Lead user

Lead user is a term developed by American economist Eric von Hippel.[1]

His definition for lead user is:

  1. Lead users face needs that will be general in a marketplace – but face them months or years before the bulk of that marketplace encounters them, and
  2. Lead users are positioned to benefit significantly by obtaining a solution to their needs and so may innovate.

Lead users are a very important source of innovative progress because they often pioneer - acting earlier than producers to develop important new types of products and applications. Spearheading innovation benefits lead users because they innovate to serve their own needs. For this reason, they need not concern themselves with whether others will also want what they are developing for themselves. In contrast, producers tend to wait for evidence that there is a broad, profitable market to be served before they can justify investing in a new type of innovation.[2]

For example, mountain bikes were developed by individuals who simply wanted to bike down mountains for fun, and so invented the sport of mountain biking for themselves. Bike producers stood by, simply watching and waiting for years until the extent of the market became clear. Finally, after the new sport had spread to hundreds of enthusiasts who participated by building their own "clunker" mountain bikes, producers finally entered the new market with the first commercial mountain bike products.[3] Because lead users develop new products and services and also modify existing ones, they are related to the creative consumer phenomenon, that is, those "customers who adapt, modify, or transform a proprietary offering".[4]

  1. ^ Von Hippel 1986
  2. ^ von Hippel, Eric (2017) Free Innovation MIT Press, Cambridge, MA Chapter 4
  3. ^ Buenstorf, G. 2003. Designing clunkers: Demand-side innovation and the early history of the mountain bike. In Change, Transformation and Development, ed. J. S. Metcalfe and U. Cantner. Springer.
  4. ^ Berthon et al. 2007