This article comes from Haidee Griswold’s insightful talk at our Seattle 2023 Product Marketing Summit, check out her full presentation here.
Haidee is currently the Principal Product Marketer at Amazon Web Services.
What could possibly go wrong when launching an emerging tech product? As it turns out, quite a lot!
I've spent the last 15 years navigating the challenges of bringing new technologies to market, and I've seen my fair share of successes and, let's say, "learning experiences." From developing pitch decks to sell $350 million Boeing 787s to launching Amazon Alexa in third-party products like Sonos and Samsung TVs, I've learned a thing or two about turning innovations into real products.
Throughout this work across B2B, B2C, and even B2G (business-to-government) sectors, I've developed a toolset for anticipating and addressing these challenges before they derail your launch. So, today I want to discuss the common pitfalls I've encountered and what I've learned about avoiding them.
Let’s dive in!
Pitfall #1: Prioritizing the technology over the solution
You know the scenario: Product comes in excited, saying, "We can do this great thing! Let's build it!" You need to watch out for these red flags:
🚩 It seems like a shiny object (because it probably is)
🚩 There's overly technical jargon everywhere
🚩 The conversation is driven by competitive benchmarking rather than customer needs
How to address this:
Get involved as early as possible in the product development cycle. If you don't have a seat at the table, work hard to get one. Once you're there, start asking questions — lots of them:
- What problem are we solving?
- Why this product? Why now?
- What will customers say about this product?
- What's the headline you want to see in the press?
- What's the impact of not making this product?
You don't need to know everything coming in; you just need to show that you care and you're pushing for the best product possible.
Hope Chauland
