both a tangible component (the training materials on DVD) and an intangible component (the educational activities performed by the seller). Not surprisingly, many products have both tangible and intangible components. If, for example, you buy an Apple computer, you get not only the computer (a tangible good) but certain promises to answer any technical questions that you might have and certain guarantees to fix your computer if it breaks within a specified time period (intangible services).
Figure 6.1
Holiday decorating kits have extended Just Born’s product line beyond Peeps.
Source: © 2010 Jupiterimages Corporation
New product developments can be grouped into four major categories: new-to-the-company, improvement of existing product, extension of product line, and new-to-the-market.
For examples of the first three types of new product developments, we’ll take a look at Just Born. The company is known for its famous “Marshmallow Peeps,†and consequently its management is very interested in marshmallows. It conducted research that revealed that families use marshmallows in lots of ways, including crafts and decorating. This led Just Born to develop an Easter decorating kit that used Peeps marshmallows. It was such a hit that the company followed by creating decorating kits for Halloween and the Christmas season. Because similar products are made by other companies, the decorating kits are not “new to the market†but are “new to the company.†Now, let’s look at another product development involving Just Born’s also famous Mike & Ike’s candies. The marketing people at Just Born discovered that teenagers prefer to buy candies that come in pouches (which fit into their pants pockets) rather than in small boxes. In response, the company reduced the piece size, added some new ingredients, and put the Mike & Ike’s in pouches. This “improvement in an existing product†resulted in a 20 percent annual sales jump for Mike & Ike’s. Our last look at Just Born demonstrates an approach used by the company to “extend its existing product line.†Most of us like chocolate and most of us also like marshmallow, so how about putting them together? This is just what Just Born did—the company extended its Peeps product line to include “Peeps in a chocolate egg.†Consumers loved the combination, and its success prompted the company to extend its product line again and launch a chocolate crispy version for Easter.
The PowerSki Jetboard is a “new-to-the-market product.†Before it was invented, no comparable product existed. Launching a new-to-the-market product is very risky, and only about 10 percent of products created fall into this category. On a positive note, introducing a new product to the market can be very profitable, because the product often enjoys a temporary monopolistic position.
Inventors of new-to-the-market products often form entrepreneurial start-ups to refine their product idea and bring it to market. This was the path taken by Bob Montgomery, inventor of the PowerSki Jetboard. As is typical of entrepreneurial start-ups, the company that Montgomery founded has these characteristics:
· It’s characterized by innovative products and/or practices. Before the PowerSki Jetboard was invented, no comparable product existed.
· Its goals include profitability and growth. Because the patented Jetboard enjoys a temporary monopolistic position, PowerSki potentially could be very profitable.
· It focuses on new opportunities. Bob Montgomery dreamed of creating the first motorized surfboard. This dream began when he and a few of his surfer friends (all around age twelve) missed a wave because it was too far down the beach for them to catch. He imagined that if he had been on a motorized surfboard (instead of an ordinary one that you had to paddle), he would have been able to catch that wave. His dream became the mission of his company: “PowerSki International Corp. was founded to deliver the patented PowerSki Jetboard, the world’s only motorized surfboard, and its engine technology to the world market. It’s PowerSki’s goal to bring the experience of surfing to everyone on lakes, rivers, seas, and the ocean. ‘Now everybody has an ocean, and can ride an endless wave.’â€
· Its owners are willing to take risks.  Anybody who starts  any business is taking a risk of some kind. The key to  entrepreneurial risk is related to the idea of innovation: as Woody Allen once put it, “If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.â€
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