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Start ups are always trying to be innovative, but the resource and expertise trade off can be difficult. Check out Flashpoint Development’s Managing Partner Tucker Marion’s recent speaking slides during his trip to England. The talk shows how you can utilize agile, rapid prototyping and other new tools to outsource innovation and accomplish your start-up goals with less resources. Outsourcing Innovation 6-30-2010 [Compatibility Mode]
Managing Partner Tucker Marion will be presenting his new research on start-up innovation outsourcing at the Research and Development Management Conference in Manchester, England between June 30 and July 2. For more information on the conference please visit: http://www.rndmanagement.info/. The research paper, “Outsourcing Innovation: A Guide for Start-ups”, focuses on lessons and best practices for maximizing the effectiveness of using outside resources to bring your product to market. The research abstract is below This paper explores the beneficial impact of outsourcing on new venture innovation development efficiency and effectiveness. The relationship of outside firms on innovation commercialization is highlighted, with an additional focus on the enabling role service providers such as rapid prototype fabricators and quick-turn manufacturers perform. We synthesize our research into five distinct lessons, which form a guide for new ventures in selecting and implementing these external resources. The first lesson is optimizing your firm to allow easy integration of outside resources. In our study, the most successful firms leveraged a network of outside providers by keeping internal head-count low, and migrating to a software-like agile development processes. The second lesson is strategically selecting partners that provide more strategic long-term assistance as opposed to only discrete development resources. These firms help connect channel partners, customers, and new investors. The third lesson is managing the innovation process through agile milestones, not onerous procedures. Maintaining a balance between flexibility and discipline is a pathway to success for the new venture. Next, the ability of the firm to quickly and inexpensively source and have solutions fabricated for internal and external customer testing is essential to an efficient process. These fast solutions place concepts quickly in the hands of the development team and potential customers – speeding the process to market through rapid vetting of successive iterations. Finally, the use of quick-turn manufacturers and assemblers can also help the new firm gather important sales data without having to invest large amounts of capital on costly inventory – helping the new venture preserve precious financial capital while capturing data needed for full commercialization. These guiding lessons not only contribute to applied management knowledge, but outline phenomenon that require further detailed empirical investigation in the space of new venture innovation development. For additional information on how Flashpoint Development can be your outside innovation experts please contact: info@flashpointdevelopment.com
During conceptual design of your product, cost engineering is essential. Once main obstacle that new ventures face is the cost of your product versus desired selling price. Volume can have a huge impact on this. For the gBook e-book reader, you’ll note the cost reduction in total cost from low volume (1000 units) to higher volume (100,000 units) – particularly in the LCD/controller and main processor. This reduces even further when considering volumes of 500,000 to 1M. However, the entrepreneur should be cautious when selecting features and selling price. Basing selling price on extremely high volume can be tempting – but you may be in a situation of negative margin from introduction until (if ever) you reach the volume estimate. That means negative cash-flow from the onset – which may kill the company before you ever break-even. So, perform your bottom-up and top-down cost estimates – if there is a huge disconnect you may need to cut back on features/capability and/or adjust target market/demographic (higher selling price) to make the economics work. These iterations and cost engineering are essential at the beginning stages of product design.
Check out this interview with Tucker Marion, the Managing Partner of Flashpoint Development as he discusses his academic and industry perspectives of bootstrapping, team building and product development.
Tucker Marion Interview from Tom Ermolovich on Vimeo.
