Why Market Research is a Routine Task
The tablet market was proliferating in 2014.
Everyone expected Tablets to take over as our daily drivers.
TechCrunch article from the start of July 2014
I remember people showing off their first iPad, telling me with a smug face that everyone would be swapping their laptops for tablets. Well, it’s 2022, and I’ve met 2 or 3 people who use an iPad as a daily driver. What happened?
Well, it caught the whole market by surprise. Everyone expected tablets to take over completely. But suddenly, seemingly overnight, the tablet market stagnated. Everyone who wanted a tablet bought one, and almost as quick as tablets were growing in market share, the demand and growth declined 10x quicker until settling.
CNBC Financial Times Article from the end of July 2014
Competitors were releasing “hybrid tablets/notebooks”. Chromebooks also just came onto the scene. Innovation halted a rapidly growing market by releasing a product that isn’t 10x better than the competitors, but a product that takes the benefits of the trendy product (an affordable and mobile computer with a touch-screen interface) and combines that with the utility of what has worked for years before, the laptop. To re-invent the tablet and the laptop industry and create the incredibly popular segment today; the notebook market.
The Apple Macbook Air is their most popular Mac to date (a notebook), and for a good reason. It's thin and light, performs very well, and is the most affordable and mobile “computer” Apple sells. Chromebooks are taking over schools and replacing iPads at the rate of knots because they are equally capable and much cheaper to replace when they break while still being portable and easy to use.
How do we learn from this?
Don’t get me wrong. There’s 100% a solid use-case for iPads and the likes. My mum loves hers! I’ve worked with content creators who also use iPad Pros daily (granted, most have a notebook/MacBook). But one essential accessory has allowed iPads to grasp a respectable market share in the segment, and that’s the keyboard case.
Essentially converting it into virtually a notebook, and that’s the critical point I’m making here.
You must routinely keep an eye on your actual market and monitor the adjacent markets. Look at what your competitors are doing and analyse. If you were investing in tablets when you could see the “hybrid tablet/notebook” market rapidly growing and could spot the stall in tablet sales. You’d potentially raise that as a red flag and explore pivoting to a hybrid tablet or sell a case that converts your iPad into a MacBook Air with a touch screen! 👀
We do this when we’re starting our businesses, workshopping new products, or wanting to fix our retention or attrition problems;
Research market size, and make a note of any changes and anomalies. Record the facts to be reviewed later.
Research adjacent market size, note any changes here, any abnormalities?
Potential competitive product markets? Again, report them and ask why they are competitive.
Calculate your market share, how much of that market do you hold? Make a note of any changes and anomalies.
Evaluate where your revenue comes from and why?
Perform Competitive SWOT analysis.
Test assumptions/theories by performing both Generative and Evaluative experiments.
I suggest this is a routine task. If not monthly, but every three months, especially by performing user testing and getting feedback from your target audience segments to test assumptions and explore some theories on where the market is moving. Because one day, you’ll wake up, and the market you were aiming for just moved a few inches (or miles) and if you’re not attentive. You’ll miss them.