Commented [1]:

Please revise capitalisation of the title:

Profit From New Products

The Way You Dream Of

A Practical Guide to Improve, Innovate, or Disrupt With

New Products

(Titles and subtitles of books should always be capital-

ised)
PROFIT FROM NEW PRODUCTS

THE WAY YOU

DREAM OF
 All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form,

by photocopying or by any electronic or mechanical means.

 ISBN: 978-988-75645-0-9

First Published: May 1st, 2021

Publisher: Ondy Ma
 Table of Contents

Table of Contents i

Preface 1

About New Ideas and New Products 3

Background 4

Introduction 8

What are New Products? 8

Technological and Market Readiness 12

Product Lifecycle Graph 12

Product Market Fit 15

Resources Mapping for New Product Creation/ Launch 16

Framework 17

What Are the Exact New Product Features/Directions to Launch in Each of

These Different Positions? 20

Improver 20

Who Are We? 20

What is the Right Business Mentality/Maturity? 22

Where and How is This Related to Product Life Cycle? 24

Where and How is This Related to Product Market Fit? 24

What is Needed to Grow Further? 27

Innovator 28

Who Are We? 28

What is the Right Business Mentality/Maturity? 29

Where and How is This Related to Product Life Cycle? 31

Where and How is This Related to Product Market Fit? 31

What is Needed to Grow Further? 32

Disruptor 33

Who Are We? 33

What is the Right Business Mentality/Maturity? 34

 Where and How is This Related to Product Life Cycle? 37

Where and How is This Related to Product Market Fit? 39

What is Needed to Grow Further? The Do’s and Don’ts. 40

Blending Them Together 41

Quick Guideline to Develop an Approach for A New Product Idea 42

References 43
 1

PREFACE

Hi! I am Ondy and I am a Product Manager. Over the years, I have

worked for all sorts and sizes of product companies including large, medium,
or small ones, and even startups in American, European and Asian-based
firms. I was required to manage product creation starting from a mere concept
to a global launch for over two decades.
My first taste of failure in launching a web portal took place in the
year 2000. In the streets of Canada, specifically beside a garbage, five com- Commented [2]:
puter science students had an idea to bring in an online game console trading
platform that would allow old games to be exchanged with other users for
“new” games. The portal was brought to the market under the domain
bigbigboy.com and acquired zero customer before it was closed. Since then,
I was determined to learn about innovation business after my first bitter taste
of failure.
I, then, spent two decades developing my career as a product manager
from small, medium and mature leading product companies. Lately, I discov-
ered and created a smart hardware and SaaS startup to introduce disruptive
innovations which required a venture of capitalist financial resources. These
experiences made me conclude that in most organizations,
 2

professional investors indeed lack the framework to precisely address or

depict the path to bring in successful innovations to the market.
This book intends to provide the framework and actual business per-
spectives for readers who want to understand how to monetize and bring in
innovative products to the market and to avoid common pitfalls.
 3

ABOUT NEW IDEAS AND NEW PRODUCTS

“I’ve got a great idea! I want to start my own business with these
interesting great ideas!” These are the famous and popular words that we of-
ten hear from our friends who are more creative and open minded, or during
meeting discussions in companies that encourage new products and innova-
tions.
What most people need to be reminded here is that making a success-
ful product to launch does not come from just a good or great idea. A great
idea is a starting point. There are tons of more hurdles which you need to
surpass before this level to ensure that this product reaches its final stages.
Whether, these are the features of the project, or its demand or its feasibility,
we will talk about it all. There are proven steps, processes and theories learnt
and applied by companies and venture capitalists which are required to be
followed so there can be continuous new products being introduced with their
investment.
I will discuss these steps, processes and theories so that business own-
ers and product managers can have a better grasp on selecting the right idea
and executing the path for successful product launch. If you start with only
an idea and do not have any resources nor experiences to carry the product
and the business development of that idea, you can jump to the end of the
chapter and read from there.
 4

BACKGROUND

Tired of walking slowly, Alex, the turtle, came up with an idea of creating
rollers and introduced it to the world. Since then, every turtle knew how to
ride with rollers on and it significantly improved their speed. Almost every-
thing gets done faster.
And then here comes Mike, the cat, and Nike, the rabbit. They both started
with rollers but eventually, they thought that they can do better; they aspired
for an increased speed and better handling of the roller.
 5

