Food For Thought

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

I looked down at the pile of widgets—a much-depleted pile of widgets than we had started with. I couldn't believe how fast they’d sold! It seemed as if every Tom, Dick, and Harry wanted a new widget. Universal Widgets were selling so well—it was like taking candy from a baby. Easy peasy, mac and cheesy.

”They’re selling like hot cakes!” I crowed.

My partner, Theo nodded. “They are selling like hot cakes!” he said bagging up an order for another fifteen more widgets.

I was so proud. Our product, Universal Widget, was flying off the shelves.

But this hadn’t always been the case. A half a year ago, Theo and I had developed Widget 2.0, and well, it had not been received with the enthusiasm we had hoped. Right from the start, sales had been sluggish—slow as molasses in January—and the market had reacted with a big fat “Meh.” Not the reaction you wanted when you’ve remortgaged your house, and maxed out all your cards.

“Maybe the world isn’t ready for Widget 2.0,” Theo had lamented.

I remember nodding, looking around the warehouse, jam-packed with widgets nobody wanted. Our whole operation was going to crash. We’d gone in whole hog—something hindsight now told us was way too much hog. We were days away from having to shut the doors and lay off the entire staff. Theo and I would have to slink away from our dream, our tails between our legs. It was grim. Neither one of us had a “Plan B.” Widget 2.0 was our only plan.

“What did we do wrong?” I asked Theo. “It should have been a cake-walk. Everybody uses widgets! Why not ours?”

We were both stumped. Our foray into entrepreneurship was not the piece of cake we thought it was going to be. The new widget was better—so much better— than the original, Widget 1.0, but nobody cared. They were happy with their old-fashioned widgets.

We’d thought selling widgets would be easy as pie. Instead, we ended up eating humble pie—a whole warehouse full of humble pie.

I remember how enthusiastic and excited we’d been. We’d bragged to all our friends and family, saying how our new Widget 2.0 was the best thing since sliced bread. We have visions of Widget 2.0 factories across the nation, maybe even across the world. But that never happened. Instead, crickets. It should have been a cake-walk. Instead we found out that the widget market was a harder nut to crack than we had expected. Way harder.

When we sat down for a debrief a week before we lost everything we were truly stumped. We knew we were in a pickle. “Why not Widget 2.0?” we’d asked ourselves, over and over.

”What could we have done differently? Done better?" I asked.

Theo was as confused as I was. “Advertising?" he asked.

We’d followed the startup play book—ads on all social media platforms, sales and samples at stores that carried widgets. We even went to a couple of trade shows, but nothing really stuck. Sales were a flat as a pancake.

Our business plan was solid, or so we thought. We’d honestly believed that we had created something that people truly needed. Everybody needed widgets. Absolutely everybody. Our sales team was top-notch. We put the customers' needs in the forefront. We asked for feedback from our (very few) customers. We’d had a game-plan and followed it. Theo and I didn’t even take paycheques instead plowing the money back into the company.

But still, it all went pear-shaped.

Then came the day we had to admit defeat. We’d bitten off way more than we could chew. And because of that, it was all over. We called all of our employees to an all-hands meeting.

”I know this won’t come as a surprise to most of you, but we’re out of business, as of the end of the month,” I said, tearing up. This had been so important to me! I loved Widget 2.0–it had been almost like a child, the apple of my eye.

Groans and gasps could be heard around the room. Some of our long-time employees were openly weeping. We’d been like a family, and now our family was breaking up. I couldn't understand our failure. I been so sure we were going to make it.

Theo stepped up. “I know that we all tried our hardest, but apparently that wasn’t enough. The public doesn’t want Widget 2.0.” He shook his head in sadness. He looked like he was going to cry as well.

”Excuse me!”

I looked towards the back of the room, and there was Fiona, our office admin, waving her hand at us.

”Hey, Fiona,” I said. “What’s up?”

”Well, I don’t know if you want my input, but I think I might understand part of the problem with Widget 2.0.”

Theo and I looked at each other. Why not? I thought. Maybe she knows something we don’t. I nodded at Theo.

“Okay—spill the beans,” said Theo.

”Well, I don’t think it’s what Widget 2.0 could do, rather that people didn’t know about what Widget 2.0 could do,” she said, walking towards the front of the room. “When we marketed it, we claimed that it was better than Widget 1.0, but we didn’t say why it was better.”

”We did,” I said, then stopped. But had we?

“Your pitch was more about the fact that it wasn’t Widget 1.0, not why anyone should buy 2.0,” said Fiona.

Theo looked thoughtful. “I think we said that it was newer and better than 1.0.”

”Exacty!” said Fiona. “But what made it better? I think people figured that it was the same old chestnut dressed up with a new name, and they weren’t impressed," she said, and paused. “At least not impressed enough to buy our widget.”

“Well,” I said, “our biggest innovation was that it was universal. No more need for all the different types of widgets people used to have to buy. Now they would only need one.” I leaned over and picked up an unsold widget package, and scanned it. I pointed to the back of the package and said, “It says right here that it’s universal.” I looked at Fiona questioningly.

She had a sympathetic look on her face. “How many people do you think take the time to read the back of the package? Reading a package is not most people's` cup of tea when they’re in a hurry and just need a widget.” She pointed to the Widget 2.0 I was holding. “Look at the front of the package. What would make a customer want to buy Widget 2.0 instead of their usual choice, Widget 1.0? And Widget 2.0 was more expensive.”

I studied the front of the package. Fiona was right. There was nothing other than New and Improved. It didn’t tell how Widget 2.0 was improved. I nodded. “Fiona, you are absolutely right!” I turned to Theo.

It was all in the packaging. Why hadn’t we seen that?

Fiona meekly raised her hand. She was holding a sketch book. “I, uh, drew up a new packaging prototype.” She walked up to to us, and handed it forward. Theo and I huddled around the sketch.

UNIVERSAL WIDGET! the packaging screamed. She’d renamed our product. Nice. The improvement was in the name. THE LAST WIDGET YOU’LL EVER NEED! And a new logo. Impressive. ALL YOUR WIDGETS IN ONE!

We read the front and the back of the prototype packaging. It was really good—bright colouring, typeface that was clear, drawing the eye.

”This is amazing!” I said to Fiona, with Theo bobbing his head beside me.

“And,” said Fiona, “The icing on the cake is that you only have to repackage the existing product. No retooling. No making new widgets. Just repackaging.” She smiled.

“There’s no use crying over spilt milk!” I said, “Let’s do this!”

A cheer went up through the crowd.

*****

Now here we were, doing gangbuster, selling all our widgets. Universal Widget was now top banana in the widget market.

And Fiona? She’s our new partner.