Marketing testbeds for high tech innovation: The case of taurob robotics

This paper describes how Taurob GmbH (LLC), a startup firm in robotics from Vienna, Austria, commercialized its flagship product platform, the Taurob Tracker, using the marketing testbed (MTB) approach. Taurob developed a highly versatile robotics platform, the Tracker, for use in highly hazardous environments. The design is very modularized; it can be customized to nearly any environment, but one design does not fit all environments. To make the Tracker profitable, Taurob has to characterize many potential market segments before their respective market windows open. The Hi-Tech Center, a multinational university-industry partnership in Vienna, Austria, performed a market analysis for the Taurob Tracker using the MTB approach. As a result of this analysis, the Taurob Tracker has entered or is considering entry into at least five markets-urban fire departments, railway fire departments, mining companies, petrochemical plants & nuclear power plants-in a timely manner. The Hi-Tech Center has applied the MTB approach to more than a dozen additional products in as many industries. Key lessons learned include, 1) Cross-functionality is essential; 2) MTB is ideally suited to overcome semantic communication barriers between users/customers and suppliers/innovators; and 3) behind every bottleneck lies a new market opportunity.