Take the money! Don’t try to reposition your product so that the intended customers use it as intended. But learn where and why you are succeeding, then adjust.
~ Guy Kawasaki (paraphrased from The Art of the Start)
Vibram Fiver Fingers, the ridiculous-looking reptilian like footwear, have been idolized in the running community as the perfect tool for barefoot runners.
However, Vibram’s intention was never to change the world of running. The shoe was created for sailors.
In fact, the evolution of the Five Fingers is a poster child example of how to adapt to an unintended customer base and shift a product’s market positioning based on actual real world customer use and feedback.
The Five Fingers Evolution
As an avid sailor, Marco Bramani, the grandson of Vibram’s founder, was inspired by the idea of footwear that could protect his feet from dangerous rigging and obstacles on board while delivering a surefooted grip on deck. And the Five Finger was his attempt to create a better boat shoe.
Five Finger website at product launch, cerca 2006
The shoe was launched and positioned as an alternative for boaters and water sports enthusiast alike. However, after the initial launch, the Five Fingers team noticed their product catching on among a different and unintended niche market, runners.
As Derek Silvers argues in his 2010 TED talk, the most important part of starting a movement is recognizing and accepting your first followers as equals, and then nurturing them as evangelists to take your idea from nutty theory to mainstream product.
In the case of the Five Fingers, Vibram latched on to their innovative mega-early adopters who saw potential in the shoe for barefoot runners.
Barefoot Ted, an avid barefoot runner and blogger, was one of these first evangelists.
I liked the product so much I contacted Vibram to let them know. When I told them how much I liked the product and that I was using them for running they were pretty surprised. Now they provide me with product to test and report back [and] they help pay for some of my travel expenses for races.
Vibram could of easily beefed up their marketing and taught people that their innovative footwear was supposed to revolutionize sailing. Instead, they listened to their unintended customers and repositioned their business to capture this new obsessive and passionate user base.
In April of this year, Vibram launched the Bikila, the first Five Fingers model made specifically for barefoot runners.
Guy Kawasaki, serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist, urges company founders to listen to their unintended customers and take the money!
Assuming you know exactly what the market wants and exactly who your customers are is a big bet. Be innovative in bringing something new to the marketplace, but when your customers speak, even if they aren’t the “right” ones, you should listen.
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Don’t Forget the Little Guys: Pens Increase African School Attendance by 30%
I ran across this statistic the other day and was struck by the impact of such a relatively simple and focused initiative – supply pens to poverty stricken grammar schools in Africa to boost attendance.
It’s the perfect example of how a small investment directed toward a very narrow and relatively unknown problem can make a dramatic impact on the 3rd world.
Since 2007, the NYC based organization, Goods4Good, has run an initiative called Pens for Progress that supplies pens and other basic materials to classrooms in Malawi that don’t have enough supplies to support their student base (recently they procured a generous donation of over 90,000 items from BIC Malawi) .
From 2008 to 2009, Goods4Good reported that attendance in their participating schools had increased by 30% due to the simple addition of these pens in the classroom. Similarly, a study in Kenya found that giving girls a new $6 school uniform every 18 months significantly reduced school dropout rates and pregnancy rates. And yet another concluded that offering free lunches rose attendance by nearly 100%!
The impact of these simple initiatives is far more powerful than what is presented at face value. Increasing school attendance creates ripple effects that extend far beyond the classroom or any singular African community. As education levels increase in Sub-Sahara African countries, so does their attractiveness to foreign multinational corporations as hubs for expansion and investment – the main resource for economic development in the region.
From 2000 to 2008, foreign direct investment to Sub-Saharan Africa from outside corporations increased from $6.7 billion to $32.4 billion. A substantial increase and a positive trend that speaks to the progression of the continent. It’s these major business investments that will be responsible for driving positive social impact and growth going forward by creating the jobs that allow people to make a living.
However, since these large dollar investments by corporations are the easiest to point to as catalysts of long-term change, it’s easy to forget the impact of the little guys. At the core of Africa’s progress lies the efforts of the grassroots organizations, like Goods4Good, who are taking the small, more focused steps to make significant gains in education and, in turn, laying the foundation for sustainable long term economic growth.
I love being reminded, through statics like the one above, that it’s the little changes made by the small focused players that are making the most important impacts. They deserve our support.
Goods4Good matches excess goods with the needs of orphans and vulnerable children in the developing world. If you want to get involved, you can contact them at info@goods4good.org or visit them at Goods4Good.org
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