Question

You are a student staying home during the COVID-19 pandemic. You discover a need in the market for a new product. Suppose you want to start a company to sell this new product and fill the market gap.

a) How will your company create and capture value in such uncertain times?

b) What do you foresee for the future of your company as the pandemic slows? How will you maintain market share?

Answer 1

a) The product can be an online digital product that can be developed at home during the quarantine/lockdown situations everywhere. The company will first need people to design the technical aspects of the product based on my idea. This will then need to be developed, tested by the company, tested by users (beta testing) and finally launched to customers. As a student it is important to me to keep the costs down which can be done -

- using angel investors (a little unlikely in this time and with only a student's idea, reaching out to contacts might be able to bring in an initial cashflow to start things up)

- using only open source software and tools is a great way to build software that costs less than others in the market. There are a lot of open source possibilities in the public domain and these can be reviewed to find the best option for the proposed product

- engaging developers/students around the world who might want to contribute and are ok with a delayed payment mechanism that will only kick in after the product is launched and starts making sales. A lot of game and software developers love to code for the pure joy of it and will gladly pitch in if the idea is one that resonates with them - healthcare related, alleviation of suffering, global community building etc.

One primary part of starting a company and creating value is to identify all the aspects of value that the product can bring to consumers - e.g. an interface that promotes knowledge sharing among individuals around the world could be used by one set of users to get the information and the other set to publish content. Online surveys are an effective tool that can be utilised to gather what the customers think is their need and how best to fulfil it. This can uncover aspects previously not thought of and allow you to create a better product that will delight customers.

Once the product is created and launched it can be used to get the 'voice of customer' feedback by -

- Beta testing - identify a small sample group that mirrors the larger customer base and ask them to use the product for free to help in isolating any issues, challenges, bugs.

- Official launch and feedback from paying customers - paying customers are likely to be more critical and initial feedback will bring in a lot of inputs that were not considered earlier. These can be incorporated in the early months to ensure the product keeps evolving and getting better.

Value can be defined in revenue, rating on play store/amazon etc., customer satisfaction surveys, all of which can be tracked geographically to help understand the different receptions of the product.

b) As the pandemic slows, it is expected that regular lifestyles are likely to be recommenced. However, it is generally agreed that some changes are likely to persist for some months/years. The current preponderance of technology usage might be eschewed in favour of outdoor activities. This could cause a drastic drop in usage of this product which is why it is crucial that the product's lifecycle include aspects that allow it to integrate into any changes that might come. If the social distancing needs to continue through to next year the app should be able to handle additional customers as more and more sign on. The company will have to forecast several quarters ahead to see if the product will remain viable in different circumstances or of it will be unable to adapt and decline. Effective planning from feedback will also ensure any product changes are planned well to allow for a smoother transition back into a world without a pandemic - this can include physical extensions to the application such as talks/seminars etc that can reiterate the same content but in a different form, it can also look at partnerships and joint ventures that allow the product to be more multi-dimensional in nature.

As the world slowly changes back to its frantic pace, it will be a good idea to adapt the product or provide features that help integrate it to the newer speed e.g. shorter reads/summaries of news articles to accommodate consumers who might like to read during their commute. Building a substantial market share will require that the product be proliferated across the usual boundaries of geography, age, sex, race etc. The easier the product is to be adaptable (e.g. language support, bigger font for senior population) the larger the prospective customer base is likely to be.