Why I Enjoy Working with Emerging Technology and Products

The question is innocuous enough, you’re at a networking event or the person next on a plane has struck up a conversation and asks “What do you do?” The short answer (after cycling through my thoughts how many NDAs I’m under), is “I help bring emerging products and technology to market”.

I’m sitting in a conference room, enjoying the sun reflecting off the mountain range, meeting with a group of research scientists (who have more letters of achievement after their name than in their name) and software developers. They’ve just walked me through a piece of IP they’ve been researching developing and are interested in taking into the commercial marketplace.

The group has asked me to conduct initial research about the market space, size, potential demand estimates, who the incumbents are currently and a high-level strategy on what is needed to get to market entry. This could cover a number of areas — who owns the IP? Does it need to be licensed and/or a company formed? What resources (and their competencies) are available and what does the team need to move forward?

So how does it work?

My adventures as a consultant have provided me enough exposure to various markets to recognize the segment which I am most engaged and effective.

How do we get customers and realize revenues?

Before we even getting to market entry discussions, the first part of any conversation is envisioning what this product/tool/technology does… what is it? what does it solve and who might be interested?
Solutions and implementations are as broad and diverse as shells on a beach and there’s takeaways to be learned from each.

My challenge is having these conversations at a more micro-level, with one or two stakeholders (or founders) who at this point may have an idea, a piece of IP like illustrated above, or a prototype with or without a company in place around it.

I am an ENTP (for those of you Myers-Briggs fans) and I find my ability to creatively envision what the solutions could be moves the needle in creating initial shape and a starting point around commercializing the product/tool/technology.

In addition to envisioning “what could be” there is also learning and decision making at high speed in unfamiliar markets in order to define a tactical strategy. I also do a lot of listening to both what will make the endeavor successful for my client as well as their biggest fears (read: risk). Taken all together, we work out a roadmap for actionable next-steps.

Regardless of industry, business size, market size, and in some cases there isn’t an actual product to be developed, when I see my client’s eyes light up with possibilities for the product, or we’ve just spent some time analyzing and learning from market and potential customer’s expectations, there’s the satisfaction and excitement of knowing I’ve helped take an idea and showed how it could become tangible.

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Kris Pennella (@krispennella) is a Product and Strategy Management Consultant currently based in Portland OR. She has experience building and launching companies from back-of-the-napkin ideas into full fledged companies in diverse markets. When not consulting you can find her contributing to open source projects, mentoring @piepdx or attempting to create the ultimate loaf of sour rye bread.