393: Tech-driven vs. market-driven innovation – with John Cooley, PhD

Insights for product managers from a case study with an electric vehicle gamechanger

Today we are exploring technology-driven vs. market-driven innovation. I want to set up the topic for us a bit. There are times that a technology comes first and later a problem associated with a market need is found that the technology addresses. Examples include the glue that made 3M’s Post-it-Notes possible 7 years after the glue was invented, an electric actuator Caterpillar invented that went unused until they later created a digger that couldn’t use their standard hydraulics platform, or the magnetic research my daughter is doing as a physics student, studying spin wave properties, for applications that are yet to be discovered.

However, I find market-driven innovation is more common—the wants and unmet needs of customers are first discovered and then solutions are considered. This is the innovation process seen in the Jobs-to-be-Done methodology and described in many books including The Innovator’s Method.

To help us compare and contrast these approaches, Dr. John Cooley is with us. John has five technology degrees from MIT, starting with dual bachelors in electrical engineering (EE) and physics and including a PhD in EE. He founded Nanoramic in 2009 and now serves as the Chief of Products and Innovation. Nanoramic is a nanocarbon composites engineering company, currently working on electric vehicle batteries by reducing their costs while increasing their energy density (more energy in smaller and lighter batteries) and at the same time providing rapid charging.

Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers

[3:21] How do you view the value of pure research and market-driven research?

At Nanoramic, we have developed a product development business model. Some of our products are market-driven and some are technology-driven. We recognize there always needs to be a market-driven aspect for a successful product. Even if we start with a cool technology, we link that development to the market. Our product development has a large surface area in contact with the outside world. We create ways for our product development teams to interact with customers and get feedback that they formalize into the product development process.

We look for sensors to sense the market need. The most effective sensor is customer interaction with an existing product. In a conversation about an existing product, what does the customer say they would want instead?

A lot of products come from market need, but we have developed products starting with technology. Our original energy storage technology was a technology-driven innovation. It was a highly efficient electrode technology for a niche energy storage device called a supercapacitor. We had a way of making electrodes with a uniform array of nanotubes, which had advantages for ion transport and overall efficiency. We connect innovations like this to clean tech.

Another example is our business line Thermexit focused on polymer composites and products. Our key product line is a thermal interface for electronics systems. It helps dissipate heat from electronic components, which is crucial for performance because the efficiency with which you can remove heat is directly related to performance. This technology began while we were studying carbon nanotubes and other nanocarbons. Some of the composites we created had very interesting properties like high thermal connectivity. At an investor meeting at MIT, we talked about how we would use our technology for thermal interface materials, and everybody got excited. We eventually developed a product and found the market in high-performance consumer electronics. That’s an example of a product that started from a bunch of nerds in the lab working on something we thought was cool. Later we found the application as the technology developed, and we turned it into a product that is a successfu...