Is there something worse then, after investing hundreds of hours and significant finances in product development, to realize nobody wants to buy it?

And you did everything:

Web site is all polished and nice. You are attending all major industry fairs and have a social media guru to present you through all known social media platforms. You are spending lots of time networking at conferences, talking to potential clients and influencers.

And yet – sales do not happen. You can only hear crickets.

Who is guilty for this failure?

“Stupid customers” because they are so shortsighted and don’t see how much they need this solution? Social media guy? Marketing and sales department? (The boss?)

I speak daily to R&D companies, with very impressive teams with even more impressive ideas.

Our cooperation is typically a result of their ambition to get SME Instrument funding grant for development of potentially disruptive technology/service and world wide market presence.

Commercialization plan is an important part of their proposal. If they can demonstrate they can sell on large scale, make industry and social impact while boosting business – we have a winner.

When we are working together, preparing a winning proposal, we explore technology landscape and describe a business model. But almost always we get stuck at this point. We run across same hurdle again and again:

This ambitious, highly innovative, R&D oriented SMEs can’t sell very well.

Here is what we learned are most common problems:

• General market knowledge and segmentation is weak. While general market size is estimated, it is not clear which part of this market is targeted by SME, where on this planet and why.
• You can see immediately that it is not crystal clear who is buyer and who is user. If a child is user of your technology – to who you then sell? (Could be parents, organisations where kids are active, etc..).
• Pain points (problem you are solving) are described very broadly (e.g. “Want to grow business?”).
• »Fishing holes«, places where you can address potential clients are just a myth. (Usually we hear: »We will sell through social media«).
• How potential clients will be reached is over complicated (»We will help them win EU tender then they will be able to buy our product«) or oversimplified (»They will find us through blogs«.) I mean – really?
• Differentiation is minimal, limited to description of being »faster, cheaper, more capable«. But customers want to hear something more personal then that.

It might be that your company has such problems too. Don’t panic. You see, when laser was invented it was also unclear how it could actually be used.

8 market factors to (at least) reconsider when drafting commercialization strategy

1. Define well the pain you will heal (the need).
2. Describe how your product can solve stated problem.
3. You did the work and confirmed that your market is large and it is growing.
4. How fast can you enter the market? Show on a timeline and understand why.
5. How you are better then competitors and which barriers are waiting for you?
6. Is your profit margin high or low? Will you sell to few or many?
7. You know your “fishing holes” and how to get there.
8. You know how to attract more investments and funding.

In addition, improve communication through the whole innovation process.

What does that mean in practice? Here is a great presentation from EC: “How to convert research into successful commercial story?”

If you are experiencing other difficulties connected to commercialization, comment bellow. There is somebody who solved that already and will most likely want to share his/her experience. Let community grow.