The Segway is a two-wheeled, self-balancing battery electric vehicle invented by Dean Kamen. It was launched in 2001 in a blizzard of publicity. Yet it has failed to gain significant market acceptance and is now something of a curiosity. Production ended in 2020 after selling only 140,000 units over 19 years. The product is very clever. It works well. The company, Segway Inc., had tremendous funding and resources. The level of press and TV exposure was astounding. So what went wrong? What lessons about the success or failure of innovations can we learn?
- Expectations were too high. The Segway was described as the future of transport. As an innovation it was said to be on a par with the PC or the internet. Inevitably it could not live up to this level of hype. PR exposure is generally useful but this time it was overdone.
- Pricing was too high. The initial price was $5000 which deterred many potential users.
- It was a product not a solution. The product works well but it lacked a support context. Where can you park it? How do you charge it? Do you use it on roads or sidewalks? Our cities are designed for pedestrians or speedy vehicles and this was neither so it had no proper infrastructure to support it.
- No clear need or target market. Who was the target market? Who really needed this? It was an appealing novelty but there was no compelling need for anyone to buy it – and it was very expensive.
- It was an invention rather than an innovation. The Segway was patented and kept under wraps until its launch. There was no user feedback or iteration in the process. Its inventors were then surprised when people criticised or ridiculed the design for being ‘dorky’ rather than cool.
- Regulation. The Segway fell foul of regulation in many countries where it was banned from sidewalks and roads because it did not fit any existing categories. This is a problem for a truly revolutionary product – but it was not properly anticipated.
Most successful innovations involve some degree of iteration, experimentation, openness and collaboration. They need an eco-system to support them. They target users who need the benefits they offer. A radical invention with ample backing still needs to gain market acceptance. It is an uphill path and that path proved too steep for the Segway.
Simply fantastic! All of us need to “come down to earth” before “innovating”…
Brilliant post.
I wrote about the Segway a few years ago in my blog about the madness of marketing – http://andrewarmour.com/2009/04/15/tulipmania-and-the-madness-of-marketing/ – the main point being that whilst Segway sold about 2000 units a year the Dahon folding bike sold 270,000 units per year – by perfecting a design for the folding bike – not inventing a whole new form of travel.
Too often marketers start by asking the wrong question and rushing to product answers rather than thinking through the actual consumer problem they are trying to solve. Thus my work creating Marketing Cafe to encourage better marketing conversations.
Best,
Andrew Armour
http://www.benchstone.co.uk
http://www.andrewarmour.com
A little tongue in cheek agreement…
http://harveybriggs.blogspot.com/2011/05/segway-no-way.html
Maketing is nothing without positioning. Segway, was considered as the future of transport…but sadly, it was not positioned for any segment.
Long, long ago Alries predicted that although a product can create a new category, the consumer has to be defined very accurately a.k.a or positioning has to be accurate on consumer selection.
I used to watch Segway marketing info with great enthusiasm, it was more focused on how good the product is and how it can become a necessity in the digital era.
A similar analogy can be with personal midi systems where audiophiles (Rap lovers) used to carry along with big boxes of audio players. But, this was for a definite market. In my opinion Segway lost, since it couldn’t identify the segment it has to address to.
– Divaker V Vittal
Nice post, I have read about the post on the 3M homepage. I thing the only reason for the missing success of the Segway is the high pricing. You can get a eBike under 500 Euro with near the same range and the Segway cost 20 times more.
I could use a Segway in those big box stores.
IT HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH MARKETING FRAMEWORK AND ALSO THE 5C’s Analysis
In 2020 it ceased production.
History shows that there are four marks of all successful products.
By “successful,” I mean ones that sell well year after year (products like Velcro and Viagra, Scotch Tape and Super Glue). When they were introduced, these products were welcomed by a large group of stressed people eager to receive the specific kinds of relief that these products provided (and, to this day, that they continue to provide).
There never was (and still is not) a large group of people whose enduring stress the Segway relieved.
In this way, the Segway lacked one of the Four Marks of All Successful Products which I delineate in my new book by the same name. Unlike Velcro and Viagra, Scotch Tape and Super Glue, it simply failed to serve an audience under stress, and thereby was doomed — doomed from its conception — ultimately to fail.
THE FOUR MARKS OF ALL SUCCESSFUL PRODUCTS details this First Mark, plus the three others that history shows are found in all successful products. It’s available on Amazon.