SCENE:Four employees in conference room.
Three sit staring at the projected image of the "Target Market" slide while the fourth stands at the white board, marker in hand ready to chronicle the impending onslaught of insight...
"The price point is high.. we need a market with less resistance."
"Small business would be perfect, but it doesn't really meet their needs."
"Don't forget it's also really complicated, so we need enthusiasts and early adopters."
[sound of light bulb pop as everyone shouts in unison]
"PROSUMERS!"
[high fives all around while everyone rushes from the room without cleaning up or erasing the white board]
There is a problem here. The Prosumer (Professional Consumer) doesn't exist anymore, if, in fact, he/she ever did. Sure, there are sightings from time to time -- I thought I saw a Prosumer loitering at the edge of the Best Buy parking lot in Serramonte reading old video camera manuals, but whatever it was ran off into the adjacent graveyard before I could take a picture.
In 2008 Cisco published Prosumers: A New Growth Opportunity (http://bit.ly/Lvj9E0) which pegged the US prosumer market at 14.5 million people. However what they were counting was the number of "technical hobbyists" that shared two things: they enjoyed talking to sales people and they owned a pair of pants. These folks hung out in big box stores where they could check out gadgets, pick up some Monster cables and buy retail anti-virus product instead of renewing online. By 2009 this segment was in sharp decline; reeling from a series of setbacks starting with the cancellation of COMDEX and culminating when Circuit City filled for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. They haven't been heard from since.
So the take away is, when you are introducing a product, pick a market -- preferably one that will derive a benefit from your offering. If you can't find product/market fit, don't look at changing the market, look at changing your product.
C
