What lie in between an innovative idea and a successful product? Many will say – the development, but for us it is science and technology.
We are not asking “will the product be accepted by the customer?” Not because it’s not important (on the contrary), but rather because our preliminary concern is to evaluate the possibility, and point out the risks for the product development. It is up to you to decide will it be accepted on the market or not.
With years of experience in numerous industrial R&D projects and academic research we have found that the most critical stage of any project is the decision on scientific and technological approach. Our experience shows that investing additional week or even month in preparation work and literature research can save valuable months of work in the future, avoids pitfalls in development, and conserve limited resources. By doing the preparation work prior to every R&D project we have developed our unique methodology for fast and accurate analysis of proposed technological solution for innovative product. We call this methodology “Technological Scientific Due-Diligence”.
Our Technological Scientific Due-Diligence methodology is focused on three points, crucial for every endeavor:
1. Understand your competitors technology and learn from it
Understanding competitive products functionality and operational principle can benefits you with a lot of valuable knowledge and information. You may learn what science and technology principles stand behind their products. You may understand why they choose their certain technological path.
2. Learn from academic and industrial research
Experience shows that if you dig deep enough into the literature (academic, industrial and IP) you will always find that somewhere, someone has already solved or at least tried to solve tasks similar to yours. Therefore, the answers for “How to do it?”, “What to do?”, “Is it doable or not?”, “How complex can it be?”, and “What are the risks associated with the development?” are there. You only need to connect all the dots. The sooner you start asking this kind of questions, the higher are the chances for a successful development of your innovative product.
3. Analyze patents from standpoint of market competition and technology
It is not academy where the knowledge is shared, but industry where companies struggle hard for their market share. You need to understand in-depth what you can do and what is protected by competitor. Much information can be found in published IP, and you can learn a lot about the technological approach your competitors or others are using. By asking the correct questions you can also understand what you shouldn’t do.
By paying attention to these three points you can identify the key technological and scientific elements that will be the working heart of your future product. It is of the highest importance to identify the key elements prior to the execution, and verify its feasibility and performance. Otherwise, you may choose a wrong path in development, meet pitfalls, or finish with a product that is too expensive to your customers.
The Technological Scientific Due-Diligence is equally important for entrepreneurs as for the investors. However, their viewpoint is different. The entrepreneurs should perform it already at the very first stages of idea development. This is in order to plan a proper R&D road map and improve their chances for successful products development in a competitive environment. The investors are using it in order to identify risks of a proposed venture, decide on their future investment, and cut off too risky ideas.
At the end, no matter how big the market is and how good the venture’s idea sounds; it is the technology that should work and meet the correct market price point.
So, start digging To-Foresee the future!