If you were CEO of Nest, what would be the next product you would build?

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If you were CEO of Nest, what would be the next product you would build?

Asked at Google over a year ago

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Roman Aleksandrenko · Answer 1 · 2020-06-23T22:35:47+0000

Approach:

Clarification
Competitive landscape
Google's focus and threats
Future goals & strategy options
Strategy opinion

Clarification:
Do we want to brainstorm particular product ideas or discuss the most promising Nest strategies? - Strategies

Nest's mission is to create a home that takes care of the people inside it and the world around it. Nest had introduced products that regulate the temperature, keep your house secure, help you monitor the room over a camera etc. - Correct

Competitive landscape:

Many big players make their way into your house: Amazon, Apple, Facebook etc.

Google's focus and threats:

Google's focus	Amazon threat	Apple's threat	Facebook's threat
Home security	Ring + Amazon Key tech, but doesn't own mobile	Apple HomeKit homes, owns mobile (home experience on-the-go)	Connect via FB portal
Energy savings	None	None	None
Temperature comfort	None	None	None
eCommerce	Prime delivery and stores (including groceries)	None	Strong marketplace, but lack of infrastructure

Future goals & strategy options

With the current Nest's mission & products & market maturity, let's assume there is already a good market share and we need to focus on customer retention/loyalty). To achieve the goal, we can consider the following strategies:

Make all the devices more useful by enabling integrations with the existing smart home devices (even from the competing brands)
Increase product value by addressing additional us cases like: monitor elderly mobility and health, smarter kid monitoring technologies, remote pet monitoring and entertainment
Diversify product offering based on the current trends: add body temperature auto-measurement, air quality control & improvement products, cleanliness products (like iRobot)
Improve user data collection practices and optimize omni-platform targeting

Strategy opinion:

#1 assumes that competitors would be willing to collaborate and this can be a little of a stretch, also the monetization is questionable. #3 may need strong partnerships with the existing top-notch solutions and can be a fairly quick way to test the market. #2 would be the most promising as we have many under-valued segments that can obtain product value with the modification of the current existing Google Nest products. #4 plays well with the core Google strength, but there may not be much room to make it even better.

PM Team · Answer 2 · 2018-08-11T20:43:42+0000

First, let’s think who the Nest customer is. They are usually tech-savy and enjoy leveraging technology to improve their lives (whether it means reducing cost or improving experience). Some of Nest’s latest products such as the smoke detector and DoorBell have also been popular among customers that care about safety and security of their homes.

When I think about my house and one of the tasks that I repeat every single day, it’s the door locking and unlocking. I find it to be mechanical, repetitive and actually not secure. The problem with today’s door locks is that one can open a lock without breaking the door and by just trying many different keys. And it’s still not verifying the ownership of the key (i.e. did the key owner use the key to open the door?). This is a big problem and results in customers buying a separate system (e.g. security system) to address the authentication problem. And the security system usually works manually. The home owner has to enter a code each time. Each time they leave, they have to activate it, and each time they’re back they have to deactivate it. It’s a lot of work.

I’m going to focus on building a product that solves this problem with a digital door lock that not only unlocks the door, it also verifies the ownership of the person requesting to unlock the door. Let’s call this device Digital Lock. The Digital Lock can start getting unlocked as the home owner gets close to the door (it can detect based on an RFID key or NFC tag on the smartphone). This can help with unlocking but unlocking will only happen after a biometric authentication. There are various ways to do biometric authentication by leveraging
– voice authentication
– facial recognition

The product can be configurable in a way that allows the owner to decide the level of security they’ve like to have. One might chose only voice authentication. One might chose voice and facial.

This product will improve the home owners’ lives for a variety of reasons:
– they never have to do a mechanical task of locking and unlocking a door lock
– they no longer have to worry about losing their keys
– no one else can fake being the owner of the home and get in by unlocking the door
– the door lock / unlock data can also help Nest and other Nest products work better

PM Team · Answer 3 · 2018-08-11T20:42:42+0000

Here’s a general CEO thinking framework.

1) Stay true to the mission.
2) Follow customer demand
3) Pursue competitive or strategic advantage to the core family of offerings
4a) TO BE SLIGHTLY RISKY: Expand your customer base beyond what you currently have
4b) TO BE SAFE: Keep the customer base the same as much as possible
5) Identify gap in market that can be satisfied with company’s expertise
6) Identify key competitors & how we can differentiate
7) Build prototype, validate with key customer segments
8) Take pre-orders
9) Build a demand pipeline
10) Ensure there are no kinks in the supply-chain pipeline for launch of the product
11) Start building the product.

