28Lu
Column 6 · Innovation and New Products · Era 3, Competitive Advantage (1980s)
Lead Users
Formulation, process · Landmark · Cluster II, Resources and Orientation
Description
von Hippel proposed that users who face needs ahead of the market and expect to benefit from solving them, lead users, are a source of novel product concepts and can be identified and enlisted in development.
Managerial Implications
Some customers face needs months or years before the market does, and many build their own solutions. Find them, learn from them, and co-develop with them. Lead users are not necessarily big accounts; they are the ones improvising workarounds. A systematic lead-user program reveals where the market is headed and provides prototypes, often cheaper and faster than internal research.