Focus on understanding how the customers use your products! They can even conceptualize a new use case which you never imagined. It is all good provided of course the usage is within the law.
You have created toothpicks for cleaning teeth, but some customers are buying them for eating suya (grilled strips of meat).
That the toothpicks are now used for eating suya must not diminish your playbook. Rather, your business antenna must pick that your product has a new use case.
Tekedia Mini-MBA edition 16 (Feb 10 – May 3, 2025) opens registrations; register today for early bird discounts.
Tekedia AI in Business Masterclass opens registrations here.
Join Tekedia Capital Syndicate and invest in Africa’s finest startups here.
Winning in markets requires awareness and observation – shine your eyes because a product is whatever customers say it is, notes Francis Oguaju.
Comment on LinkedIn Feed
Comment #1: It’s highly limiting to innovation to dictate to customers how or what to use a product for, except it’s to restrain usage from breaching ethical boundaries.
Your customers are not made for your solutions, it’s the other way round. So, your job as an innovator to guide innovation where it naturally wants to go, not where you want it to go. Your wants are heavily biased in the grand scheme of things and hence faulty.
Comment #2: This is a great example – innovation is a process, and not a destination. Identifying new applications for existing competencies and deciding which opportunities to pursue are critical to remaining relevant as new opportunities arise and existing markets evolve.
---
Register for Tekedia Mini-MBA (Feb 10 - May 3, 2025), and join Prof Ndubuisi Ekekwe and our global faculty; click here.