Go-to-Market Strategies & OS Partnerships
Thumtronics has four different strategies for getting the Thummer to market, depending on the kind of deal it can make with future investors.
1. US Independent: Bring the Thummer to market as in independent US firm, climbing up The Long Tail from low-volume “niche” sales in the first couple of years to high-volume “mainstream” sales thereafter.
2. Chinese Independent: As above, but partnering with a Chinese OEM of electronic musical instruments to complete the Thummer’s engineering and undertake its manufacturing.
3. OS Partner: Partnering with an operating system (OS) vendor – Apple, Microsoft, or Sony – to bring Thumtronics’ innovations to market.
4. Open Project: If all else fails, assign Thumtronics’ IP to a non-profit organization which can lead the open, non-profit development of Thumtronics’ innovations.
The Independent options could lead to an OS Partnership, with an OS vendor buying Thumtronics after its products’ potential had been proven in the marketplace.
Why would an OS vendor care about Thumtronics?
OS vendors such as Apple, Microsoft, and Sony are currently fighting a pitched battle to control the technology standards for connected entertainment, including music. This competition has been most obvious to consumers in battles over “downstream” music data formats, such as AAC, WMA, and ATRAC. OS vendors are also competing to gain similar proprietary advantages “upstream.” One example is Apple’s Core Audio, which Apple says “let you do things that are simply not possible on other platforms.”
Thumtronics’ innovations are sufficiently disruptive that an OS vendor could use them to add proprietary value to many of today’s music technology standards (aka embrace and extend or de-commoditization), making its platform even more attractive to the creators of musical content, and giving it greater influence over downstream music-related standards, too.
Any one of Apple, Sony, or Microsoft would benefit from a partnership with Thumtronics, albeit each in different ways.
1. US Independent: Bring the Thummer to market as in independent US firm, climbing up The Long Tail from low-volume “niche” sales in the first couple of years to high-volume “mainstream” sales thereafter.
2. Chinese Independent: As above, but partnering with a Chinese OEM of electronic musical instruments to complete the Thummer’s engineering and undertake its manufacturing.
3. OS Partner: Partnering with an operating system (OS) vendor – Apple, Microsoft, or Sony – to bring Thumtronics’ innovations to market.
4. Open Project: If all else fails, assign Thumtronics’ IP to a non-profit organization which can lead the open, non-profit development of Thumtronics’ innovations.
The Independent options could lead to an OS Partnership, with an OS vendor buying Thumtronics after its products’ potential had been proven in the marketplace.
Why would an OS vendor care about Thumtronics?
OS vendors such as Apple, Microsoft, and Sony are currently fighting a pitched battle to control the technology standards for connected entertainment, including music. This competition has been most obvious to consumers in battles over “downstream” music data formats, such as AAC, WMA, and ATRAC. OS vendors are also competing to gain similar proprietary advantages “upstream.” One example is Apple’s Core Audio, which Apple says “let you do things that are simply not possible on other platforms.”
Thumtronics’ innovations are sufficiently disruptive that an OS vendor could use them to add proprietary value to many of today’s music technology standards (aka embrace and extend or de-commoditization), making its platform even more attractive to the creators of musical content, and giving it greater influence over downstream music-related standards, too.
Any one of Apple, Sony, or Microsoft would benefit from a partnership with Thumtronics, albeit each in different ways.
Labels: de-commoditize, embrace and extend, operating systems, partnerships, strategy, Thummer
2 Comments:
Hi,
Just read the journal article and think your invention is great. Hopefully you are getting lots of interest from it. I am an experienced product manager from the CE industry and I suggest a two pronged strategy:
- work to get an initial version to market quickly. I think you need to get this out there to get it adopted. Plan on doing lots of iterations, making it "cooler looking" in versions 2 and 3, but you need to find that initial foothold
- Design it all in the US but partner as fast as possible with a Far East manufacturer during design
- Sell direct and do distribution deals directly with the big music vendors. Seed the product with some musicians and get it on MTV etc.
Still worth talking to apple, but it's probably not going help you grow your company - won't they just hire you to make it? Also, it will get limited to Apple installed base only.
Good Luck,
John
John --
I agree entirely about the need to get Version 1.0 of the Thummer out the door ASAP. That is my objective for this fund-raising.
The biggest mistake I made so far was in going "one feature too far" by implementing pressure sensitive buttons, which didn't work out. If I implemented simple on/off buttons -- which aren't ideal, but which would have been good enough for version 1.0, given the expressive power of the Thummer's ThumStiks and motion sensors -- then we'd be shipping version 1.0 already.
My goal for this fund-raising is to get Version 1.0 out the door with the fewest possible changes to the existing design (fix the buttons, add motion sensors, pass FCC compliance tests) to get Version 1.0 out the door ASAP.
I also agree that partnering with a Far Eastern manufacturer makes very good sense. By partnering with a firm that can produce Thummers at rock-bottom cost, Thumtronics is less likely to have a different Far Eastern manufacturer undercut Thumtronics on price. I have ongoing discussions with Far Eastern manufacturers with this in mind.
You're also right about seeding the product with musicians. One of the advantages of the Thummer's small size and simplicity is that it makes it very inexpensive to manufacture, which makes seeding a very cost-effective marketing strategy. There are some co-marketing things we can do with appropriate media to magnify the impact of such seedings.
Great ideas, John -- Thanks! :-)
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home