Inventors, entrepreneurs, and new ventures are always looking for an exit strategy for their idea. Do I sell my company? Am I an IPO candidate in the future? While those questions for the fortunate few may be asked after several years of sustained, continuous growth – there are two import ‘exit’ questions, which face the new entrepreneur much earlier. The question is: do I make the product myself or license it? Many inventors and entrepreneurs dream of the easy out : “I have an idea, I’ll patent it, and license it. Simple.” Visions of beach vacations while collecting lucrative licensing fees dance in the entrepreneur’s head. However, the reality is much different. The likelihood of licensing a product or technology in the early stages of development is very small. Many spend copious amounts of money securing patents – ready to license, only to find no one is interested. But, there is hope out there for the inventor, entrepreneur, and new venture. A company in New Hampshire has been helping people license their inventions to large, established firms. That company is the Big Idea Group, or BIG. BIG started in 2000 to bridge the innovation process between the inventor and the big firm looking to commercialize new innovations. For inventors, BIG offers Roadshows, Idea Hunts, and even accepts general submissions. Their intent is to help find that one in a thousand invention that is perfect for Black and Decker for example. For large, established firms, BIG offers Innovation Challenges where their network of over 13,000 inventors submit ideas on open idea challenges. A recent challenge was held for Staples. BIG helped Staples design a public invention contest for office supplies to help differentiate Staples products from commodity goods, drive traffic into stores, and generate positive PR. In the first year, the contest generated 8500 entries, received national U.S. media coverage, and led to the launch of four innovative products. FlashPoint has had a relationship with BIG since 2004. In April 2004 an inventor approached FlashPoint to help try and commercialize his product, a new type of personal flotation device. It was designed to replace the life jacket through a very comfortable and easy to wear automatically inflating belt. It was tested and certified by the Coast Guard – it really worked as promised. Actually a sad story – the inventor had spent his life savings on the project – gone through a divorce, and was living in near poverty, exhausted and desperate. I was sold on the product, and committed to the inventor to work for a percentage on sales if we could get it to market. We developed marketing materials, detailed commercialization plans, and hit the road to try to sell it. We presented the product to BIG and they were excited too. In fact, they agreed to sponsor an airing of 5,000 units on QVC. We were on our way. Unfortunately, when we tried to line up the manufacturing, the inventor’s contract manufacturer did not have the capacity to fabricate the units. We found another supplier but the inventor could not raise the funds for the QVC inventory. We tried to secure angel investment, but we could not get a deal closed. All investors were not happy 7 years had elapsed on the patent, and had concerns with the inventor. So we had to fill BIG in on the bad news. As with many failed inventors and inventions – there are often sad stories behind them – and many what ifs. A lesson to be learned – do not spend all of your life’s savings and run out of funds and energy before you get to market. Have a clear commercialization strategy and do not hope for the best once you have a patent and a prototype. As with manufacturing, once you have a functioning product does not mean it will be successful. So, check out BIG – if you have the right idea in the right space – your potential for successful licensing may be improved. BIG is currently on the lookout for high-potential micro-businesses.
iShovel: Early Stage Automated Robotic Snow Shovel Ever wonder what life would be like if you didn’t have to shovel your driveway? What If you didn’t have to pay someone to shovel your driveway? In the not so distant future, the iShovel may be coming to a store near you. This battery powered shoveling device will begin shoveling at the first detection of snow accumulation. It’s built with two independent motors and an automatic snow sensor. Seriously, how awesome would this robotic shovel be?
This iShovel is the “World’s Smartest Snow Shovel”! Based on, what appears to be a similar platform at the iRobot’s Roomba, the iShovel records the artificial boundaries programmed into the robot. In the harsh New England weather, it would have be great at the first sign of snow to have the iShovel. As robotics become less expensive, it will hopefully become a household item.
Even though the iShovel is in first generation prototype, it has recently been featured on Bob Vila’s home show as well as Good Morning America. The early stage prototype has gotten rave reviews and is hopeful to compete with the gas powered snow blowers within the next year. According to the iShovel’s website, the product is significantly more efficient with regard to clearing the driveway. Because it shovels in short spurts, it manages to shovel every few inches. As a result, it uses less energy in relatively short cycles using battery power. One of the real tests for this new product is how does it handle fast falling wet snow? But theoretically, if it works as it says it does, snow should never pile about 3 inches. This will be a future product to continue to watch to ease the maintence of living in an area with snowfall. Although this product is in early stage development, it does suggest a great new concept that will continue to promote robotics in (or outside) the home. By Jessica Chin, Product Engineering Manager at Flashpoint Development
Many people and companies assume that when a product is designed and engineered that the product development process is complete. That is most certainly not the case for physical assembled products – and not expecting this fact can be very frustrating for the inventor and start-up. The product development process continues with production tooling through volume ramp then right into quality control and product improvement. Once a product or part is designed in computer-aided-design (CAD) and is prototyped, in order to go into production volume tools need to be constructed (these may be injection molds, dies, stamping tooling, etc.). These tools can take anywhere from 5 – 15 weeks to build. Once they are built, the debugging process begins. And here is where things can get frustrating to individuals and companies trying to get a product to market – expect the unexpected. In the figure below, note the testing and refinement and product production ramp phases. It is common to think that product development is complete once detailed design is complete – it is not.
