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7 Reasons Why Products Fail

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Why do products fail?  Product failures happen everywhere, even among some of the best and brightest product minds out there.  The real question is: What did these people miss?  What leads to failed products? Let’s explore what product failure is and the 7 primary reasons that product failures happen.

TL;DR

  • Product Failure, in short, is defined as a product that fails to meet the outcomes established for the product in the Product Vision and Objectives & Key Results (OKRs), whether those outcomes are financial, user adoption, or something similar.
  • There are 7 primary reasons products fail, including:
    • The product doesn’t solve the right problems
    • Picked the wrong market
    • Product is too expensive or provides poor value to the customer
    • There are ways to avoid each of these product failure pitfalls
    • One of the best ways product managers can avoid product failure is by starting with the end in mind.

There are ways to avoid each of these product failure pitfalls. One of the best ways product managers can avoid product failure is by starting with the end in mind.

What Is Product Failure?

What is product failure, anyway? Not all failures are catastrophic, where the product is pulled from the market, and the company goes out of business. Most are partial or soft failures.

Failure is falling short of the outcomes, often measured by strategic Objectives & Key Results (OKRs) metrics set for the product. Objectives can be multidimensional and go beyond financial goals for revenue and profit, such as establishing a new competitive advantage or providing a new upsell opportunity for another product.

Product Failure means falling short of the outcome set for the product, often measured by  Objectives & Key Results (OKRs).  Objectives can be multidimensional and go beyond financial goals for revenue and profit, such as establishing a new competitive advantage or providing a new upsell opportunity for another product.

A key reason products fail is that management does not specifically define objectives and quantify what success looks like. If you do not define success, you are less likely to achieve it and you may not even be aware of how the product is failing.

Strategic Objectives to Consider:

  • Financial: Top line revenue, profit, gross margin %, cost of goods sold, cost of sales
  • Development: Cost, time to market, reduce technical debt, increase stability, reduce bugs
  • Buyer adoption: Units sold, repeat customers, adoption within target market segments
  • User adoption: Usage of features, reduction in support calls, ease of use, satisfaction metrics
  • Competition: Closing of feature gaps, increased market share, creating differentiation

Now, let’s discuss the seven reasons that contribute to why products fail.

Why Do Products Fail?

7 Primary Reasons Products Fail

1. Product Doesn’t Solve the Right Problems
2. Picked the Wrong Market
3. Product Is Too Expensive or Provides Poor Value to the Customer
4. Business Case Is Flawed
5. Product Is Not Good Enough/Poor Execution
6. Delayed Market Entry
7. Poor Marketing Plan

Let’s explore each of these reasons for product failure in greater depth.

1 – Product Doesn’t Solve the Right Problems

Lack of Customer Research

Product Management is frequently described as Inbound Marketing. This includes understanding the “needs” of the candidate customers (buyers and users) you are targeting within a given market segment. A customer’s “need” could either be an existing problem or some new thing they aspire to do. The right product solves the most important problems and enables the most desired aspirations.

Market understanding starts with the identifying these needs, but that is only the start. Each need should be quantified in some way.

Examples could include:

  • Cost
  • Time
  • Errors
  • Emotions

In addition, the needs must be prioritized by the customer’s demand and urgency to address the issue.

Beware of taking the “Voice of the Customer” phrase too literally. Customers may or may not be able to describe these needs and can also suggest poor solutions. You need to dig deeper.

Avoid this Product Failure Pitfall: Use Market Research

Product Managers can avoid this pitfall by using market research techniques including observation and empathy interviews with active listening to uncover details you don’t know.

If your product is built based on a hunch of a potential benefit, it could just be a solution looking for a problem. A classic example of this was Google Glass. While the idea was novel, the product served no clear purpose – it wasn’t clear what customer needs it was fulfilling. You can learn more about the Google Glasses failure here: 5 Reasons Why Google Glass was a Miserable Failure – Business 2 Community.

2 – Picked the Wrong Market

Market Segmentation

Another common reason for product failure is trying to pursue the wrong market, or more accurately, the wrong market segmentYour market should be divided into segments using criteria such as region, customer characteristics, or vertical business areas. Once the market segment is defined, including the personas for the buyer and users, then it must be assessed for business potential. Areas to consider include:

Product Managers can start to assess the business potential of candidate markets by using Secondary Quantitative research sources such as Industry reports from Gartner Research. After that, if the market still looks interesting, follow up with Primary Qualitative research to discover the needs, the applicability of your product offering, and customers’ willingness to pay for your solution.

Avoid this Product Failure Pitfall: Satisfy Customer Needs

To avoid picking the wrong market, make sure you can satisfy the customer’s needs and identify that there are enough customers who are willing to pay for your solution to make your product profitable. Your market research here will help support your go-to-market strategy.

3 – Product is Too Expensive or Provides Poor Value to Customer

Value Proposition

Price can certainly contribute to a product failure. A primary consideration is the value proposition to the customer. Value is defined as the ratio of benefits divided by the price. A high-priced and high-quality product can be considered to have a similar value proposition as a low-priced and low-quality product. But is it competitive? Competitive price pressure can pull down your price, even if your value proposition is strong. Also, if there are competitive options available that address part of the solution at a fraction of your price, that can slow the adoption of your product.

Will the market bear the cost at all? In some cases, customers can be constrained by budget independent of the value proposition.

Avoid this Product Failure Pitfall: Develop Comprehensive Pricing Strategies

Product Management can work to avoid these problems by developing comprehensive pricing strategies. Additional elements in these strategies would include predefined price adjustments that sales channels can make in the field to stimulate demand or to close big deals. Examples include volume discounts, seasonal discounts, or adjustments against specific competitors.