Departing from this impetus, they tried and tried and came up with 30+
prototypes and eventually introduced the roller blades, an inline version of
rollers that Alex first presented. Predictably, it became a hit and all of their
fellow animals now have a pair of their new and sensational roller blades.
Alex was doing exceptionally well at first. He even tried to adapt and enter
the roller blades market with his existing roller brand. Unfortunately, since
he is not as familiar with the patent, Mike and Nike filed a patent infringe-
ment lawsuit against him, and this eventually caused the closure of his com-
pany.
 6

Mike and Nike have been enjoying their success for a while until George
introduced another innovation in the market: the electric scooter and skate-
board. Despite the success of their venture, the two disagreed on the direction
of the company’s vision but they agreed to give it a try. Mike brought a new
line of electric products while Nike maintained the roller blades line.
No matter how successful it was at first, they never achieved success as
they both struggled in terms of budget allocation for marketing funds for both
product lines. Gradually, more and more lines of electric skateboard, scooter,
and even electric rollers entered the market.
As a result, Mike and Nike became one of the smaller players in electric
mobility field as they remain in the roller blades business. On the other hand,
George, being a pioneer in the electric mobility field, turns out now to be one
of the so-called giants, as all of their fellow animals have adapted and are
now using electronic mobility.
 7

This is the narrative of the four characters that represent the different types
of business mentality that currently exist in the market. In the same manner,
this book intends to give a picture of and explain thoroughly different scenar-
ios that can either lead to success or failure.
In the end, this book aims to support any individual, be it a new player or
a seasoned one, to create profit from new products the way you envision it to
happen. Ultimately, the goal is to guide you to improve, innovate, and disrupt
with new products that way the author experienced it first-hand.
 8

INTRODUCTION

Most private organizations survive and live with the mandate to max-
imize profit as the end goal. In order to achieve this goal, there are three major
forces at work: increasing average selling price, expanding new sales channel
and introducing new products. Interestingly, the subject of introduction of
new products is the most common strategy that managers and owners invest
in. The main focus of this book is on “bringing new products” but again, just
to remind the readers of the significance of this option, I have charted the
following points. The two other options still remain as easy means to achieve
the end goal and to maximize organization profit.

What Are New Products?

In order to identify how one can make profit from new products, a defini-
tion of the term is in order. What exactly are new products? These are prod-
ucts that underwent certain changes such as change in style, price form,
branding, marketing strategies, and even relaunching of the product, thus,
 9

leading to an increase in selling price. As an end goal, new products are aimed
to significantly increase the margin of profit.
In addition, new products will help gain market share in a mature
business market when these products offer reasons for consumers to switch
despite its higher price offering. Moreover, new products also provide new
level of performance, technological advancement, and innovative features.
I describe new products in three different magnitudes: improver (improve-
ment), innovator (innovation), and disruptive innovator (disruptive innova-
tion).
Improver – refers to a company that takes new product launch in incre-
mental enhanced features. The new product launch could be basically a de-
sign face-lift, packaging re-design, incremental features change on the exist-
ing product and existing or new market.
Innovator (Innovation) - it is a company that launches new products with
significant enhanced features that are created based on new consumer sights
or technological advancement. Innovative product launch requires recogniza-
ble leap and an incremental enhancement that can be brought to an existing
market or new market.
Disruptor (disruptive innovation) - it is defined by a company that intends
to launch new products that will disrupt existing consumer behaviour. This is
to say that disruptive innovation will replace the consumer usage behaviour
and drive existing product companies out of business on the same market or
 10

create new market. Simply put, disruptive innovation aims to disrupt the cur-
rent market players.

Existing market New market

Improve- New Design, face-lift, packaging Could be as simple as changing the

ment re-design, incremental features. brand and marketing messages.

ex. Travel cleaning package with one

ex. the 4-bladed shaver time shaver and brush sold in airport.

Innovation Recognizable leap incremental Could be big, new, surprising bene-

enhancement. fits to consumers which make them

ex. electric tooth brush utter, “I needed this.”

ex. Facebook with satellite connec-

tion launched in rural communities

 11

Disruptive Drive existing products out of Makes no difference compared to in-

Innovation business and replace current con- novative products as there is no ex-

sumer usage. isting player.

ex. Uber drove Yellow cab out of ex. Smart phone as the first phone to

business. consumers launch in developing re-

gions.

