Chapter 6: Preemptive Ventures Are Often Winners

Overview

New business ventures that are preemptive generally have a greater chance of success than those that are not. Many successful new business ventures have been true breakthroughs that jumped years ahead of their competition. If your new product is viewed as ˜ ˜the only alternative, you will significantly increase the odds of your success.

The Treo from Handspring, Inc., was one of the first devices to integrate a mobile phone, Palm OS ^TM organizer, and wireless data applications in one compact, full- color communicator. Handspring ^TM was founded by some of the same people who founded Palm and invented the Palm Pilot.

The company began by producing a product called Visor, which was an organizer that had an expansion slot called Springboard that allowed the user to add a number of different functions to the unit, including wireless capability. The Visor was a little less expensive than Palm s products at the time, and it came in a number of different colors, which made it stand out. In addition to selling directly over the Internet, Handspring achieved national distribution for Visor in the major office supply, computer, and electronics stores. Visor quickly became a significant alternative to the Palm Pilot.

One of the original visions of the founders of Handspring was to add wireless capability to an organizer. This came from spending a lot of time with individual users of organizers. These one-on-one observations and discussions with Visor customers and users of competitive products were typically not done in formal settings. They took place in locations where organizers and other portable devices are often used, such as restaurants , while traveling, and even while sitting in traffic in their cars .

An example of these interviews is one that took place in a business meeting with a user of multiple devices. This person was carrying three different devices: a mobile phone on her belt, a Palm V organizer in her purse, and a Blackberry wireless device in her pocket. She also had a variety of different power cables and cradles for these different devices in her briefcase. During the lunch , as she was juggling all these devices, she said, ˜ ˜Why do I have all these things? I want to have just one thing. It was this user observation, and others like it, that ultimately led to the creation of the Treo.

Based on this understanding of unfulfilled customer needs, Handspring began to experiment with wireless devices. Handspring s first wireless product, called the Visor Phone, was a Springboard module that added phone capability to a Visor. The Visor Phone enabled Handspring to learn a lot about building wireless products and a lot about working with wireless carriers . From its interviews with and observations of users, however, the company knew that there was much more to do. There was an obvious need for effective Web access. Handspring could also see that the phone networks were becoming good enough on the data side for a high-quality merged device.