Product Research Rules

Chapter 1. Prepare to Be Wrong

Some years ago, C. Todd worked at a biotech startup that provided products for academic research laboratories, universities, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies. The startup wanted to develop a product that could extract DNA from plant samples, which they hoped would allow the company to expand into the agri-bio industry. They created a prototype that worked in laboratory conditions, which he thought was a great step, and they embarked on a research project to discover its viability.

The research team traveled to a number of agri-bio companies in Europe to see how the prototype would work on site. It worked well, but the team discovered that one of the companies already had its own “homebrew” method of DNA extraction that cost significantly less to implement. Despite this, the company’s senior leadership was keen to explore how the new product could work and whether it would mean they could replace their own makeshift method. After nearly eight months of further prototyping and testing and more travel to Europe, the company’s leaders decided that, although the new product was 10 times more effective, customers in that market were not willing to pay three times the price for it. The product effort was abandoned.

This research project took months, cost tens of thousands of dollars, and provided next to no insights into the suitability of the product for the market. Why did it take so long and produce such limited insights? Because C. Todd just ...