We live in a world where opportunities are inclusive but preparation, on the other hand, is exclusive-or destiny is what we make of our opportunities. However, it’s not enough to know that opportunities abound, are your eye wide open to see and seize them or you are just too busy to see.
In the late twentieth century, Tim Berners-Lee brought the internet close to the world by inventing the World Wide Web. Mark Zuckerberg leveraged on this to create Facebook in 2004 and currently, numerous businesses are leveraging on the digital age to create products and services using improved data management system.
My personal conviction about product or services is that they evolve relative to the culture and needs of humanity. Do you remember the first handheld phone use to weigh about 2 pounds and today an iPhone 8 weighs just 0.38 pounds? This is one of the ideologies that propel people push the boundaries and create new product-services.
The other side of the coin is solely about how businesses or entrepreneurs can ride on the wings of existing business or product. For instance, the partnership between IKEA and TaskRabbit explains it all.
TaskRabbit is simply leveraging on IKEA’s furniture product to create an assembling service for IKEA’s customer base. In modern business, you can leverage on a B2B product and customer base with or without a partnership agreement.
When you buy screen protector or apps for your smartphones they are not necessarily a product of the phone brand. This is B2B leveraging for product-service development or you can call it product development intelligence. This brings me to how this can be achieved in the 21st century. This will be discussed following this pattern, find the rabbit, feed the rabbit and keep the rabbit.
Find the rabbit
This is one of the most difficult aspects of leveraging on an existing B2B. As an entrepreneur, you need to have your ears on the ground to update yourself on what is happening in your niche. You need to be abreast of the new products and the direction the big corporations are going. Then you will be able to anticipate the need of the hour. The need is your rabbit.
There are several ways to find the rabbit if you are ready to put in the time and resources. One way is the annual conferences organized for big corporations to discuss new alliances and the direction of their business.
This might be strictly by invitation but you can always get your hands on the conference news. For example, the General Motors Co at Citi Industrials Conference of June 2016 revealed a lot about the direction and interest of GM in the coming years and a lot of entrepreneurs and businesses took that information to position themselves.
Another way to do this is having access to data and this can be hard to find unless you have the resources to access such information. This information is sometimes informed of customers feedback on a product-services. Achieving success in product or service development and creating profitable business model all come back to data access. This will help improve your prediction and tell if this rabbit if worth your time
Feed the rabbit
If you have identified the rabbit or a need that an existing business or product is not fulfilling then you are in my good books. Fantastic, I must say, well done to you. Now it’s time to catch the rabbit before someone else does.
The first step is to convert the need into a product or service solution and then start marketing the value you will be adding. Deliver the product-services for free to your first set of clients and do not shy away from their feedbacks.
This is simply market test; the data collected in the process will help you improve on your current version of product-services. I am quite fascinated with the MacBack business initiative.
The business trades Macbook devices for cash. You might be wondering what is the rabbit in this case, I will explain. There are times when families and working-class experiences cash crunch and in most cases, they might have gadgets and devices that could be swapped for quick cash.
MacBack has identified this need and positioned itself as a one stop shop for exchanging Macbook devices for cash. Don’t just find the rabbit, feed it by creating a product-service based solution.
Keep the rabbit
Now it’s almost a year and you can tell if this is the right choice or its time to move to something else. However, if your numbers indicate that you should keep the rabbit then you are about to make history.
I always recommend to my clients not to approach the B2B they are leveraging on, rather position themselves to be noticed.
This will give you a higher negotiating power and an indication that you are sitting on a multimillion-dollar innovation.
The best way to keep your rabbit is to form an alliance or partnership with the B2B in such a way that your brand or product will continue to deliver that service.
The IKEA and TaskRabbit is a better example when compared to Facebook and Instagram. By keeping your rabbit, you set a stage for your business or product to transit into a big corporation. Today it is apparent that Facebook owns Instagram and What’s App but TaskRabbit still own their rabbit.