GE’s FirstBuild is taking innovation to new heights with their new indoor smoker - check it out!
Spotted in the wild:
FirstBuild’s Arden Indoor Pellet Smoker and Indiegogo
Thanks toDavid Brand, the brilliant author of Testing Business Ideas, for spotting this and sharing it on Twitter.
FirstBuild, owned by GE Appliances (a Haier company), is testing demand for an indoor BBQ smoker using I ndiegogo. It is a YouTube pretotype, best used for products that are complex or a big investment to bring to market. In this case, they have built something, but I suspect the video and results are simulated to test product demand, a perfectly valid strategy.
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What’s working well? What could be better?
The branding on this is not prominent, and I like that. Too often, we believe that branding is our competitive advantage when testing products. It’s not, it just helps you scale. What they’re testing here is problem-solution fit, asking: a) does anyone care? And b) are we solving a problem well enough for anyone to show interestin our product?
What are the takeaways?
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If you have a complex product or service idea, the YouTube pretotype is an effective way to simulate the end product and test demand from customers.
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Start small: you probably don’t have a GE sized budget, so place the pretotype in a channel that makes sense. Ask yourself: where would your potential early adopters be looking for a solution to the problem you’re solving? Go there.
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Don’t ask for money immediately. You’ll notice in this pretotype they don’t give an indication of price. For starters, get emails.
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In the field Want to start experimenting in your business,but you’re not sure where to start? Then let’s find out…
One thing Lastly, here’s a great quote from James Clear to take you into the week ahead.