Clarifying the distinction between these 3 classifications sheds light to

owners and managers deciding what new products they could bring to the
market with the resource limitation confined by their business. Small and me-
dium businesses and companies lack the ability to bring new products so,
they end up focusing on improving the features of these products. On the
other hand, companies which have mature product development processes
and resources will be able to put specific focus and resource investment to
nurture innovative products and bring it to existing or new market. Specifi-
cally, the resources needed are R&D capability including patent research, fil-
 12

ing, product development technology in terms of bringing technological ad-

vancement to manufacturing and bringing the products to product market fit
condition. Disruptive innovation is mostly carried out by start-ups, whereby
there is no internal conflict or constraints to slow down the pace, push the
investment forward, and position the company well to acquire resources in-
cluding financial resource.

Technological and Market Readiness

There are three concepts which you should know before you consider to
invest in new product innovations in the company. The three concepts are
Product Life Cycle, Product Market Fit and Technological Readiness for
mass market. I will explain the key concepts of them and illustrate how these
concepts relate to consideration of the new product launch within the 3 clas-
sifications of new products.

Product Life Cycle Graph

A market is defined as a place where two parties can gather to facilitate

the exchange of goods and services. Particularly, consumers/customers are
paying for solutions in products or services that serve and solve their current
problem. The product life cycle is the business development stage whereby
 13

either a new product enters in an existing market or an existing product enters

a new market, or a new product enters into a new market.

The typical curve illustrating a product life cycle is a bell curve that
features a product extension lump that indicates further increase in sales.
However, it must be noted that not every product comes across a standard
product life cycle as featured in a bell curve; there are some instances when
the curve can go up, indicating an increase, and can also go down abruptly
like a fad/fashion product wherein consumers abruptly lose their interest after
its initial launch.
To begin with, Product Life Cycle covers the amount of time a spe-
cific product is presented and introduced into the market up to its removal
from the market. The graph below illustrates the four stages of the Product
Life Cycle: Introduction, Growth, Maturity, and Decline.
 14

During the introduction stage, the company invests on advertisements

to introduce the new product and to increase brand awareness. After the new
product has been introduced and it was proven successful in terms of brand
awareness, it then proceeds to growth stage wherein demand is starting to
increase, thus an increase in production, as well. Maturity stage comes after
this. On one hand, the profit is already evident on this stage. On the other
hand, this is also the stage that marketing efforts and production will begin to
decline. As the final stage of the Product Life Cycle, the decline stage takes
place when there is an increase in competition brought by different compa-
nies taking after your concept and following the pattern of your success.
Competition comes in various forms such as upgrading the features of prod-
ucts and setting a lower and more affordable price for the product.

It is very important to understand the market maturity status when intro-

ducing a new product since each stage of the market maturity will require
different focus, resources, and capacity to succeed. I will go in further dis-
cussions based on the choices of new products defined later.

Product Market Fit

 15

This is one of the most common phrases being used for new product
launches. The basic idea to reach product market fit means that the product
has been adjusted via iterations of pricing, marketing messages, sales tactic,
and channel adjustments to feature changes to achieve the profitable invest-
ment on sales/marketing activities.
Without reaching this critical milestone, a business cannot start to
plan for further rigorous expansion and growth. Paul Asel describes market
fit into 3 different stages, which is the finer description of the subject for
disruptive innovation model that is most often carried by new startup busi-
nesses. Thus, it is crucial to understand the stage of market fit to determine
steps/stage to handle. Before reaching any stage of product market fit, the
business is indeed in exploration/discovery, and making adjustment.
 16

“”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
””””””””””””””””””” need to expand on this “””” Commented [3]:

Resource Mapping for New Product Creation/Launch

One of the most critical failures of having new products is a wrong

assessment of technological readiness to bring the product to the mass mar-
ket. This is to say that the performance of the new technology may not yet
meet the customers’ need and demand, or it is overpriced or is too compli-
cated to adopt. It is, therefore, crucial to have the right measurement before-
hand and to foresee the appropriate methodology to determine this unknown
factor before investing.

