Your product or service makes sense to you - but will it be compelling to your target customers? Entrepreneurs and small business owners often go with their gut feel - but that can be misleading. Not all of your target customers think the way you do!

How do you make sure that the demand is there, before you spend a lot of time and money developing and deploying a product or service? Validating the market first decreases your risk, and gives you a much better understanding of how to approach your market with the most effective messaging and marketing.

OTBC executive director Steve Morris will take you step by step through the process of validating your market, so you can be more confident that you are addressing an unmet need, and that customers will actually be willing to pay.

Who should attend: any entrepreneur or small business owner who needs to develop a strategy and a plan for launching or growing their business.

Product Managers need good information to make good decisions. But how do you get this information? There are many online surveys at your disposal, such as SurveyMonkey, SurveyGizmo, and SurveyWriter, but any one of them can be subverted by bad survey design. This event will give you an overview of how to plan research properly, how to write a good questionnaire so you can obtain meaningful information, and decide which self-service survey tool will best encourage users to complete your survey to deliver significant results.

Panelists:

Steve Boespflug, Director of Research at Pivot Group

Steve has worked in market research for 21 years. Before joining Pivot he was a principal of two full service market research companies, where he designed and managed more than 500 quantitative and qualitative research studies. Steve has worked directly with more than 100 client companies ranging from small start-ups to large organizations like Hewlett-Packard, 3M, Intel, Microsoft, United Airlines, Oregon State Lottery and Gartner. Steve has used a wide variety of data collection methodologies and analytics. He has managed over 200 online survey projects globally using Surveywriter, Surveygizmo and Surveymonkey, and has relied on the top online panel companies worldwide. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of North Dakota and an MBA from the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management.

Mike Pritchard, President, Five Circles Research and Pricing Gurus

Mike's career before market research spanned engineering, marketing and management in England and the US, culminating in managing a major industrial product line at Intel where he learned the value of market insights in product development. Mike has been involved in online market research since it first started, with his own company and before that in senior positions at comScore and leading vendors in Portland and Seattle. His clients range from large technology companies such as Intel, Microsoft, Amazon, Real Networks, Hewlett-Packard and Netgear, as well as start-ups who want to test viability, size the market, and make pricing decisions. Along with full-service projects, Mike consults and trains those who wish to take on some tasks of a market research project themselves. Mike speaks frequently on market research issues, and is a world-renowned expert on pricing research using the Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter (included in his presentation for Product Camp Portland 2014). He holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Southampton (England) and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Oregon.

The Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) is the premier global advocate for product development and management professionals. The Oregon chapter's mission is to help local professionals and organizations to identify, develop, and launch more innovative and profitable products and services through cross-industry collaboration, thought leadership, and the sharing of best practices and practical knowledge. For more information about the Oregon Chapter of the PDMA, please contact: David Nash, Chapter President, at [email protected].

We encourage everyone in Oregon who is interested in the Product Development Manager's Association to become a member of the National PDMA. For a great explanation on the benefits of membership in the PDMA, click http://www.pdma.org/p/cm/ld/fid=171

Schedule:

6:00 – 6:30pm: Gathering / Networking / Refreshments**

6:30 – 6:45pm: Announcements (upcoming events, who’s hiring, etc.)

6:45 – 7:30pm: Panel Discussion

7:30 – 7:45pm: Q&A / Open discussion

7:45 – 8:00pm: Networking

Cost:

$10 on-line registration prior to the event **

$15 at the door

A discount is available for PDMA members

To register online, click on the website above.

** Note: This is a no-host event. The complete Lucky Lab food and drink menu is available. Grab a cold ale & bite to eat - and bring a friend or colleague to add to the discussion!

Please join us for an engaging discussion with four outstanding panelists as they share tips and tricks from their 60+ years of combined experience successfully launching and commercializing healthcare technologies. Our panelists include three CEOs leading thriving Portland-based startups and a professional healthcare market strategy consultant. Come learn what strategies you can employ to gain an understanding of your market and customers, and to best position your idea or technology for the next stage.

Panelists include: Aaron Call, Founding Principle, Jaunt Holly Rockweiler, CEO and Co-founder, Madorra Fahti Khosrowshahi, CEO and Founder, Ceek Women's Health Patti White, CEO and Co-founder, Hemex Health

Thursday, June 25, 2020 1 - 2:30 p.m. Open to the public at no cost