The more innovative and revolutionary a breakthrough product is, the more likely that you’ll have to build your own market for it.  Customers don’t come running for products they don’t know they need yet.   However the payoff is huge!  If you can define the market from the ground up, chances are excellent that you will own that market for a very long time.

Back in the 60′s, scientists working at DuPont developed Kevlar – a blend of polymers with five times the strength-to-weight ratio of steel.  Accustomed to their constant stream of success with innovative products, the chemical giant naturally assumed that the market would simply come to them.  After all, Nylon, Teflon, and several other artificial fibers of DuPont’s creation had been adopted by scores of industries and used in successful products that were selling all over the place.

Not so with Kevlar.  It simply couldn’t find it’s place in the world.  All of the uses and products DuPont had envisioned were not feasable and industries were just  not interested in the revolutioary new product.  The biggest failure came when American tire makers rejected Kevlar.  The companies opted to continue using steel belts in their radials, rather than switch to something new, even though Kevlar offered a significant weight reduction.   After all, steel was reliable, easier to source, and still a bit cheaper than the new material.

It took some very creative thinking and marketing on DuPont’s part to find a niche in which to sell Kevlar.   The testing began to find out all the new uses for this new fiber.  They knew they had a miracle solution, now they just had to find the problem it solved.  They went out to some their largest customers asked for their input and shared their research data.   The real breakthrough came when they found it could stop bullets.  Once the US Government caught wind of the findings, Kevlar became the go-to material for making things like bullet proof vests and army helmets.  With the military on board, the police forces across the country came calling and the rest is history.  

Because of this clever market adaptation, Kevlar has since proven itself an extremely worthy material for all kinds of products from better ropes to boat sails to protective devices that workers use.  History has proven it to be one of the biggest selling products DuPont ever introduced.  Quite miraculously, it also totally redefined how DuPont proactively builds a market space for it’s new products before they move forward with developing it.  As a result, they control the markets they create.  Can you think of a product that challenges Kevlar in its own market space?  I’ll give you a hint: In the 80′s  a very similar material called ”Twaron” was introduced by a competitor.  It never put the “tiniest ding” in DuPont’s “armor”.

Lots of companies introduce great ideas and products that just can’t quite catch their stride, and many that could perform much better if the company spent more time to understand the marketplace and the needs of potential customers.  By going outside of your company walls to research and investigate trends and feedback you can begin to build better, and in a lot of cases brand new markets for your ideas.  You just need to get innovative with how people are using your products and ask them for their ideas.

You can jumpstart this process with employees and customers - they all have great  ideas and will share them if you present the right challenge.  With Flagpole (www.flagpole-software.com) you can share business and marketing challenges with everyone in and around your organization.  Best thing is, you won’t spend billions on research like the “DuPont Corporations” of the World:  You can get started for free right now.