Have you heard the expression “Ideas are worthless, execution is what matters?”. I was reflecting on my experiences and I have to say I agree. Ideas come easy, and even building pitch decks to communicate them is easy. The hard part is turning a 10-minute pitch that lights up the room into a product that works for customers, for business, and for the market.

The Lane Risk idea generated early buzz and showed a potential to be a SaaS platform. But momentum alone doesn’t get a product built, especially inside a big company with no dedicated development team, product infrastructure and only a sliver of budget.

To make it real, we needed more than a story - we needed evidence and a compelling vision that would show to the leadership team a potential of becoming its own digital revenue stream and scale for years.

Three Essentials to Start With

1. Deep Market Knowledge. For me it meant learning the broader supply chain landscape outside of core cold chain market. That included transportation and logistics, last mile, supplier management, order management, and even warehouse management. Supply Chain is an interconnected ecosystem, and if you don’t understand how the pieces connect together, you won’t be able to navigate it.

2. Customer Understanding. I needed to gain a deep understanding of how my target customers operate, what alternatives they use, who are buyers, and who actually logs in each day into the system. I needed a deep understanding of their challenges. Insights from customer discovery sessions fuel all my ideas.

3. An Entrepreneurial team. The team of doers who could challenge the status quo and thrive in ambiguity. Being an “entrepreneur” means being able to learn from failures, pivot, and iterate a lot. It’s not easy, it’s stressful, and success is not guaranteed, so you have to enjoy the journey. It’s like hiking: if you're only in it for the summit view, a cloudy day disappoints you. But if you enjoy the journey, even with steep climbs and setbacks, every step is worthwhile.

Let’s start with Market Research: Where Does This Fit?

There are many ways to define market size, classic TAM, SAM, SOM framework works just fine. One resource that really helped me think through this from multiple angles is A Guide to Market Size Calculations and Confidence by Jerry Schall. It often takes several iterations before you land on a definition that feels right.

When I dove into market research, I was seeking answers to a few foundational questions:

• How big is the market?

• How big is the potential opportunity?

• Who are our competitors, and how do they win?

• What is our right to win in this market? How would we win and differentiate?

We began with our internal team of subject matter experts to understand the intricate details of our core market. We also partnered with an external consulting firm to flesh out potential opportunities backed by broader market data. Yet the real challenge was narrowing things down to the niche opportunity size and that’s more like slicing through a layered cake than a single clean cut.

Research conducted by consultants, with input from internal market experts, provided us with a wide range of potential opportunities. But to nail it down more precisely, I also needed to understand the competitive landscape. I like to call it “the lay of the land”.

The Lay of the Land: What Market is Up to?

I started by looking at our core market competitors, and many of them were continuing to heavily focus on IoT, Visibility and Cold Chain management. Rightfully so, as that’s their core business. But for my purpose, that was too narrow.

So l looked outward.

Back in 2019-2020, many of today’s supply chain unicorns were just beginning to find product-market fit. It’s humbling to see how far the transportation and logistics segment has come in the past 7 years. For instance, Project44 was positioning itself as a data aggregator and visibility provider [1], while FourKites was capturing market share with best-in-class predictive ETAs [2]. These companies now are leaders in the market, each valued at over $2B [3,4].

Still, I had to go further.

I explored players in supply chain risk management and came across fascinating companies like Resilinc, Everstream, Altana, and others. These companies focused more on the upstream supply chain with focus on supplier risk mitigation.

That research was getting me closer to my goal. The opportunity was coming into focus. There it was a perfect niche at the intersection of Transportation Visibility, Supply Chain Disruptions and Cold Chain risk to product quality.

That overlap of the fragile convergence of all three was our sweet spot and the opportunity was up for grabs.

Takeaways: No Playbook, No Problem

• Understanding the market and competitive landscape is a critical step. It helps clarify where you stand today and where you want to be with a new product or as an organization.

• It also helps understand the broader ecosystem you’re operating in, and how the value you deliver fits into the larger supply chain. After all, it is a chain.

• And finally, mapping the lay of the land gives you visibility into potential partners. Those who can help you deliver more value and accelerate your impact.

Next Up: From Pitch Deck to Product: Turning an Idea into a Reality - Part 2: Customer Discovery and the foundation of the Early Adopter program

Afterword

I'm writing about my experience bringing a new product line to market. There are a few important aspects that may not be immediately clear:

• This opportunity was years in the making. There were plenty of stop-and-go moments where I had to pause and focus on other priorities.

• I also wasn’t doing this alone. I was working with an incredible team that I built and grew over time. If it weren’t for them, this opportunity might never have made it to market. I LOVE YOU ALL! It was an unforgettable experience.

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Sources:

1. https://www.project44.com/resources/project44-advanced-visibility-platform/

2. https://www.prweb.com/releases/FourKites_Uses_Enhanced_Machine_Learning_Model_to_Predict_Shipment_Arrival_Times_With_Greater_Accuracy_in_Narrower_Time_Windows/prweb16126745.htm#:~:text=CHICAGO%2C%20Feb.,the%20remaining%20hours%20of%20service.

3. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/project44-concludes-blockbuster-fy-2023-with-51-yoy-growth-in-total-gaap-revenue-and-2-7-billion-valuation-301793832.html

4. https://www.fourkites.com/press/fourkites-secures-100m-series-d-funding/

There is a moment every product leader and innovator dreams of and fears they never have. You pitch an idea. You explain the concept. You pause for reaction. And instead of the usual “That’s cool” or “Let’s us know when it is built”, you hear:

“When can I have it?”

Not IF, but WHEN.

That is the moment, you know you are onto something big.

