First Come, First Served?

This article by Ryan Bromley, Co-Founder of Kubu Smart Security 🔒 was first published in Total Installer Magazine March 2023 Edition.

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The world of Smart device development is a strange one, and the more you delve into it, the stranger things become!

Let me explain what I mean…

When we first launched our Smart Sensor Technology – Kubu – at the FIT Show in 2019, we had the conundrum of whether to launch with just the door sensor (but get it out quickly) or wait for a more complete range (for doors and windows) and come to market more slowly.

In Smart Tech there is a thing called a Minimum Viable Product. MVP methodology suggests that you shouldn’t think about a one-off launch of your product, but of getting your product to market and continuously making it better instead.

“Don’t waste your money on over-engineering products that the market might not even want.”

What this means is that you get super quick customer feedback – enabling you to tweak and stabilise your product, re-release and get feedback again – all the while getting a better and better product which better fits with what your customers actually want.

The opposite approach is to aim for something 100% complete before releasing it, which is the approach that probably feels more natural to most of us humans – as it’s the way we’ve been taught since primary school!

You worry about potential customers having a bad experience just because you didn’t wait a little bit longer, or just add that one last feature, but if you wait too long, your competitors may launch first, you’ll end up kicking yourself that you didn’t do it quicker, and invariably you end up missing the mark anyway.

Well, what should you do?

Introducing another favourite Three Letter Acronym of the Smart world (or TLA for short!): FMA 

First-Mover Advantage is the benefit that a company gains by being the first to enter a particular market or introduce a new product or service, and in the modern consumer lead world, the benefits of being first are huge:

Market dominance: Being the first to enter a market gives your company the opportunity to establish itself as the market leader. A significant advantage, as consumers are often more likely to trust and purchase from the first brand they encounter – allowing the first mover to gain a dominant position in the market and making it harder for competitors to catch up.

Brand recognition: Being the first to introduce a new product or service can also help your company establish strong brand recognition. A significant advantage as consumers are more likely to remember and choose a brand they recognise.

Control the conversation: Being the first mover gives your company the opportunity to control the conversation by establishing pricing models, creating sales channels and generating word-of-mouth marketing, further increasing your company’s market share.

One of the most famous examples of FMA has got to be the introduction of the iPhone by Apple in 2007. The iPhone revolutionised the mobile phone industry with its innovative design and technology – quickly capturing the attention of consumers, resulting in rapid sales growth.

The iPhone’s success quickly sparked competition in the industry, with other companies scrambling to release their own versions of the device, without infringing the patents they had on their technology. 

However, Apple’s first-mover advantage and strong brand recognition allowed it to maintain a dominant position in the market and is still the market leader today.

“So what’s this all got to do with me?” I hear you ask…

Smart tech in fenestration has been coming for years.  We all know it’s coming, and it’s not going away.

With that in mind, why would you wait until your competitor down the road has decided to become a Smart Installer and lose the advantage you could gain by going first? 

We launched a new campaign message at the start of this year – tentatively at first to see if there was any interest.

Essentially we looked at the market and our research and thought: Why – as an industry – are we asking people (installers!) to sell things that are only ready to be made smart, Smart Compatible if you will? 

Why don’t we ask people to sell things that are ACTUALLY smart?

A simple question that resulted in our simple message: ‘Smart As Standard’. 

The message has resonated with installers and consumers alike, and is being taken up in serious numbers. Installers are starting to see major increases in quote conversions, and their sales are going through the roof!

Has one of your competitors gone Smart As Standard already? Are they thinking about doing it soon? 

Don’t end up kicking yourself because you didn’t do it quicker.  

Anyway, back to our dilemma at the very start of this piece. We decided to launch with just our door sensor, picked up a number of very high profile fabricators, and have continued to develop the Kubu product bit by bit, every single day to create the product that both you and your customers actually want.

If we hadn’t we could still be promising to launch it some time soon!

Be Smart. Work with Kubu.