4 – Business Case is Flawed

If the customer has a need and you have a product solution, great! But if the business model does not work, your product will fail.

Consider these 3 areas:

1. What does the product cost to build? Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) is the basis for cost-plus pricing for many physical products. The COGS can vary over the life of a product depending on manufacturing volumes and component parts costs. And while we prefer that you use value-based pricing, you must always ensure that your COGS is below your price! Gross margin (GM) % is the second element of cost-plus pricing. Most companies’ corporate strategies demand minimums for GM %.

GM % calculated with the following ratio: (Price – COGS) / Price.

If your COGS is too high, or your GM % is too high, your product price may not be competitive.

2. If your non-recurring product development costs are too high when spread over the number of units sold, the breakeven point for your company’s investment may not be reached and the return on investment will be poor.

3. If your recurring costs for marketing and sales are too high to sell into a market segment, your company’s overall profit can be below expectations.

Avoid this Product Failure Pitfall: Collaborate with Financial Specialists

Product Managers should collaborate with financial specialists, such as controllers, who have business model worksheets and historical data to ensure that the business model looks viable before you invest in developing the product. Working with a controller will also help you build forecasts with the right assumptions, looking at both top-down forecasts based on market data and bottom-up forecasts based on your company’s channel and sales constraints.

5 – Product is Not Good Enough/Poor Execution

Product Adoption Can Suffer

Building a poor product is similar to (but different from) building the wrong product. If your product has limited functionality, competitive gaps, performance issues, or technical issues like stability, the product adoption rates will suffer. Some customers will initially buy, but repeat sales and broader adoption will be limited.

Avoid this Product Failure Pitfall: Understand Different Customer Expectations

Understand that customer expectations are different based on the stage of the Product Lifecycle (PLC). Early-adopter customers in the Introduction Stage are more tolerant to product shortcomings. Pragmatist and Conservative customers in the Growth and Maturity stages of the PLC expect more. They will consider Augmented product features such as warranties, training services, and customer care as well.

"Crossing the Chasm" graph by Geoffrey Moore (1991)

6 – Delayed Market Entry

Go-to-Market Timing

Getting the right product to the right market at the right time can be everything. If your product serves a seasonal market, such as Christmas holidays or tax preparation, timing can make or break your product’s success.

Having the right time to market ahead of the competition can drive higher adoption rates and profitability. If you are first to market with an in-demand product, you get to choose whether to set a low price point to drive faster adoption and gobble up market share, or to set a higher price to skim more profits.

That said, rushing a product to market that is not ready can be disastrous. Some companies overlook the Beta Phase of the Optimal Product Process™—the time to assess whole product readiness as well as testing the product under actual customer conditions. If the product is launched into the market before it’s ready, this can erode customer confidence and limit sales momentum.

Avoid this Product Failure Pitfall: Utilize Beta Program

Product Management can avoid this issue by planning a thorough Beta Program. This must include a full readiness assessment with product features, Marketing materials, and operational readiness of Sales and Support groups. If the product does not pass the assessment, don’t ship it until it does.

7 – Poor Marketing Plan

Move Candidates Through the Funnel

Outbound marketing is key to communicate to candidate buyers, users, and influencers. Proper positioning and messaging are a must to provide understanding of product benefits and competitive differentiation.

If the marketing plan is not effective at moving candidate customers through the different stages of the buying cycle, products can fail. The Product Marketing Manager sets goals for each stage and implements the best methods to drive awareness, interest, evaluation, and commitment to buy. But if the Marketing Plan is poor, the marketing budget is too small, or the marketing program execution is flawed, products can fail.

Avoid this Product Failure Pitfall: Monitor Conversion Rates

Product Marketing Managers must understand and monitor the cause-and-effect relationship of marketing initiative conversion rates. Each activity, from paid-for-search to webinars, has a goal and call to action to move the customer along the sales funnel. Marketing program execution involves constant experimentation and adjustments to the Marketing Mix.

For additional information, see the Marketing Plan template in the Productside Product Lifecycle Toolkit.

Start with the End

How do Product Managers and Product Marketing Managers avoid product failure? Start with the end in mind. Define what success looks like and get the organization behind those goals.

Secondly, avoid the seven reasons above by applying industry best practices in your product process spanning from strategy development, to market research, to marketing program execution.

If you need to find out more about these best practices or develop skills in these areas, consider the Optimal Product Management training course.

UserImages_350x350_0016_KenFeehan
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ken Feehan
VP of Product & Services

Ken has deep experience in the product development and Go-To-Market phases of the product cycle. He has worked/consulted with hardware, software, cloud, infrastructure, and services companies and understands the business needs of each.

His goal is to encourage Product Managers to embrace the ‘Problem Side’ and to truly represent the needs (and wants) of customers. Let’s build products that people want to use and buy!

Ken has worked and consulted for large companies and start-ups. He has experience with cradle-to-grave lifecycle management at hardware companies, felt the pressure of product launches at start-ups, performed forecasting and Product Management for Dolby as it went public, and performed as the Product Owner in fast-moving Agile teams. He has worked with hardware, software, services, apps, cloud, and enterprise companies.
He has 20+ years of Product Management and Product Marketing experience at top companies like Apple, Intuit, Dolby, Elo Touch, and many start-ups and small tech companies. Ken has a BS in International Business Management from Notre Dame de Namur University. Ken has a passion for exciting and delighting customers with outstanding products.

June 27, 2023