FRAMEWORK

Now that you have a good grasp of concepts in product life cycle,
product market fit and assessment of technological readiness, this chapter
outlines the framework for the best practice in profiting from new products.
 17

These are 5 steps to understand what works best for you. Again, this
is a pragmatic approach that starts with very practical questions:
What resources do you have?
1. Based on your resource constraint or availability, choose the new
product position that has a highest likelihood to succeed.
2. What is the right mentality that you should consider in new product
investment?

Small, medium com- Company with mature Open resource/start-

pany new product innovation up
process and resources

1. Re- Few resources Several resources External resources

sources
that you
have

2. Choice of Improve in existing Improve in existing and Disruptive innova-

new prod- and new market. new market. tion in existing mar-
ucts with Innovate in existing Innovate in existing and ket than to new mar-
high likeli- market. new market. ket.
hood of Disruptive innovation in
success existing market.
 18

3. Business Can I sell? Return on Investment Secure funding and

mentality and increase in market other resources to
share. achieve entry mar-
ket, first level of
market product fit to
the end goal of scal-
ing in key sizable
market on 4th level of
product market fit.

4. Key hur- Weak area: innovation Key area: disruptive in- Key area: survive
dles in Lack of resources to novation. and scale with dis-
other areas bring in innovative Internal resource misa- ruptive innovative
products to market on lignment to enter disrup- ideas.
time. tive innovation or enter Timing, product-
into new market with an market misjudge-
error-free approach. ment and failure on
execution.

5. Best posi- Improver Innovator Disruptive innovator

tion to WIN
 19

What Are the Exact New Product Features/Directions to

Launch in Each of These Different Positions?

If you have reached to this point and are still confused, or you do not
even know what new product to launch for your company or are not yet run-
ning a company, I have created a Chapter “Get the Most From Your Con-
sumer/Customers” that include tips for you to acquire new product launch
ideas.

IMPROVER

Who Are We?

If you have a business or an existing product or service with predict-

able revenue and repeated customers, being an Improver is the most effective
path for you to gain more profit from your new product launch. Being an
Improver is vital since it reflects innovation and improvement. If your prod-
uct is not innovative, your product will eventually be considered as old-fash-
ioned and other entrepreneurs will end up copying you.
 20

If you do not have any of this, either the predictable revenue or the
repeated customers, and you try to launch a new product in an improver po-
sition, the minimum requirement is that within your team, you must have at
least one person who can immediately bring in sales with direct access to
consumer/customers who can actually pay.
If you do not have this, you are very likely to build a product that you
believe is great and then, spend the next year in vain, trying to sell and market
the product, only to realize later on that your products are not as new com-
pared to the products that are already on the market. So, you go back to re-
developing newer products, and hoping to sell them in the same mechanism.
Alas, you are caught up in a cycle of continuously creating new products even
if you do not presently have the capability to market, resulting to zero sales.
Thus, it is advisable to opt for an incremental strategy.
In line with this, I have a relevant narrative to share. I once worked
with a manufacturing company whose owner was planning to invest money
to launch new products for many years but continued to fail. The problem
was that the manufacturer did not have direct access to the end custom-
ers/consumers. The manufacturer was dependent on the brand company to
provide feedback to the new ideas that they created. This is indeed a funda-
mental issue. Such a company faces extreme difficulty to come up with val-
uable new improvement ideas to deploy.
Companies that are in an improver product position must have direct
access to customer’s/consumer feedbacks. An ideal improver position is that
 21

you have so many good suggestions from consumers/customers and have a

hard time deciding which one to implement.

What is the Right Business Mentality/Maturity?

Being an improver, the right mentality and approach is to launch new

improving versions of products in the shortest time possible, with a mature
business environment to capture business opportunities. The business envi-
ronment includes sales channel, consumers, technology complexity of the
product, and the actual product offering.

Improver Position

Channel Sales channel has dedicated allocation of revenue

budget, retail shelf space, marketing investment on
the same category of product. The improved product
will immediately gain purchase order and forecast.

Technological challenge The technology involved to enhance the products has

been validated to meet in performance, cost and
quality.
 22

Consumer adoption Consumers have previously experienced the same

product offering that solves the same problem. Con-
sumers can immediately recognize the additional
benefit the new products have to offer.

Product offering Typically, your product offerings (product range) will

have different values of offerings, often illustrated as
good, better, best offerings. Improver could apply the
new product features on the “better” level of offering
and move this feature to the “good” level post intro-
duction launch. This allows to capture higher revenue
and margin at “better” product position and later use
to penetrate market share with an improved feature
products at the “good” offering which is the mass vol-
ume of products.
 23

Where and How is This Related to Product Life Cycle?

