Accelerating Customer Adoption at the

Bottom of the Pyramid

Peter Frykman, January 31, 2013

Groundbreaking solutions often never reach scale. While much has already been written about
this challenge in the developed world, there are also some important lessons to be learned from
the Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP). Whether your goal is to tap this enormous, underserved
market for a revolutionary new product, or to impact as many people as possible with a novel
healthcare intervention, the question is the same. How can you accelerate customer adoption of
the best solutions?

Not surprisingly, some patterns emerge from among the most effective organizations. They
introduce new solutions to customers in a tangible and appropriate way. They engage trusted,
local influencers to build credibility. They encourage viral marketing through early adopters.
And they eventually leverage their growing customer base to introduce additional,
complementary solutions. These strategies may sound familiar, but implementing them
effectively at the BoP requires distinct tactics.

It starts with a trickle:

To illustrate this challenge from my own experience, let’s look at the example of drip irrigation,
a technology that has been around for more than 50 years. (Full disclosure: The company I
founded makes drip irrigation.) This technology has been shown to save water and labor, and to
increase yield in a variety of crops. Recently, Dr. Daniel Hillel, a pioneer of drip irrigation,
received the World Food Prize for his achievements. If farmers can benefit from the technology,
why then, is so little of the world’s irrigated land under drip? It has taken decades to convert less
than 2% of the world’s irrigated land to this proven technology.

It is clear that the high cost and complexity of traditional drip irrigation has limited its adoption,
especially among the vast majority of the world’s 600 million small-plot farmers. Making drip
irrigation more affordable and appropriate for these farmers has been one of my main goals in
founding Driptech. But beyond product and technology innovations, more widespread adoption
can only happen if the behavior of individual farms changes in a fundamental way.

In the trenches:
Why is behavior entrenched? Small-plot farmers often employ the same, traditional agronomical
practices that have been followed for generations, and they are typically averse to change. This is
because the wrong changes to their methods can potentially jeopardize their entire income.
Decades of hit-or-miss advice from government, companies, and NGO’s has reinforced farmers’
already skeptical view of new solutions. The first step to introducing something new is reducing
the risk enough to attract early adopters.

The first customers to adopt a new solution in any village are, by definition, early adopters. They
may exhibit certain distinguishing characteristics such as higher levels of education, wealth,
exposure to other geographies etc., or they may simply have a more pronounced need for the new
solution. The early adopter profile will be different for every new product or service, and will
often vary geographically. Ultimately, early adopters are defined by their willingness to accept
the higher risks of being the first to change.

So how to reduce these risks and accelerate early adoption? It starts with introducing the solution
in an appropriate way and engaging trusted, local influencers to build credibility.

Planting the seed:

There is one phrase I hear most often from farmers: “Seeing is believing.” Demonstrating the
actual, tangible solution is often the best way to introduce something new. Ideally we could bring
every prospective customer to a successful Driptech installation, but this would be too resource-
intensive and especially challenging in new geographies. Instead, we have developed a simple
demonstration unit that runs off of a small water jug. It highlights the key functionality and
advantages of our product, but costs less than $5 and can fit easily into a backpack for
portability. Now our field staff can effectively introduce the product to farmers anywhere with an
efficient and appropriate demonstration.

Every new solution can benefit from a well-designed demo. Consider which aspects of your
solution pose the biggest perceived risk to your target customer. Develop a portable
demonstration that addresses these concerns. If your solution is not conducive to a physical
demo, you can use printed flipcharts to display photos or low-cost tablets for video and
interactive content.

Next, we establish credibility by aligning ourselves with local influencers like village leaders or
rural dealers, to whom farmers regularly look for advice. Even a farmer who has experienced a
successful demonstration may have lingering doubts. Common concerns include the availability
of local aftersales support, adaptability to local crops and conditions, or the expected life of the
product. To a certain extent, by recommending our product, these local influencers adopt some
reputational accountability for its performance. In my experience, this can tip the balance for
many would-be early adopters.

Branching out:
Once you have achieved early adoption in a village, scaling requires an element of viral growth.
With any great solution, this will happen naturally, but probably not as quickly as you would
like. It is important to look for points where you can influence the natural process to accelerate
widespread adoption.

For example, the drip irrigation we sell has an average six-month payback period. Farmers
located near our early adopters will naturally learn about the product over the course of multiple
seasons, as our customer visibly improves their productivity and quality of life. But this customer
is often willing to recommend the product much sooner, within just a few weeks of installation.
We identify these satisfied customers and appoint them as “Ambassador Farmers.”

In exchange for recognition and minor perks, Ambassador Farmers agree to share their contact
details with prospective customers for reference. We profile them in publications distributed
through local dealers and we host farmer meetings in their fields. Local farmer meetings are a
great platform for our team to introduce the product to farmers and to respond to their questions.
As you may imagine, when these meetings include a satisfied customer they are always more
effective.

Harvest:
Chances are, if you successfully identify a BoP customer-need and deliver an appropriate
solution, two things will happen. First, you will gain the trust and loyalty of that customer.
Second, you will identify additional needs of that customer through further observation and
listening. Our customers often suggest new products and services that they would like us to
provide, creating value for both them and us.

Sometimes the most valuable thing you can provide is knowledge. For example, we highlight
best practices for fertilizer application, which also enhances the benefits of drip irrigation for our
customers. In this case, one solution can be used as an avenue to introduce another,
complementary solution.

Dissemination:
Although it presents many unique implementation challenges, the customer adoption hurdle at
the BoP is fundamentally no different than what traditional business practice suggests: Identify
and convince early adopters, then leverage early traction to scale through viral growth.