Odds Of Success (Part 1)

We were taught in business school that only 1 in 20 new products succeeded. There was not a lot of definition around “new” or “success”, but it was a daunting enough metric by itself.

As an adult it seems more like 1 in 50. Of course, it depends on what is meant by success and failure and one’s industry, but it remains a daunting number. I understand that in pharmaceuticals the ratio is more like 1 – 10,000!

Understanding and managing these odds have interesting implications for product developers…