I’ve been writing a lot lately about innovation and its importance in business. Recently at a TechWomen Power Breakfast hosted by the New Hampshire High Tech Council, I had the pleasure of seeing a presentation by Dulcie Madden, CEO and Co-Founder of Mimo. Read my blog post about it here.
Mimo was founded in 2011 and in 2013 launched its first product, a baby monitor that tracks sleeping trends using wearable technology and leveraging the Internet of Things (IoT) to enable the collection and distribution of useful data.
Two things struck me about Dulcie’s presentation, relevant to innovation.
First, this particular innovation started with a developing technology that was customized to a specific target market.
The back story is that while Dulcie and her partners were students at MIT developing a new kind of sensor to better understand how people sleep, they spoke with many users during the testing phases. Some were parents and asked about applying the technology to the nursery, and the team recognized the unmet needs of this market. They also realized this market’s needs resonated with them.
Second, the recognition of an under-served market where it intersected with technology (the evolving “connected” state of the IoT) yielded an excellent opportunity. That is, by recognizing an application (pardon the pun) to a particular purpose and leveraging the building momentum of today’s evolving technology, Mimo developed a highly marketable innovation. Now they are well on their path to helping parents create The Smart Nursery.
These are two excellent best practices to consider relevant to your innovation strategy. How can you leverage technology and apply it to a particular use or target market to fulfill an unmet need?
Read my blog post about Dulcie’s presentation here.
