Why do some products fail and others succeed?
How do we create genuine value by solving real problems?
These are questions that fascinate (and fuel) me as someone that builds. Every week I take a look at successes and failures in history across industries with the purpose of extracting lessons for Product Managers (and everyone else) to learn and draw inspiration from.
Today we look at Velcro. We focus on the idea and resulting product and not morality, human rights, etc. The Product!
When laces, buttons, hooks, buckles and pins are predominant, why would anyone want to create a new way to fasten garments? Velcro was invented to do the same thing that others have been doing long before it arrived. A new way, for that era, of doing the same thing. This article is focused on the Product and what we can learn from it.
Take walks/other activity: It is important to clear your head and there are many ways to do it. Taking a walk, sitting down quietly, napping or any other way. Whichever you choose it is important for you to refresh and recuperate! It is in this moment that new ideas and fresh perspectives come to mind. When you are constantly doing the work and buried in the activities of that work, chances are you are not seeing anything else outside of the job. Every now and then lift your head up, away from the chaos of the tasks at hand, and see what is around you. George de Mestral, the Swiss Electrical Electronics Engineer, was on a walk (some literatures say hunting trip) when the opportunity for inspiration occurred. The lesson here is to find the time to take a walk or do something else that helps clear your head. I do not know how many walks it took for him (George de Mestral) to encounter this inspiration but learn the lesson.
Pay attention/Observe: We move about our daily lives without much care and attention. Certain things happen that we simply miss. Busy schedules, short attention spans, pressure from life as a whole and (these days) our mobile/smart devices have us hooked. You need to pay attention and properly observe in order to identify/extract a problem from any situation. You do not pay attention if you cannot even see! How will you see if you are not present in the moment? “Your eyes see what your mind wants it to see”. Being present in the moment is the first thing. Seeing is what comes afterwards. Paying attention (to what you are seeing) comes third. Observe properly what you are paying attention to; that’s the next step. As the story goes while on a walk (remember opportunity to clear one’s head and allow for inspiration), George de Mestral noticed burdock burrs sticking to his clothes and his dog's fur. This was what inspired him! Burrs, in Botany, are prickly seed pod or fruit casing covered in tiny hooks that catches on clothing or animal fur. Burdock is a large, wild plant with big leaves that usually has sticky, prickly burrs that easily cling to clothing and animal fur. If you are in an opportunity and cannot even pay attention and observe, then what’s the point? The lesson here for Product Managers is to build their ability to be present in moments outside of work so they can see and eventually pay attention and observe.
Commitment: When you observe something, it takes a lot of commitment to follow through and bring anything of value into reality. George did not just shrug off his observation, he went to work on it! According to the story, George looked at the burrs (from the wild plant burdock) under a microscope and saw hundreds of tiny hooks catching on loops of fabric and fur. George committed to testing several materials to recreate the hooks from the burdock burrs he had observed under a microscope. After years of testing he discovered that heat-treated nylon formed strong, durable hooks. That out of the way, he then created the special loom to cut nylon loops at an angle to form the tiny hooks. The level of commitment here is what I want Product Managers to learn from this story.
Invention/Innovation: While there is a difference between invention and innovation, I will not discuss it here. We need to be inventive Product Managers in order to create something new. The inventor Product Manager is a rarity! To be inventive and innovative Product Managers need to build the ability to exercise their observation abilities. The lesson here is for Product Managers to be an inventor and innovator.
Build it and they’ll come: I will be blunt, this doctrine is old and might not work as it did during the time it was so popular. Usually, I encourage people to start with a real/actual/existing problem! But in order to apply this doctrine in recent times one must be extremely careful!! Think about it for a moment what actual problems existed to motivate George de Mestral to commit to bringing his idea to life? There were other clothing fasteners at THAT TIME. George’s commitment, I would say, was simply the nature of inventors at the time. Something sparked his curiosity and triggered scientific inspiration and he simply ‘gave it a go’. For Product Managers to apply this today they must quickly establish a POC (Proof of Concept). A POC (Proof of Concept) is not a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) but it can suffice to send the message across about what the idea is. POCs can be used to get feedback from a target customer section and modify any ideas.
Another way is to FIRST establish a real/actual problem that might not be immediately obvious to a larger number of people, yet. Have that problem as the basis to move towards an MVP. Present the MVP to the market and collect as much feedback as possible. The difference between the POC and the MVP is that the MVP is a simple version of the Product that is built into reality and can be more practical than theory. The POC is more simulation/description/presentation of the idea and can be more theory than practical, depending on the situation. The lesson here is to know which to use in order to apply this in today’s era. Again be very cautious as it is dated doctrine!!Perseverance: How do we know when to kill an idea? Really what is the time frame to ensure we are not in the territory of ‘sunk-cost fallacy’? Do we kill or pivot an idea? The lesson here is to be mindful on what we preserver on! The level of perseverance that George showed is just significant of the era/time period. There was no guarantee that he would have succeeded! If you have found a genuine problem that has triggered your inner urge to invent and innovate then keep pushing. That’s the lesson for Product Managers here.
Actual problem: Velcro is a way to fasten garments! That is an actual problem!! While there were other methods of fastening garments in that time period it was still a problem. The lesson here is to focus on real/actual/existing problems. Now, do not just identify a problem, you have to understand the problem and spend time in the problem space.
As I have mentioned there is a rarity in the Product Manager space. I refer to this rarity as ‘Inventor Product Managers’. It is possible for Product Managers to be inventors and innovators. That’s the essence of this article and my entire newsletter as a whole: https://lnkd.in/eZVmuq-7 .
Join me every week as I look into histories from diverse industries and extract lessons for Product Managers.
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H-J Johnson
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