In Belgium, the country where I live in, e-bikes accounted for more than 50% of all bicycles sold in 2023, and the global market is forecasted to grow from 43.32 billion USD in 2023 to a stunning 119.72 billion USD by 2030. But did you know that the first electric bike was already patented by H. W Libbey in 1897?
Not so long ago, Apple introduced the Apple Vision Pro, a groundbreaking wearable device that can transform any room into your personal theater. Apple Sold Over 200,000 units in the first 10 days, and analysts predict sales of up to one million units before the end of this year. But did you know that an early precursor or today’s 3D VR glasses were already prototyped by Hugo Gernsback in 1936?
As you may have never heard of Libbey’s electric bike or Gernsback’s Teleyglasses, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that none of these inventions really changed the world at that time.
When I take a walk down my own memory lane, I can tell you about a similar experience from my early career. In the early 1990s, I was part of the Alcatel research team that developed the world’s first video on demand system (VOD), trialed by British Telecom in 1994. While Netflix has a whopping 260 million worldwide subscribers today, the BT market trial reached only 2,500 UK households…
All three examples illustrate the phenomenon of innovations arriving (long) before their time, not fitting market needs, technology maturity, and economic criteria like production costs.
The above innovations were ahead of their time but did not gain traction due to (mostly) obvious reasons. The success of a product not only depends on its brilliance but also on the alignment of technology, cost, and economic or societal readiness.
H. W. Libbey’s electric bicycle (1897)
- Technology availability: While electric propulsion was possible, the batteries and electric motors available at the end of the 19th century were bulky, heavy, and inefficient, and had limited capacity. This l deimited the practicality and range of electric vehicles.
- Market readiness: During the late 19th century, bicycles were already popular and widely used. However, the demand for electric bikes was likely low due to factors such as limited infrastructure (e.g., charging stations) and the preference for human or horse-powered transportation.
- Economic criteria: The production costs of electric bikes in the late 19th century would have been prohibitively high due to the expense of batteries and electric motors. Additionally, the lack of mass production techniques would have further increased costs.
Hugo Gernsback’s Teleyglasses (1936)
- Technology availability: In the 1930s, the technology needed for creating immersive virtual experiences was rudimentary compared to today. Display technology, computing power, and transmission methods were not advanced enough to support widespread adoption of AR/VR devices. Most required components were bulky and power-hungry.
- Market readiness: The concept of teleyglasses likely did not align with prevailing market needs or consumer demands at the time. The entertainment industry was not sufficiently developed to support such a product, and as analog, black & white television was only demonstrated in 1927, people were not accustomed to the idea of watching TV through glasses.
- Economic criteria: The production costs of teleyglasses in 1936 would have been high due to the specialized components and limited economies of scale. Additionally, the lack of infrastructure for content creation and distribution would have hindered the economic viability of the product.
Alcatel’s Video on Demand system (1994)
- Technology availability: We used Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) technology to transport the video streams, as broadband internet access was not yet available. MPEG encoding was in its early days, and it took us six weeks to get a Betamax video tape converted to a transmittable format.
- Market needs: People were accustomed to visiting video rental stores to physically rent tapes. The convenience of browsing shelves and interacting with staff was hard to replicate online (a few years later, Netflix disrupted this business model by delivering DVDs by mail).
- Economic criteria: There was no blockbuster content as studios were cautious about licensing their movies and shows for digital distribution. Companies, like Blockbuster, earned substantial revenue from late return fees. VOD lacked this revenue stream, affecting profitability.
Sometimes, being ahead of one’s time can lead to visionary ideas that eventually shape the future, even if they don’t find commercial success at once. QED. Just consider today’s adoption of e-bikes, Apple’s Vision Pro, and Netflix.
Footnote: I wrote this post with a little help from ChatGPT and Copilot.
Business storytelling 