SPD_2017 · Answer 4 · 2022-08-28T17:20:06+0000

Google Nest offers a wide variety of smart home products such as doorbells, home security, smart locks, and sensor-based motion detection for homes.

I consider myself as a Nest power user and I believe, there are a few products in the smart home concept that Nest can focus on. For today's exercise, I will pick garage door opener as a prompt.

To summarize: I will build a NEST product for Garage that offers monitoring and security features while solving user pain points when it comes to accessing or keeping one’s garage safe.

Structure the Answer:

User personas:

residential garage user/home owner,

Home owner who uses garage to park the car, get in and out of the house.
Home owner that gets packages delivered to their garage

Garage Rental

Home owne who rents a garage for parking,

Commercial Garage

Mechanic, after hours pick-up, car rental, warehouse parking

Since NEST product portfolio is more focused on residential and household products, I will use the residential garage user/home owner as a user persona for this assessment.

Pain Points:

Forgets the garage opener when leaving the home, needs to shut the garage door
Has NEST security sensors on the garage door/ forgets to disable the alarm when arrived
Forgets to close the garage door when leaving
Has App based garage door opener but forgets the phone at home.
Prefers to receive packages delivered, but does not trust Amazon Key.
Power outage, no access to the garage door.

Existing products and gaps:

Disjoint - sensors, camera, automation.

Not smart

Does not offer sufficient security measures to rely on features to give garage access

Solutions proposed:

A NEST Garage Security and Access system
1. A combination of cameras, sensors and door opener.
2. Car registration based garage door access to open/close
3. Enables security system when home owner is away, built in sensors that connect to NEST secure system
4. Configurable Garage door shut option based on timing
5. Built in battery backup
6. Improved safety features
A NEST Garage Opener
1. Phone based garage door access
2. Alllows to share one time garage access for package pickup/drop off
3. Can be integrated with Nest secure system/sensors
4. Improved safety features
An Upgrade Version of the NEST doorbell or Nest outdoor security cam
1. Software update to the Nest App that can integrate with third party garage door openers such as Chamerlain
2. Wifi connectivity, the garage door opener must be compatible

Prioritize:

Solution	Impact	Reach	Complexity	Priority
1 Garage Security and Access control	H	H	H	Moonshot: needs new hardware and software design, development. Needs license plate recognition AI tool to control access. Pros: can leverage existing Nest security infrastructure, App.
2 Garage Opener	M	M	M	Competitive space if cannot establish why our product is superior over existing leaders in this space. More value for money for customers.
3 NEST App based integration	L	H	L	Easy to cross- sale existing Nest customer with quick App update. Doesn’t solve all the user pain points, but could be a good start to test the water.

Priority: Start with the Nest App based feature for garage access to evaluate the user interest in the Garage Access area.

Since there are already established leaders in garage door automation industry that have a loyal customer base, building another garage door is not worth it. So scratch #2.

#1 will establish Google /Nest as a differentiator in the industry and capture the existing Nest customer market share towards the garage security and access management + more.

productmanager123 · Answer 5 · 2021-06-01T22:01:37+0000

Clarifications and assumptions

1/ Nest portfolio - smart cameras, thermostats.

2/ Assuming charter is for all google devices in home segment. Not just Nest brand. For e.g,Google WiFi, Google voice assistant? Basically home devices and not personal devices. For e.g, fitbit, pixel are out of scope.

Goal is to succeed in the smart home market. Several options:

1/ Build devices which push Google as the smarthub. E.g, Low cost assistant devices which can be installed in every room. Can be voice activated, motion activated - enable person/ face recognition also, so that it knows there is a person inside. Basically Google Assitant is always available an always on in every room.

2/ Drive partnerships with OEMs to make appliances and devices smarter through integration with google assistant. Lighting, blinds which control the climate, house hold chores - robot vacuum cleaners, washing machines. Make appliances smarter. For e.g, Eggs in in fridge are going down, recognize through CV, order online.

3/ Go deeper and solve certain key use cases:

For e.g, Security is a big deal. Provide end to end solution such as ADT. Cameras, new secruity devices such as security locks which can lock, unl;ock based on vocie, face; and security service - calling 911.

