Kamen had recognized the value the Segway was supposed to offer, especially compared to cars. Technology innovation is the creation of a product or service feature that focuses on new or improved technology. Often, the technology is cited as the differentiating factor. The utility of the technology is put front and center, with an expectation that buyers will find a use for it either now or later. In hindsight, the self-balancing was gimmicky — it looked cool but offered little real utility.
Furthermore, it was dangerous for people who could not already balance on a scooter or bicycle. The big battery was unnecessary as people tend to scoot to places where they can recharge. Few people, if any, need to zoom around on a scooter all day. Finally, the large form factor made the Segway impossible for sidewalks or streets, too large to bring to office buildings, and an eyesore when stored at home.
The price was entirely out of sync with the utility the Segway offered. E-scooters, in contrast, are an example of what Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne call value innovation , which is the cornerstone of blue ocean strategy. Value innovation is the simultaneous pursuit of differentiation and low cost.
The company hoped to sell , Segways in its first 13 months but sold only , over the nearly two-decade lifetime of the product. Shutting down production next month only means laying off 21 people. The key problem was that Kamen and his supporters convinced themselves that cities would be redesigned to adapt to the Segway — a colossally bold claim that, alas, turned out not to come true.
In the meantime, the Segway was going to have to either fit on the street or on the sidewalk, and it did neither well. The sidewalk would work, in theory, but only in light traffic. Streets are a nonstarter. Someone on a Segway would be moving much slower than the rest of traffic and without the protection that tons of metal provide for those in vehicles.
Even in a modified bike lane, the bikes and Segways could wind up going at very different speeds and getting tangled up. There conceivably was a strategy to be had by working from the edges in. Perhaps if Kamen had seeded smaller cities, as Lime, Bird and other scooter companies are now doing while facing their own troubles , and let popularity build in ways that would attract bigger markets.
Perhaps if Segway had gone after discrete markets in controlled environments, such as warehouse workers, tourists in areas without cars and — dare I say it? The good news is that insurers can learn from the Segway mistakes and, based on the thought leadership I see in the industry, are, in fact, beginning to pay serious attention to the demands of and opportunities in ecosystems.
There would seem to be loads of such opportunities to bundle insurance distribution into car and home sales and all sorts of services supplied to businesses. Having someone join your ecosystem would, likewise, be straightforward. If Segway had focused on one initial market, developed for those needs, and won that market it would have started a step-wise program toward more applications and success.
By thinking the general market would figure out how to use its product, and someone else would develop applications for specific market needs, Segway's leaders missed the opportunity to truly disrupt one market and start the path toward wider success. The Fire Phone had a great opportunity to grow which it missed.
The Fire Phone had several features making it great for on-line shopping, or use in retail stores. But the launch team did not focus, focus, focus on the retail application.
They did not keep developing apps, databases and ways of using the product for retailing so that avid shoppers found the Fire Phone superior for their needs. Instead the Fire Phone was launched as a mass-market device. Its retail attributes were largely lost in comparisons with other general purpose smartphones.
There were plenty of smartphones on the market. Another smartphone wasn't needed - unless it fulfilled the unmet needs of some select market so well that those specific users would say "if you do Which almost everyone did, waiting for the iPhone 6 launch.
This was the same problem launching Google Glass. Glass caught the imagination of many tech reviewers. Everyone I knew who put on Glass said it was really cool. But there wasn't any one thing Glass did so well that some segment of folks said "I have to have Glass. And Google didn't improve Glass in specific ways for an application to attract users from a target market to buy Glass.
In the end, by trying to be a "cool tool" for everyone Glass ended up being something nobody really needed. Exactly like Segway. Microsoft recently launched its Hololens. It was small enough to ride inside a building or into an elevator, but at pounds, it was too heavy to carry up stairs. It also required the rider to be "that guy" and it was almost always a guy , rolling his electric scooter around the lobby and corridors of his office building.
And then you need to park it. It's hard enough to get cities to embrace the bicycle, something that's been around for a century and a half, and to design their streets around it. And, though many bikers look ridiculous in their skin-tight racing outfits, at least they're getting a workout.
The Segway was perhaps the laziest mode of transportation around. I got called lazy more times than I could count. Like the troubled Google Glass , another supposedly "revolutionary" product, the Segway invited mockery, not awe.
President Bush, center, momentarily loses his balance while riding a segway personal transporter in Kennebunkport, Maine, Thursday, June 12, Steve Jobs warned Kamen the Segway's image could be ruined by a single rider falling off and hurting themselves.
Three high profile incidents soon followed: In , President George W.
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