The improver position will best be applied in a mature market, whereby

the newly-improved product will be able to further increase the sales of the
product to extend its product life cycle.

Where and How is This Related to Product Market Fit?

A product that suits the needs and satisfies the demand of the market
is the basic definition of a Product Market Fit. But how is the concept of being
 24

an improver related to it? The simple answer is, as an improver, you are sup-
posed to reach a strong Product Market Fit (PMF) position, as per Paul Asel’s
(2020) business concept. According to Asel, the absence of product market
fit will cripple the business. Moreover, according to Asel, a product market
fit consists of three stages, namely, Product Validation, Business Validation,
and Financial Validation.
In the graph below, you can see which stage has a stronger product
market fit, which in turn, yields a higher success rate. According to Asel’s
(2020) observation, companies that performed product validation gained a
25% success rate, while companies that did business validation earned a 50%
success rate. Ultimately, those companies with financial validation reached
100% success rate.
 25

Going back to its relevance to the concept of being an improver, when

a company has a strong Product Market Fit, it is likely that it will reach a
higher success rate. Thus, as an improver, it is not just enough to innovate
products and upgrade its features, but taking into consideration a strong prod-
uct market fit is also of utmost importance.
 26

What is Needed to Grow Further?

Improver position has incremental enhancements that are described as:

- Better looking
- Faster-
- Lighter/thinner
- Cheaper
- Fewer/simpler

- “””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
”””””””””””””””””””””””””” need to expand on this “what are ways
to have incremental improver“””” Commented [4]:
 27

INNOVATOR

Who Are We?

When your company has a mature business process and practice in

place that consistently brings in newly-enhanced products and renews prod-
ucts regularly in the market, the innovator position could be a consideration
for your existing business.
Being an innovator means that you will be introducing a significantly
improved product that can solve a specific problem and not just simply im-
proving for no reason. Although, it must be noted that there is not always a
problem that has to be solved; sometimes, as simple as adding ease of prod-
uct’s usage can also be a form of innovation.
Furthermore, it can also refer to introducing new products that could
potentially be patented or infringe other patents. There are three principles to
obtain an innovation patent: the idea/design needs to be novel to the public,
the benefit brought by the idea has to be a significant improvement, and the
solution needs to be practical with the actual application. To elaborate on the
last point, the solution must not be a task in itself; the innovation serves no
purpose if it does not resolve the issue. Commented [5]:
 28

Moreover, if you are launching innovative products, there is a high

likelihood of infringing the patents of key players in the market if you lack a
proper understanding of the patent domain of the areas that are involved. To
give you an idea, market leaders in a field typically file thousands of new
patents every year to protect every possible threat of innovative ideas from
their competitors.
Hence, from an improver position to innovator position, it indeed re-
quires a lot more resources, maturity of your brand, comprehensive product
development process within the organization, and, most importantly, patent
domain expert in the field of innovation.

What is the Right Business Mentality/Maturity?

Innovative products help organizations in two main areas: to enhance

the brand position and to potentially capture a new market with a new and
innovative product; both increase the gross margin of the product offering in
the end. Two metrics are most often used to assess the investment required
for innovative products: allocation of a fixed expense from company revenue
to develop innovative products and measurement of the ROI (return on in-
vestment) for each project based on the innovative product launched.
 29

The key challenge in introducing innovation to the market is to deliver

it on time, with high quality and appropriate costs for the significantly en-
hanced products. Product managers and marketers have a habit of underesti-
mating the time and capital required for a high quality product.
Moreover, most failures in the innovation department result from
poor product performance at consumer consumption level and not because of
the lack of marketing introduction. To avoid falling into this common pitfall,
an agile development process should be adopted. Agile development refers
to launching iterative versions of enhanced products to test the market and to
validate the product through obtaining feedback and correcting it in iterative
phases.
This approach significantly enhances the probability of attaining suc-
cess when bringing innovative products to the market. The iterative steps,
indeed, not only apply to the product development and consumer usage test,
but also to sales, marketing program test runs and validation.
 30

Where and How is This Related to Product Life Cycle?

Where and How is This Related to Product Market Fit?