Health monitor for senior citizens who are alone in homes. If there is change in routine - did not come out of bed, defect a cry for help etc.

Should invest in all three. We can go deeper in any of teh above areas.

Lets chose security space.

samantha mehrishi · Answer 6 · 2020-12-27T03:29:31+0000

Framework to use:

a) Clarify Question

b) Clarify Product & Company

c) List Potential Strategies & pick one to focus on

d) List Potential Solutions (for selected strategy)

e) List Evaluation criteria

f) Evaluate solutions (for selected strategy) based on evaluation criteria

g) Recommend solution -provide pros/cons of recommendation (mitigation if possible/time permits)

-------------

a) Clarify Question:

1) So do you know why we want to build next product? Is there some reason behind this? e.g. revenue contibutity, revenue growth, profitibility, user adoption, egagement etc?

2) Time frame for product ? Long term plan 2 -5 year

3) Do you care if product is hardware based or can it be an software offering?

b) Clarify Product & Company

1) Nest is a company that was acquired by Google ..so its' a Google subsidiary

2) Nest key product is a intelligent termostat, which allows consumer to manage home electric appliances. It's integrated with user's smart devices and uses IOT to interact with other home devices for monitoring and managing electricity

3) Nest also recently expanded product line to include home cameras

c) List Potential Strategies & pick one to focus on

1) Increase Price (i.e profitibility )

2) Increase existing User engagement

3) Expand user base

Focus: Pick #2 i.e increasing existing Nest User engagement. Why? Because its' a lead termostat in market with Amazon echo as close 2nd.

d) List Potential Solutions (for selected strategy)

1) Build new IOT energy saving devices e.g. smart generators, smart green tech solar panels, smart water gauges

2) Build software/cloud based service & app that allows Nest user to view all connected devices in digital hub, convert home into 'smart home.' Also, make this a subscription based service offering to user

3) Expand into smart IOT devices for the home e.g. smart fridges, smart TV, smart entertainment devices (i.e smart home)

e) List Evaluation criteria

1) UX

2) Revenue Growth

3) Implementation Cost

4) Competition

f) Evaluate solutions (for selected strategy) based on evaluation criteria

Solutions	UX	Revenue Growth	Impl. Cost	Competition
1) Smart Energy Saving Devices	H	M	M-H	M
2) Smart digital hub to link all user devices (i.e. smart home) ..using existing Nest thermostat, Google phone/home, Nest Camera (subscription based service)	L-M	M-H	L	H
3) Smart Home devices (i.e products that make a smart home)	H	M-H	M-H	M

g) Recommend solution

Solution #1) can be eliminated as significant UX and implementation cost involved and rev. growth is limited as still less than 15% of households in US are really invested in smart energy saving devices.

Also, if strategy is increase user engagement (stickiness) for Nest, then introduction of new devices will probably not acheive that.

Solution # 3) Smart home devices should be eliminated as well . Here also the cost is high (both UX + implementation cost) although I think there is a big market that will possibly be looking for more of such smart integrated devices in next 3 years. But again, if strategy is to increase user engagement with Nest, this will not be solution to pick

Recommendation: Pick Solution # 2 : Smart subsccription based digital hub that can link all user home devices to Nest 'smart home' app; interact with app to analyze a) device efficiency b) device maintanence c) device upgrades & service schedules d) device security etc

Pros:

--Aligned with strategy to increase Nest user engagement . Subscription based service also allows for increased 'stickiness.' Provides avenue to ramp up and build smart home ecosystem, something that is lacking unless user invests heavily. Also, aligned with Google's overall goal

Cons:

--High competition and Amazon can easily do this as well

--OEM (Samsung, LG etc) also have to be convinced to integrate with Nest digital hub ..this can result in increased rev share with OEM, making this product less profitable

Mitigation :

Some of the Cons can be managed by setting up usability studies and using existing nest user data to evaluate key user pain points to tackle with digitial hub solution. Creating these as part of MVP launch with iterations based on ongoing A/B, user testing will ensure product success and in turn enable Google to better negotiate with OEM manufactures etc. Google can also endorse smaller OEM manufactures (by cutting deals to allow next gen smart fridges, smart washing machines , smart routers etc) to be integrated with Nest digital hub. Long term goal: Make Nest digital hub into a 'brand' and maybe allow for future brand based revenue streams.