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Monetizing Innovation: How Smart Companies Design the Product Around the Price

by Madhavan Ramanujam & Georg Tacke · 2016

In a nutshell

Madhavan Ramanujam's willingness-to-pay discovery equips founders to price-test before building, preventing feature shock and undead products in pivots. Frameworks like innovation failure types and 9 pricing rules for profitable launches; execution-focused vs Porter's structural analysis.

Overview

Simon-Kucher partners reveal how to design products around price, not price around products. Based on 30 years of pricing consulting.

The Four Types of Innovation Failure

  1. Feature Shock: Too many features
  2. Minivation: Too few benefits
  3. Hidden Gem: Poor positioning
  4. Undead: Should never have been built

The 9 Rules

  • Have the willingness-to-pay talk early
  • Don't default to premium or penetration
  • Use product configuration to segment
  • Plan for different price points
  • Build a monetization model early

Key Insight

Understanding what customers will pay BEFORE you build prevents wasted development.

Published by Wiley 2016.

Reference

Monetizing Innovation: How Smart Companies Design the Product Around the Price — publisher / official page. Summary adapted from the Awesome Startup Books collection.

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