Module 14•Unit 5 of 5•10 min

Case Study: The Segway

In 2001, inventor Dean Kamen unveiled the Segway Personal Transporter amid extraordinary hype. Backers reportedly predicted it would reshape cities and reach a billion dollars in sales faster than any product in history. The technology - self-balancing, gyroscopically stabilised - was genuinely brilliant. And yet the Segway became one of the most famous innovation failures of the century. Why? Because it was a dazzling solution in search of a need.

Technology-push, not need-pull

The Segway started from what the technology could do, not from a real, important, unsatisfied human need. It answered a question few people were actually asking - and no amount of engineering brilliance can fix that.

Where needfinding was missing

Click each factor to reveal what went wrong.

The lesson

The Segway is the anti-Swiffer. Brilliant technology, launched without grounding in a real, important, unsatisfied need, fails no matter how clever it is. Needfinding is not a nicety you do if there is time - it is the difference between innovation and an expensive invention nobody wanted.

Discuss

Is anything on your roadmap a ‘Segway’ - impressive technology in search of a need? How would you honestly test whether the need is real before betting big?

Try this at work this week

For your most technology-driven idea, write the specific important, unsatisfied need it serves and the evidence that need is real. If you cannot, you may be holding a Segway - go do needfinding before you build.

Sources

Kemper, S., Reinventing the Wheel: A Story of Genius, Innovation, and Grand Ambition, 2005 (Segway).
Harvard Business School, Segway case discussions.
Global Innovation Institute (GInI), Foundations of Innovation body of knowledge.

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