Your business has already achieved “Strong PMF” position. With the in-
novative product being introduced, you are most likely to reuse the same fi-
nancial and business execution model with a new product to be validated.
 31

What is Needed to Grow Further?

Commonly, there are the two must-do checklist items to focus on:
- Validate patent/novelty
- Validate initial Purchase order from current and future customers Commented [7]:
The succeeding paragraph did not answer this question
 32

DISRUPTOR

Who Are We?

As a brief overview, disruptive innovation is a business theory that

pertains to a technology that has an evident and significant effect on the mar-
ket’s behavior. It is an innovation that creates a new market and value net-
work which eventually disrupts an existing market and value network, dis-
placing established market-leading firms, products, and alliances. Most dis-
ruptive innovations are carried out by startup businesses and are very unlikely
nurtured within a well-established business. Most disruptive innovation, if
introduced in a well-established company, would introduce an internal strug-
gle in terms of resource allocation.
The development process in a disruptive innovation at an early stage
is all exploratory, but well-established companies would operate under a
strict development and launch timeline, without making allowances for learn-
ing and failure. Hence, a startup business model is well suited for introducing
the disruptive innovation concept with proper resource allocation, focus, and
the right processes to develop and introduce the new product.
 33

What is the Right Business Mentality/Maturity?

When you employ disruptive innovation, you are expected to create a

new user behaviour and to disrupt an existing market behaviour of a market
leader. Be prepared to take on the challenge of cracking the formula for new
consumer adoption, consequently face challenges brought by existing market
leaders, and followed by intimidating tough competition. The odds of suc-
ceeding in disruptive innovation are extremely rare.
Microsoft, a market leader in PC OS market, failed in launching the
window smart phone. Nokia, a market leader in mobile phones, failed to sus-
tain its position in the smart phone industry. Indeed, majority of start-ups that
begin with disruptive innovation position later are acquired by existing mar-
ket leaders and thus, the enhanced features of this new product become an
innovative product for the existing market leader. The same thing happened
with Hotmail and Skype being acquired by Microsoft, and Whatsapp and In-
stagram acquired by Facebook. The mindset of launching disruptive business
is indeed very different from other models (improver, innovator). Steve Blank
described such model as Customer Discovery phase.
According to Steve Blank, the first phase of Customer Discovery in-
cludes stating the hypothesis and drawing a business model canvas. After this
phase, you can now go out to the real world and test your hypothesis. This
involves analysing your customers’ needs and problems. This phase will also
 34

help you build the prototype that is fitting to your customers’ needs and de-
mand. In addition, this also brings you to test the solution, which is the third
phase of the Customer Discovery concept.
Analysing your customers’ needs does not end on the second phase
as you bring it to the third phase and as you attempt to come up with a solution
to your customers’ problems and concerns through your new product or ser-
vice. This is where Product Market Fit comes in the picture -- a product that
suits the needs and satisfies the demand of the market, as defined earlier in
this book.
Now, Customer Discovery does not end with this. You then proceed
to phase four to verify if your product or service actually solved a problem in
the market and of your customers. Test selling enters the process once you
have verified that you actually understand your business model comprehen-
sively.
The mentality of launching disruptive innovation makes use of the
least amount of resources and invests on the shortest time to reach complete
customer validation. Customer validation is a process that involves satisfying
previously unmet needs with a new solution. On top of customer validation,
there is also the consideration of the market validation. The market validation
includes 4 key considerations:
● Sizable market - a market that grows to a minimum of 1 billion in
size.
 35

● Sustainable business - a business that has a competitive edge to

win in long run.
● Scalable business model - a business model that can scale up and
be replicated in a short span of time.
● Positive cash flow or sufficient funds

After Customer Validation, there are still two steps left to Epiphany:
Customer Creation and Company Building. Customer Creation relies on the
success of the company’s initial sales. The main goal in this stage is to estab-
lish an end-user demand. Moreover, for Company Building, the company fo-
 36

cuses on building departments that will mainly handle and continue its suc-
cess. The number of employees and departments depend on the nature of the
business, as well as its long-term goals.

Where and How is This Related to Product Life Cycle?

