

Why Most Product Launches Fail - thankuz
http://hbr.org/2011/04/why-most-product-launches-fail/ar/1

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philwelch
Note than when HBR says "fail", they really mean (direct quote) "fail to earn
even $7.5 million during their first year".

If you're an established business sinking millions into product development,
earning $5 million in the first year of a new product is a disaster. From the
startup perspective, earning $5 million in the first year is not a bad
outcome. So some of the advice in this (especially the part about launching
late) is a lot less applicable.

Other pieces of advice, like making sure the product is actually usable and
communicating to your customers what it does and why they want it, and even
scaling to meet demand are classic startup issues.

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mbesto
HBR has some other great new articles in its "Failure Issue"
<http://hbr.org/special-collections/spotlights/2011/apr>

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rob08
All pages link: <http://hbr.org/2011/04/why-most-product-launches-fail/ar/pr>
(for Instapaper users)

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greenspan
I really would like to know more! There are over 1 million patents waiting to
go through the U.S. Patent office and into production.... What does this mean
for all the inventors out there? Especially those really making revolutionary
products... if you know it is guaranteed to reach a certain standard deviation
of sales, then you can watch your expenses and costs and try to allocate them
more properly to reach other parts of the sales spectrum...

