Personal Pain Map

Morning Everyone,

A personal pain map is an incredibly useful tool that asks question to create a profile of the customer segment of a product. A personal pain map is more or less an exercise that puts the innovator/manufacturer/designer in the shoes of the customer to better understand the every day life of their customers. The main objective of the pain map exercise is to find the emotional high's and low's of the customer to capitalize on the customers wants and needs.

Stepping back a second, Kris made a comment a few weeks ago regarding my innovation. My goal was to further develop my solar panel innovation and try to position the product in the residential market. My plan was to start as a door-to-door salesman and try to sell my product to financially established home owners. Kris made a really good point, coupled with the same response from my partners on the project, Kris reasoned that the residential market may not be ready for solar panel technology yet.

When I apply the pain-map exercise/methodology to analyze the residential market (specifically 30-45 year old new home owners in Massachusetts) as the market segment for my product, the first thing that comes to mind (and Kris's mind) is money. The goal of designing and implementing a solar system on someones house is to at a MINIMUM, eliminate their electric bill. Best case scenario is the home owner gets a check back from the electric company (PEOPLE ARE ALREADY DOING THIS! HOME OWNERS ALREADY HAVE SOLAR PANELS ON THEIR HOUSE AND GET A CHECK FROM MASS ELECTRIC EVERY MONTH - $4,000 to $8,500 A YEAR!!!).

The part that potentially turns off home owners from the technology is the investment. Typical home owners with a $75-$125/month electric bill require a $26,000-$40,000 system to get the payback results discussed above. The fact is that this sticker shock is going to turn residential home owners away considering the economic struggle that a majority of my target segment is experiencing. With out making this blog even longer, I've used the 7 sources of innovation and the pain map tools to serve as a pivot point on my target customer segment. I'm going to focus on established businesses of all sizes with the logic that these customers will be more likely to see the investment potential and use it propel their business to the next level.

Side Note: Massachusetts has a tax incentive and re-bate system passed just recently by Devaul Patrick. Home owners are putting existing solar panel technology on their homes, systems are $26,500 and after the tax incentives and rebates, is about $6,000. A TON MORE TO COME ON THIS in the future!!!! What event do you think I'm waiting for to jump from the commercial to residential market...?

I'm REALLY trying to go for this business development. Any advice/opinions is greatly appreciated! Break me down any way you can and point out potential failures.

Thanks guys,

-Brendan

Morning Everyone,

I thought Toyota's A3 report was very interesting. It instantly reminded me of Albert Einstein who is remembered as one of the greatest physicist, engineer and innovator of all times. What Einstein is NOT know for is his terrible personality. In actuality, Einstein almost failed out of his undergraduate study because of his lack of interest in intermediate level classes and liberal arts. Einstein failed with his personal life, divorces his first wife and having a troubled relationship with his children. Most importantly, Einstein wanted nothing to do with talking to investors. Einstein's closets Maurice Solovine, was actually responsible for making all of Einstein's earliest work known to the outside world. Einstein's professional life could have benefited immensely from Toyota's A3 Problem solving method (maybe even his personal life too...?).

Continuing to use Einstein as an application of the A3 system, let's consider Einstein in his earliest years of just before he patented his first innovations on electromagnetism. Einstein was unemployed for 2 years after graduating with his PhD. Einstein could have applied the most basic concept of the A3 system to finding a job; Storytelling. Einstein needed to identify his problem; lack of communication skills. Then he could have used the A3 storytelling tools to market himself to other people in a more mythological and objective way where he could have found a job much sooner. In addition, The A3 problem solving process to identify the root cause of the problem could have forced Einstein to reflect on his weaknesses, understand why the problem exists, how to fix it and a way to sustain the solution.

-Brendan

7 Sources of Innovation

As described by Peter Drucker, the seven sources of innovation include:

1. The unexpected - the instance success, unforeseen issues that result in failures or the impact of outside events that significantly change a business' success or strategy

2. The incongruity - the difference between the reality of success and how it actually is

3. Process need - as a source of defining what innovations are pursued

4. Industry structure - changes in industry structure that can catch some people unaware and open opportunities for others that either anticipate the change or are able to pivot and react/respond

5. Demographic analysis - analysis on target populations age, job/careers, net income and disposable income...

6. Perception - changes in the mood and meaning of the innovation and how it relates to the (below)

7. New knowledge of the innovation and how it is perceived to others

Building off of a few comments that Professor Worthington discussed in class, I feel like all of these concepts are key components on "how to" create a successful innovation (no surprise there...). But, I think the 7 sources really serve as a foundation for not only getting and innovation up and moving (described in the #5 - Demographic and #6 - Perceptions sections) but it gave me a better understanding on create a better self assessment of my business plan idea.

My business plan idea is to develop a solar panel installation company that is built around a solar panel advancement innovation that I've come up with. For a quick argument, current solar panel technologies on the market can convert around 17-22% of the suns energy into electricity. I think I've found a way to substantially increase the efficiency of this conversion (up to 40% efficiency). The goal of my business plan model was to develop the application for RESIDENTIAL homes rather than large industrial applications for the government or big businesses. My selling point was that residential projects could get their money back at a rate that is substantially faster than if they installed regular solar panels on their roof, making their investment pay back quicker and allow them to actually make money off of selling the extra electricity to the electric companies.

This is where my "self assessment reflection" prompted by the 7 sources of innovation comes into play. The main reason why solar panel technology has taken of primarily for large industrial applications is because buying and installing the panels is expensive. I realize now that if residential homes are my target market, I have to convince people that taking out a $10,000-$100,000 (depending on the size of their home, electric bill...) personal loan to achieve self-sustainability is worth the investment. I've been so focused on developing the technology side (which is equally important in order to make the financial pay back argument)  of the solar panel that I never stopped to analyze my choice in target market and how much people are willing to invest in my technology.

I may have found a pivot point here... My first goal is to develop a demographic analysis and create a questioner and go around, from house to house, and ask people questions regarding the info I need to make my business plan a success.

Thoughts?

thanks,

-Brendan

Hi Team,

Below is the list SWOT analysis I developed to analyze Google. I thought it was pretty difficult considering how well known and established Google is in the U.S. and National market. I think Google is an exciting company because of how many opportunities they have (some of which I mentioned) to expand and grow.

I couldn't figure out a great way to get some of the text fields to expand. I'll email out the .PDF file so everyone can have a copy for their records and see everything I wrote.

-Brendan

Blog Group List

Danial Bernier:

http://danielbernierwpi.blogspot.com/

Steve Goldberg:

http://stevegoldbergetr.blogspot.com/

Elan Govanmandhivanan

http://elangovanmadhivanan.wordpress.com/

Nan Bai:

http://balance714.blogspot.com/

Kristina Nigro;

www.KrisNigroETR500.blogspot.com