Research, industrial testing, scale-up, internal training, and marketing all took effort. Then sales fell short, and everyone involved was frustrated. Most early chemical commercialization failures share one root cause: decisions made on internal assumptions instead of market facts.
SpecialChem has supported material suppliers for more than 20 years and has helped over 150 customers validate demand for new materials before launch. The six practices below draw on that experience, from the launches that succeeded and from those that failed.
Your R&D team developed the chemistry, the applications, and the value propositions. They know why your products work in some applications and not in others, and they routinely come up with new product ideas. The promising ones become projects, approved to prove the technical performance.
But one question often goes unasked: who is the target for this new technology?
A typical internal answer sounds like this: "It will increase mechanical strength while keeping other performance intact. Automotive and industrial applications have always valued this property, so they will welcome the improvement."
Your customers are not always best placed to say what solution they need. But show them a new solution, and they can quickly tell you whether it solves their problem.
Put your concept in front of customers as early as possible. You need to learn who will buy this new product, which minimum features to develop, and what price range is acceptable. Is the property you aim to improve one that matters to your customers? Would they value the improvement? How critical is that property for them?
By learning this early and staying connected with the market, you can develop a product that matches market needs, without overspending on development.
Connecting late means your technical choices rest on internal assumptions. If the market then says "I don't want your product", you have to go back to the lab and re-invest in the right direction. These are investments you can avoid.
Many suppliers rely only on a few selected customers they have a good relationship with. There are three reasons to go beyond them.
You select customers you expect to be interested, often those with the largest volumes. You avoid the ones you know are a dead end. You then give their feedback a lot of weight and develop features to please them. The result is a distorted view of how the market values your product, and the risk of a product built for very few customers.
With existing customers, there is always a business relationship at stake. The way you ask questions, the topics you avoid, and the way the customer shares their feedback all adapt to protect that relationship.
Large companies may not treat your project as a priority, which slows you down. Connect with companies that are as eager as you are to get your product to market.
Identifying companies with unmet needs that your product likely solves is a critical success factor. SpecialChem calls these companies "The Hungry 2nds": the companies in second place, more nimble, responsive, and adaptable as they strive to become number one. They are often the first to test a new material and the fastest to share feedback.
And when you are dealing with a new-to-market technology, why assume your existing customer base is the priority target? Exploring beyond your own network helps you identify the priority applications and targets with more certainty.
In the development phase, your aim is to convert assumptions into facts. Yet your own beliefs, and those of your company, often distort this process. For every project, check that what you take for granted is true.
Take the assumption "We know Building & Construction customers want to improve the scratch and abrasion resistance of their floor surfaces." Ask yourself:
"When did we last check that?"
"What was the context?"
"Do we have solid proof that this assumption is true?"
"How critical is it to the success of the project?"
The customer interview phase also has many pitfalls. Pay attention to how you ask questions:
Choose open questions over closed questions.
Cover all the topics, not just the ones you feel most confident about. When you expect negative feedback, be ready to dig deeper.
Be honest with yourself, and build a questionnaire that does not influence the outcome.
Be careful when you analyze the results, too. People tend to see what they want to see and discard what contradicts their opinion. To avoid this, have team members analyze the results separately. Then let them debate until they agree on what is now a fact and what remains an assumption. For each remaining assumption, rate its uncertainty and its importance for the project. This tells you what to do with it in the next phase.
For critical projects, it is worth running the investigation through a third party. A third party can take a step back and identify the real market feedback on your product. Staying anonymous behind this "buffer" also protects confidentiality and keeps your competitors guessing. SpecialChem's Demand Validation works this way. New material concepts are presented unbranded to formulators, engineers, and product developers, so you get candid feedback without revealing your project.
We all love what we invent. But in business, the goal is maximum revenue with minimal resources, so your budget belongs to the projects with the highest chance of success.
Start every project by asking: "What would kill this project?" If assumptions A, E and G are NOT true, the product will never succeed in the market, and the project should stop. Identify these "must be true" assumptions, and verify them first.
From early development, upper management often puts pressure on your project, and the pressure grows as launch gets closer. Keep in mind that before launch, your job is to turn assumptions into facts.
To stay aligned with this goal, keep close exchanges with the partners who test your products or share feedback. Keep asking questions, and share information openly.
If you hide information or avoid questions because you fear these companies will not buy, your view of your product's market value becomes distorted. That leads to wrong choices. At best, a slow market take-off. At worst, complete failure.
Putting short-term sales ahead of sound learning is a short-sighted approach. It will not make your business profitable in the medium and long term.
When you run a competitive analysis, it is easy to think only of competitors who make the same type of product as yours.
With a new-to-market technology, though, your product may beat the direct alternatives. Yet another material or additive may already deliver the same benefits to end customers. This reduces your addressable market, even more so if the market is already satisfied with those other solutions.
Before you size the opportunity, map every solution that delivers the same end benefit, not only the products that look like yours.
Most projects move through R&D, industrial testing, production scale-up, internal training, marketing and market launch. Market validation should run alongside every stage, starting before R&D commits budget.
Put the concept in front of potential customers early, beyond your existing accounts, and include indirect alternatives in your analysis. A third party such as SpecialChem's Demand Validation can run this anonymously and reduce market testing from around 2 years to 6 months.
Before your next project review, list the assumptions your launch depends on, and mark which ones the market has confirmed. The unconfirmed ones show where your R&D budget is most at risk. Testing them alone takes time and a broad network. SpecialChem's Demand Validation connects material suppliers with formulators, engineers, and product developers ready to test new materials and share feedback. You can then decide which launches to pursue on market facts, not assumptions.