Markets Driven by Customer Need
Products must meet needs important to the customer. The bigger the need and the better the solution, the more the market "pulls" products i.e. the more immediate the demand. The easier the implementation and the greater the value, the faster a market grows. The size of a market is defined by how many customers, now and in the future, have the need and can reasonably be expected to purchase. Great product success can also actually create their own markets. Education and awareness spawned by success can attract new customers.
Examples:
Visicalc, the easy to use personal computer spreadsheet
Sun Workstation, a personal/affordable high performance
open system Unix workstation
Amazon.com, The one stop, one click, on-line bookseller
for virtually any book in print
Sony Walkman, The truly portable personal stereo system.
This is in contrast with technology driven (technology push) push products where:
1) Initial market development is slow and often expensive
2) Real product advantage is not initially useable or the
customer does not have an obvious need
Examples:
Bell Labs Transistor Replaced the vacuum tube with great
benefits in power,reliability, power savings, size reduction,
speed, and cost
Intel Microprocessor Replaced TTL hardwired logic with
great benefits in power,reliability, power savings, size
reduction, speed, and cost
The technology "push" products created huge markets but, they require huge budgets to develop and market.
Customer driven products are much more likely to lead to early success particularly given limited start-up resources and time to market challenges. Product success is however less defendable competitively and requires a "running game" strategy of relentless innovation.