 Figure. 1. Ulrich and Eppinger (2004) NPD process. Even the most well-thought out design will invariable have issues during the last two phases (fit during assembly, sink marks, reliability issues). For complex products, this fine-tuning can take months or years. For an automobile, it can take two years from first prototype to production ready. During this time, design and manufacturing issues are resolved in an iterative manner. It is the response and quick resolution to these issues that is imperative to get a product to market. Things like tooling issue matrices, daily teleconferences, etc. mean the difference of time and money. For the entrepreneur and start-up – be prepared for the unexpected and realize that it takes time to get something right. Plan for the time and costs of product development AFTER the initial design is completed.
Tucker Marion Presents Case Studies in Santa Cruz, California Late in 2009, Tucker Marion along with other authors from Northeastern University presented three case studies at the 2009 North American Case Research Association annual meeting. The three case studies are designed to drive research and curriculum development in the area of technology venture development. The idea was simple: given the technological and industry differences between different types of start-ups (devices, biotech, software) – can you look at them through the same lens? Or, are they so different that they need be researched and taught differently? What we found is that there are some clear differences, but there are also some similarities. We found that start-ups, no matter what industry, are comprised of 2-3 founders that are in essence – omni-functional. These people perform tasks from sales to engineering all within the same day – very different from large companies where people work on specific core tasks. We also found that these firms focus on goals, rather than on processes and paperwork – again, very different from large firms. We also found that device companies, driven by the speed and low cost of prototyping, are beginning to resemble agile software firms in the way they approach development. It is this low cost, fast iterative development process that FlashPoint works to optimize for all client projects. Currently, the research team is working on developing a theory paper to disseminate this research in an academic journal. The research was funded by a grant from NACRA received in 2008.
Logos can make your brand stand out, but how do they get that way? How do inventpreneurs go from ideas, descriptions and emotions to a final product? The featured development of our logo will show you.
We selected our two favorite of the group and encouraged our designer to experiment with colors. We liked logos 4 and 6, but we were looking for some additional work on the logo to expand on the flow chart concept of number 4 and the center of the team concepts in number 6.
We ended up choosing the blue and green flow chart concept and we really liked it. We brought it out into the marketplace and solicited feedback. The feedback that we got was positive, but
we wanted to experiment with adding a little pop to the logo. The next round contained a lot of pop both with the logo, text and orientation. We liked integrating a circle into the middle of the logo to get back to the center of the team concept.
Of course you knew what we ended up with at the very begining of the post, but I hope that this example of both the logo creation process and the development process as a whole has helped.
Post your Logo Story!
Inventors often say, “I thought of that” while product developers say “I worked on that, but put it down”.  eDGe During 2007-2008 we worked on a dual screen media device aimed at being the e-reader for kids in school, we called it gBook (left). To the right is the new eDGe, which was covered in the NYT on 12,6 is enTourage Systems future release of their e-text book. The feature sets were and are identical, good developers think a like. The project was stopped due to lack of funding, and we moved on. Have a reason for putting a project down and feel good about moving onto the next opportunity. Just because someone else launched it doesn’t mean it is going to be a success or that stopping was a mistake. To learn more about our effort in the e-text book space and for a few tips on development, check out our Case Study Presentation.
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The process theory revolves around iterative designs based on refinement and feedback. The process begins with a description of the company / product. The description should include high level functional and emotional statements for example: quality, organized, bringing elements together, which developed into two concepts: “center of the team” and “flow chart process”. For our case, we had our designer read through the existing website and create a first round of designs (left).
