Happy March readers! Spring break is just around the corner
and after a busy midterms season, I’m in need of some time off. This semester
has been as hectic as my other three but I can see the finish line in sight. I
can’t believe I’ve only got two months left at school, time has flow by!
So far this semester my TI:GER project has been focused on
creating and ranking marketing claims for an biotechnology start-up. While
there are claims that any medical device company needs to make in order to
achieve FDA approval (efficacy and safety claims), there are also a wide array
of other claims such a company would like to be able to make for marketing
purposes.
Through our team’s research of competitor companies, we
generated a list of claims that other medical devices in our field used to
distinguish themselves from the current technology. This process involved going
to competitors websites to find the claims and then reading the actual studies
that were undertaken to back up these assertions. Most start-ups need to be
lean and make sure their money is spent in the most effective way possible. By
understanding not only what claims were being made in the market, but also the
underlying testing required, our team was able to develop a cost vs. claim
table.
After we generated our unranked list of claims and
associated tests, we met with our client to determine next steps. Our client
was pleased with our progress but needed our team to go the next step and rank
our recommendations. These rankings were done in concert with the client as
well as through competitor research. Our final deliverable was a set of the top
10 claims the start-up should test for in order to truly differentiate them in
the market.
The next step is to vet these claims with current users of
the technology. The next phase of our project (market entry analysis) will provide
our team with ample time to speak to actual users and discover what would be
the most important factors to them when considering changing technologies.
Phase one of our project has been a blast and I’m excited about the next steps!
