5 Failed Product Launches and How to Avoid Repeating Their Mistakes: Let’s imagine that you’ve invented the next great thing: a travel-sized jetpack that allows anyone the chance to soar through the air! Everything looks good, the day of the product launch comes around…and the jetpack shorts out and catches fire as soon as you turn it on. Your sales tank and your product are a goner.
Thankfully, there are ways to learn from the mistakes of others and avoid tanking your product. But what are these lessons?
Well, that’s where we come in with our list of the top 5 failed product launches and how to avoid repeating those mistakes!
But enough preamble! Let’s dive right into things!
Each chief needs to achieve success. No person goes into the enterprise to fail. However, to really discover deep, long-lasting success, you could study to anticipate failure and personalize it when it occurs.
When confronted with a process you’ve by no means finished earlier than, count on failure and search the recommendation of colleagues and friends who could also be extra skilled in this space. Speak to different individuals who’ve dealt with related initiatives, and ask them about classes discovered and what conditions you must anticipate (and plan for).
Within the army, they plan for failure by after-action evaluations. This structured debriefing course helps a staff analyze what occurred, why it occurred, and what will be finished at a higher subsequent time. This data is then utilized in future initiatives and occasions.
Chances are high, irrespective of how a lot of testing you do beforehand, prospects will discover an approach to break the one you love new widget or use a service in unintended methods. Then what?
As a substitute of getting pissed off by buyer complaints or deciding the service has failed, take into account this a possibility to study new makes use of in your product that hadn’t occurred to you earlier than. Perhaps by your failure, you’ve discovered a beforehand unidentified area of interest market.
Each failure contains nuggets of success in the event you search for them. As a pacesetter, it’s important you discover and have fun with these issues that went proper.
As an illustration, perhaps your staff didn’t make their gross sales purpose this month. However within the course of, perhaps they discovered to shut offers sooner or found a brand new market with a great deal of potential.
That’s a win for the entire group, so declare it as such.
Or, perhaps you got a stretch undertaking that required you to supervise a bigger price range than you’ve ever managed earlier than – and prices received out of hand. As a substitute for dwelling on the unfavorable, give attention to the positives gained.
What did you study from the expertise? How will it make you higher ready for overseeing bigger budgets down the highway?
Settle for that you just and your workers will make the occasional misstep – typically many – as you pursue new markets or create new providers. And whenever you do, analyze what you probably did proper, in addition to what you probably did mistaken, and file these classes away for the subsequent project.
Don’t let administration errors get you down. Studying from failure may help you persistently enhance as a pacesetter. For extra tips about learning how to develop your management expertise, obtain our free e-book, The Insperity information to management and administration.
1. The Nintendo Virtual Boy
In 1994, Nintendo unveiled the Virtual Boy console in Tokyo, Japan as an early way to take video games into the realm of virtual reality. Instead of delivering the future, however, they delivered an eyesore of a console that gave players headaches and had a sub-par game library. Development of the Virtual Boy was also haphazard, as Nintendo pulled workers off of the Virtual Boy towards their bigger flagship console of the time (the Nintendo 64).
The lesson to learn here is that every product your company manufactures should get the time it needs to flourish and deliver on whatever promise you proclaim it to make. Otherwise, you end up with an unsellable hunk of junk.
2. Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7
Remember a few years ago when all the articles about exploding smartphones and tablets hit the stands? Well, the smartphone/tablet hybrid Galaxy Note 7 (courtesy of Samsung) was one of the frontrunners of the pack. Due to issues within the battery, the device would catch fire when used, leading to a massive recall of the product. Samsung pledged to undergo much stricter product testing in the future before releasing to market, something you can adopt in your company.
3. McDonald’s Arch Deluxe
When it comes to releasing a quality product, it’s important to know your audience. McDonald’s ignored that lesson with the launch of the Arch Deluxe, a fancier sandwich intended to show McDonald’s foray into “higher-class” cuisine. Of course, that didn’t vibe well with the pre-existing crowd of fast-food eaters McDonald’s had, and the sandwich was soon taken off the menu for good.
4. MedCline and Therapy Devices
MedCline was a therapy device manufacturer with good customer ratings and solid wares until a few people found the product wasn’t working for them and asked for refunds. MedCline’s terrible planning soon came into focus, as they lacked staf and had far too little product to meet the demand. If they had established pre-order and inventory management through tools like Min/Max quantities for WooCommerce, this whole mess could have been avoided.
5. The Orbitz Drink
Orbitz tried to break into the beverage game with their special concoction, a fruit-flavored drink with tiny gelatin balls inside. Without a clear identity for the drink and an unappealing design, it wasn’t long until Orbitz faded into obscurity. Making sure your product has a charming visual design and clear definition will help you avoid a similar fate.
Use the Knowledge of Failed Product Launches to Save Your Product
So, now that you’ve seen the top 5 failed product launches, you know how to fix your product so it dodges all these pitfalls! And if you want even more tips on making big sales with top-tier products, make sure to check out the other posts on our blog!
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