Chasing the Problem: Cold Chain Logistics

At the time, my team and I were exploring a portfolio of innovative ideas in logistics and transportation, specifically around temperature-controlled logistics for perishable goods like medicine, vaccines, and food.

We explored a wide range of emerging technologies. Just to name a few:

• Using IoT location data to determine optimal routes for temperature-sensitive cargo

• Estimating the probability of theft for high-value products

• Assessing the impact of weather on delays and product quality

• Storing sensor data on blockchain for food safety (look up IBM Food Trust)

• Drone delivery of essential medicine to rural areas

Each idea had promise but none had that "grab-you-by-the-shirt" urgency. Until we landed on Lane Risk Assessment.

The “Old” Lane Risk Assessment

The concept was not new. Pharma companies had been building risk profiles for transportation lanes for decades. The service was available through multiple providers, including us, as a professional service offering. The traditional process that most companies went through looked something like this:

1. Define the lane: Origin, destination, transportation mode (air, ocean, road, parcel), logistics provider and carrier, packaging type, and season (spring, summer, fall, winter).

2. Simulate shipment: Send “dummy” packages equipped with temperature sensors to record environmental conditions, and actual product temperature.

3. Collect the data: Sensor data was manually downloaded at the end of each trip, cleaned, and prepared for analysis.

4. Analyze the results: Analysts created lane profiles, typically focused on temperature, using statistical methods.

For example, if a product needed to stay between 2 - 8°C (which is usually a temperature in our home fridges), the goal would be to maintain it around 4°C throughout transit. If too many shipments approached or exceeded those thresholds, the lane was deemed risky, and organization would often revise procedures or restart the study.

If temperatures during actual shipments trended toward the extremes or experienced too many spikes that would be close to limits or outside of limits, the risk to product quality increased. In this case, our customers would change procedure for shipping products on the lane and repeat the study.

The problem? It took months to do it.

It reflected only a snapshot in time, relying on assumptions that past statistical significance could predict future performance. And it ignored external events such as heat waves, delays, strikes, and packing failures.

And we asked: “What if we could predict risk and failures in the lanes before it happens, giving customers time to act?”

Customer Visits: From Listener to Pitcher

At the time, I was leading our innovation effort - mostly early-stage explorations, connecting emerging technologies to potential market needs. I started by talking to internal SMEs: analysts, product marketers, sales consultants, and program managers - basically anyone who was mostly spending their days with customers. It gave me a great perspective about:

• What we offered

• Who our customers were

• What pain points they faced

• Why they bought our flagship solutions.

There was still a gap. How important was the problem I was trying to solve? How much did it really matter?

With support from leadership, I began joining customer visits - tagging along with sales to listen. In exchange, I would present our latest innovations to keep customers excited. I usually had 15 minutes at the end of long sales meetings… if I was lucky.

The First Pitch

I will never forget the first visit. It was a 2-day session. At the end of the first day, my manager - our CTO - casually told me: “Tomorrow, you are pitching. And you are opening the meeting.”

Wait, what?

The plan was for him to present, but after a slight panic, we pulled together a great pitch in just couple hours. In the pitch I also included tidbits I heard from the discussion and tour around the facility on the first day. I then showed them a basic prototype that was illustrating the idea. It sparked a very engaging conversation around the table:

“Should we adopt it? Will it help us?”

“Why are we still doing this manually?”

“Shall we be adding another tool to the number of systems we already have? Is it worth it?”

But here is a thing: no one said they did not want it. They were arguing about how to make it work.

The Moment

Soon after that, I went to another customer meeting. Again, I only had 15-minutes at the end of a long, draining day of meetings. The room was flat. People looked exhausted. I zipped through my pitch at 2x speed, walked through a prototype and wrapped it up fast.

My brain went: Phew, that’s over.

And then - the moment.

A senior executive at the client site said 3 magic phrases:

“THIS is what we wanted.”

“Why didn’t you start with this?”

“When can we have it?”

That was it. The spark.

From that point on, I joined every trip I could. My pitch evolved, and validation of the problem grew.

What I heard:

• “If I had this today, I could sleep better at night.”

• “We will give you our data and connect you with our SMEs if you can build it.”

• “Can we trial it?”

• “We did something similar in-house, and here is what we learned…”

The message was clear: It was real, urgent and needed.

Takeaways: No Playbook, No Problem

There is no single framework that guarantees a winning product or startup. But there are behaviors that increase your chances.

• Assuming you have hypotheses around your customer unsolved needs based on market signals and you have an idea for solving it. Pause, and breath out.

• Build a quick prototype to communicate your problem and solution idea (Figma, vibe coded demo, as long as it demoable and low effort that will work).

• Specifically for data products (aka AI products), make sure you have data and can use it. I highly recommend engaging with your data teams to search for particular outcomes.

• Go visit customers (a lot!!!) and pitch them your idea. Their reaction will help you both validate the problem and your idea. Bonus: you will get to meet your other colleagues and build relationship with them.

• Validate with data, make sure you have enough signals that this is a problem worth solving. Record quotes, and KPIs you hear in conversations.

Up Next: Part 2: From Pitch Deck to Product: Turning an Idea into Product

Afterword

This story one of many innovative ideas my teams and I worked on. I am starting these blog series with success story to take you with me on long journey of building and launching this product. Why am I doing it? To inspire those who are just getting started, to remind you that you are not alone, and maybe to help you avoid a mistake or two.

I will share templates and approaches with you that I used. All of the approaches I recommend evolved from a lot of trial and error. If you ever find yourself needing the conversation, just reach out.

There were plenty of highs, and more than a few discouraging lows in this journey. But I kept moving forward, because I had people who believed in me. And if it were not for them, I would not be the person or the leader - I am today.

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