This week we are looking back at the experience with testing on a festival with Thomas Koch from Ecoist. Ecoist designs, builds and sells environmentally friendly and efficient electric cars. Thomas tells you about the things he has learned, how his innovation is improved and where he is standing right now.
Testing at a festival
We wanted to test the design of our emblem, we weren’t sure what our target audience would like to see. We also did a questionnaire about people’s daily travel habits, so have more knowledge of what the daily habits are and how we could anticipate on that. At the festival we showed our functional demonstrator and a design vision of the car. In this way we could really show people what our innovation is. We collected a lot of reactions and feedback, which we were very glad about.
We were really excited about testing on a festival. We were lucky with the good weather and that was perfect for a test ride. A crowd was collected around the car, people were enthusiastic about it.
What did we learn
We got a lot of feedback at our innovation. We changed the whole one-seat concept into a two-seater. We added more safety features because we felt that people did not think it was safe enough.
We got the most feedback from the questionnaire, this was a good instrument to use. People filled it in and we got great feedback from them to make our innovation better. Now we are producing a pre-series of twenty vehicles for legal street use. We are still testing this with our customers to improve the vehicles. It is a great way to get to know your customer.
Covid-19
Covid-19 set us up with some troubles. It was hard to get new investors, and we got delays from suppliers all around the globe. We had a hard time, but now we are getting slowly at where we want to be.
We took a break, analyzed our situation and focused on the most important goal: get cars on the road. We also launched a basic homepage (www.ecoistcars.com) to show more information about the Ecoist Tian. Thanks to some Covid-support we are soon launching a new homepage with more information.
Piece of advice
You really have to get to know your customers. You have to know what problem they have and if they are open for a solution. And do the customers even want your solution? Those questions are really important before you are testing your innovation.
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