Market push versus market pull

Market push or pull is a hot topic where solid views and entrepreneurs express their opinions quite strongly. Those who have been successful in one or the other are adamant about it.

First, let's share a bit of definition.

What is market pull?

I would define market pull as questioning the marketplace or a market segment for their specific -often immediate- needs.

You pull information from the market.

As a result, you know with a good level of certainty what they need. Therefore you can provide the "right" product at the right time.

What is market push?

I would define market push as finding a solution for a problem, developing that particular solution or product and then launching into the marketplace.

Which is best?

Well, I have been practising both with successes and failures. I'll come back to that later.

Maybe first, I'd like to address the profile related to both paths.

Keep in mind this will be exaggerated, but the point is to draw the differences of approaches.

Often, the market pull entrepreneur is more on the side of a savvy marketer. They have a sense of the market and trends, and they also can see patterns.

Therefore, they can spot a need and deliver the appropriate service or product, often at the right time.

The market push entrepreneur is on the side of the inventor. They see a problem -often one they experience themselves- and use their creativity to build a solution. At the end of that process, they will push the new product to the marketplace.

So, the big question remains: which is best?

At that stage, strong opinions arise. The marketer will say never to do market push as you are bound to failure. Those who succeeded in market push will tell you this is the way to dominate your industry.

As an industrial designer, I have experienced both.

I have seen success and failure in both, too: no method is immune to failure.

The most significant product failure I witnessed was a pure market pull: we had tons of research and data, and the marketing route had all the green lights. The product didn't sell. At all.

The biggest successes with products I have designed were pure market push. Those products not only made a ton of money, but they stayed in the leading position in their markets for many years (one stayed 14 years before the competition found a way to enter the game).

What is the best recipe?

Here is my observation.

If your product is a real innovation or even a disruption in the marketplace, then market push can be a good option. If your product is an improvement from an existing product or service, market pull makes more sense. This observation has to be combined with the life span in the marketplace. Again, those are my observations only: I find that market push can lead the market and stay several years dominating the segment when well executed. In financial terms, this is interesting when you have amortized your investments in the first two years, for example. Market pull has immediate success but a much shorter life span, which means you need to repeat the exercise every few years.

In conclusion, there is no magic formula or recipe for success. You need to assess your innovation and relate it to your market: only then you can decide on the best possible strategy.

We like testing assumptions early in the process in our design studio.

Good luck with your venture!