The approach into the product life cycle curve here is originally pre-
sented by Paul Graham. This Startup Curve is very different as most products
do not even enter the 2nd phase or growing phase, and as the product contin-
ues to iterate, the product introduction phase may go into several roller
coaster types of loops.
 37

This diagram reflects the journey of a startup starting from a very ex-
citing stage up to the challenging ones. By just looking at the curve, any in-
dividual building a startup company can relate to it. First, you have the first
stages as the exciting ones, then the novelty of the new product starts to wear
off.
From here, the startup experiences a Trough of Sorrow, a low point
where problems start to emerge. This is yet another roller coaster ride as a
trial-and-error process takes place. However, once you surpass these stages
of false hopes and challenges, you will be led to The Promised Land. From
here, the startup has another chance to either succeed or fail.
Where and How is This Related to Product Market Fit?

Now, how is this actually related to Product Market Fit? Let us take a
look again at this chart by Paul Asel. Earlier in the book, a definition of Prod-
uct Market Fit as a vital and significant stage of exploration, adjustment, and
discovery has been mentioned. In addition, according to Asel’s study, this
has to be achieved in order to gain profit in the business stage.
 38

Again, according to this chart, a stronger Product Market Fit is nec-

essary to gain a higher success rate. Asel also enumerates ways on how to
optimize your PMF; among these are avoiding premature scaling, focusing
on a market segment before expanding, applying rapid iteration, focusing on
revenue, and using key metrics for product market fit.

What is Needed to Grow Further? The Do’s and Don’ts

 39

Disruptive innovation is most often hard to be validated by existing

customers such as Airbnb, Uber etc. You probably will get negative re-
sponses from consumers/customers who are accustomed to the current prod-
uct offering and constraint, assuming that you truly believe in your great idea
and that this idea is really beyond innovation. Now, you need to follow the
next two critical steps.

But first, one important element that must be defined is the angel in-
vestor. Also referred to as seed investor, an angel investor is an individual
who has previously succeeded in a startup and who could potentially provide
financial support to another startup.
Going back to the next critical steps, first, you need to raise your cap-
ital investment through your first qualified angel investor and build your pro-
totype or your minimum viable product (MVP). For your reference, the min-
imum viable product refers to a product that that has the right features to meet
the needs and demand of early adopters in the market. Thus, this should be
introduced as the first entry to run a test in the market.
The first prototype shows your own commitment to execute the idea
that you truly believe in. In the process of successfully raising the first qual-
ified angel/investor fund, you would have completed your marketing and
sales pitch. Note that the qualified angel/investor fund expects that your busi-
ness has the potential to be valued at USD 1billion for consideration of in-
vestment.
 40

BLENDING THEM TOGETHER

“I have this great idea!” This is a usual 5:00 a.m. morning and wake up
call for many creative minds. You had your greatest, single eureka moment -
- now what? Most ideas are bound to fail even if they start with the right
mentality and methodology, as well as abundant resources. You can avoid
these pitfalls to increase the probability of success and nurture team organi-
sation to allow business growth.

A QUICK GUIDELINE TO DEVELOP AN APPROACH FOR A NEW

PRODUCT IDEA

1. I have got a great idea!

2. Validate with 30 consumers/ customers
3. Validate again with 30 consumers/ customers
4. Validate next on basis of cost, competitors, novelty, operation and
other important factors.
 41

5. Assess your new product position (improver, innovator, disruptive

innovator), your best resources, and partners to help execute this pro-
ject
6. Find resources – capital, talents, supplier partner.

REFERENCES

Becker, R. (2020, August 14). Minimum Viable Product (MVP).

Techopedia. https://www.techopedia.com/definition/27809/mini-
mum-viable-product-mvp

Blank, S. (2006). The Four Steps to the Epiphany. K&S Ranch.

https://web.stanford.edu/group/e145/cgi-bin/winter/drupal/up-
load/handouts/Four_Steps.pdf
 42

Blank, S. [steve blank]. (2014, June 28). Doing Customer Discovery is like
searching for the Holy Grail. 2 Minutes to See Why [Video]. Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hriiulBbWck&list=PLda67x2O47
2eZ2kicfuZrliRc7QPd_kJB&index=8

Blank, S. (2020, May 20). The Growth Quarters. The Next Web.
https://thenextweb.com/growth-quarters/2020/05/20/5-
product-market-fit-tips-to-make-your-startup-successful/

Ganti, A. (2020, July 26). Angel Investor. Investopedia.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/angelinvestor.asp

Graham, P. (September 2012). Want to start a startup?. Paul Graham.

http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html