Scott Berkun

7 Responses

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• P. Smith - February 17, 2010 at 11:13 am #

• I love this, Scott. I’ve been working on some material for a presentation about innovation in hopes of dispelling some misconceptions about “innovation” (i.e. first to market wins, it’s about products, etc.) which are all covered very well in Myths of Innovation. One of the points I’m exploring is that incremental innovation isn’t really a bad thing at all. I was going to use the Camry (or Honda Accord) as an example of an incremental innovation that has earned Toyota a ton of revenue. There was nothing really new about the product, but its reliability and the fit/finish/functionality of that particular car hit home runs across a huge demographic. The Honda Cub is even better an even better example. Keep the good content coming.

  
  

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• Leif Utne - February 17, 2010 at 1:51 pm #

• Good point, Scott. Creating products that address core needs simply, reliably, and cheaply is the key to mass success.

  The Super Cub is like the netbook of motorcycles. For the past 15 years laptop marketers have used the sports car model to push their products, appealing to people’s lust for more power and speed, even though most computer users never do video production or hard-core gaming. The netbook, on the other hand, does about 95% of what 95% of users spend 95% of their time doing — email and web browsing. It does those things well — not blazing-fast, but good enough for most. And it does them cheaply. Cheap enough to upend the entire laptop market and open up huge new markets across the developing world, where millions of people can now afford their first computer.

  Tata Motors of India, maker of the super-cheap (US$2160 as of December 2009), super-efficient Tata Nano, understands this. Haier, the Chinese appliance manufacturer that dominates in Africa and Latin America, understands this. WalMart understands it, too.

  The more interesting question, to me, is how to spread simple, reliable, and cheap products sustainably. I’ll noodle on that some and get back to you.

  
  

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• Stoakley - February 17, 2010 at 1:52 pm #

• Recently, a large auto manufacturer was touting it’s brand new, computer designed, hyper efficient, 2-wheeled vehicle. To this, Honda responded … “that’s nice, we’ve been building the equally efficient Super Cub (340 mpg) since 1958 and have sold 60M of them … way to catch up big auto manufacturer”. I was so struck by my complete unfamiliarity with this vehicle and it’s unquestionable success that I knew there were lessons here.

  Consumer “over-estimation of need” is really the interesting point to scrutinize. First, what’s the cultural difference that makes the Super Cub successful elsewhere, but not in the US. Are other cultures better at understanding their needs, or are they satisfied meeting their needs without “excess”, or is it a question of necessity (limited money, vast distance to cover and limited repair facilities)? Second, is it the consumer’s fault that they over-estimate their needs, or is it marketing’s fault for putting us on the treadmill towards “bigger, better, stronger, faster”?

  Scott, Thanks for the analysis.

  
  

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• parsley72 - February 17, 2010 at 2:57 pm #

• I saw a TV show once where they announced the Cub was the best selling vehicle of all time. They tested it by dropping it off a roof then replaced the oil with cooking oil, after which it still ran. Now that’s reliability!

  
  

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• matt mcknight - February 22, 2010 at 3:52 pm #

• “it

  
  

Links to this article

• links for 2010-02-17 | Kabam! - February 17, 2010 at 6:03 pm

• [...] Lessons from best vehicle of all time

  
  

• links for 2010-02-18 « Design in Africa - February 18, 2010 at 9:03 am

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