This chapter discusses the fourth component of the Lean Canvas for Invention and deliberates upon its two important questions, detailed checklists, and templates. This chapter guides the academic inventors and product developers to learn from market trends and landscape. The purpose is to learn from existing companies and their competitive advantage for available products and services in the market.
TopMarket Landscape
The fourth component of the LCI is the Market Landscape. This component continues its association with the WHY question of the LCI. Here the purpose is to guide the academic inventors and entrepreneurs to learn about the current and future trends of the market and the industry for which solutions will be invented to solve the real-world problems. Previously, the LCI Template VII: Market Matrix enabled the academic inventors, product developers and entrepreneurs to explore the existing solutions in the market and learn from their in-depth features and also investigate their shortcomings and limitations. The purpose of this chapter is to explore for further opportunities through these shortcomings of the existing solutions and learn about how to capitalize these opportunities through commercialization.
At the time of invention disclosure, the technology transfer office begins with a process of market mapping to understand whether a particular industry is willing to accept the invention or not (Guindalini, Verreynne, & Kastelle, 2021). The TTO professionals look for market viability and future growth of inventions in terms of customers’ acceptance and competitors’ profile (Willardsen, McGivern, & Hill, 2014). This knowledge connects them to the potential end-users of the invention and measure their willingness in utilizing the invention for solving the real-world problem.
This LCI component for the market landscape allows the academic inventors and entrepreneurs to explore the above said information much before investing their time, effort, and grants for inventions varying at different levels of chance for their market acceptance. The successful inventions in a form of products or services get accepted by the larger number of end-users in the market and reside in the growing industry having good Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR). The academic inventor, product developer and entrepreneurs are therefore guided through this chapter to look for indicators and explore in-depth the chances of market acceptance of their proposed inventions. The following question is proposed by the LCI to be answered by the academic inventors and entrepreneurs for its fourth component:
The answer to above question calls for one prior question to be answered first:
These two questions encourage the academic inventors and entrepreneurs for a guided search through market reports and meetings with stakeholders and explore the chances of market acceptance of future invention in presence of the existing solutions for solving the real-world problems. To facilitate in this process of search, the LCI Checklist – IV is proposed in Table 1. The answers of the seven items of the LCI Checklist – IV seek guidance from the previous component of LCI, the existing solutions. The expected outcome includes the evaluation of the end-users’ opinions towards future acceptance of invention in the market.
Additionally, it is expected that fourth component of the LCI will add clarity in positioning the invention with respect to market needs. The LCI Checklist – IV obtains assistance from LCI Templates IX, and X, designed for hands-on activities to answer two questions raised by the fourth component of the LCI. The seven items of the LCI Checklist – IV are given below. The two questions described and the seven items of the LCI Checklist – IV need an organized approach to be taken by the academic inventors and entrepreneurs for moving ahead with the LCI process. The databases are already proposed in the LCI Checklist – III and the same will be utilized here to gather the relevant information.