Lessons Learned. Design for Quality, Grow Value

There are many lessons in the postmortem of the VanMoof collapse. The E-bike industry must grow beyond short-sighted approaches that push innovation for investment appeal without focus on customer needs and overall quality. For background, see the TechCrunch feature and excellent posts by Juansi Vivo for analysis.

Brand promises of industry-disrupting innovation attracts short-term investment. On the other hand, delivering high-quality products and great customer service secures long-term growth. VanMoof focused on investment to shore up shaky business fundamentals. They required multiple cash injections to stay afloat. Customers and reviewers reported that known hardware and software problems were carried over into new product releases. A VanMoof service tech paints a grim picture of how the brand managed customer support and E-waste. Sustainability and profitability requires innovation and meeting riders’ expectations for value and serviceability.

Brands require both investment and a clear sales-growth strategy based on high quality products to succeed. While guidance for gathering new capital is everywhere, seasoned expertise in designing bikes and E-bikes for quality, value and longevity is truly scarce.

Committing to design & manufacture with a "culture of quality" requires expertise and leadership. Brand leaders must set design requirements that target quality and durability to serve customers needs. Some strategies for success:

• Create modular designs that share systems and technology across models. Target key innovations but don't 're-invent the wheel' unnecessarily. Empower mangers to re-direct "dead-end" designs that require proprietary components. These break compatibility and complicate BOMs & spare-parts inventory structures. Proprietary components also add supply chain headaches & risk to future productions...

• Prioritize development of component systems and technologies for backwards compatibility. Your entire user base can benefit from new design improvements. It also enhances the longevity and value of all models. Spare parts can double as value-enhancing upgrades for older models.

• Source widely-available components that follow bike industry standards. Provide customers with easy service and upgrade options.

UI/UX integration that ties critical functions like powering on(!), battery management and navigation/security to a brand-controlled app is a huge mistake. No elegant display features are worth the risk of having key startup functions of a bike "bricked" and unrideable! There is no valid value proposition for customers and brands if a bike cannot be ridden because of app failures.

No elegant display features are worth the risk of having key functions of a bike "bricked" and unrideable.

Rapidly advancing E-bike battery technology should be designed and engineered for backward compatibility. Unfortunately, this is too often ignored with the frenzied pursuit of ever-greater battery capacity. The result is a constant stream of depleted batteries, rapidly obsolete hardware and buggy firmware. Its time to meet the design challenges of standardizing battery cases and connections to ensure easy replacement and future upgrades.

Kudos to Upway who are tacking E-waste by refurbishing and reselling E-bikes. They have announced plans to offer new service support plans for VanMoof customers. But aftermarket solutions like these aren't enough. E-bike brands can take the initiative to design and engineer products that meet customer expectations & retain value for decades of use.

Smart design and engineering choices serve both customer and brand priorities. Better designs will reduce supply-chain burdens on brands. This is especially key for start-ups to achieve profitability. Easily serviceable bikes don't require brands to build complex and expensive field service and repair schemes. For D2C brands and startups, channeling investment into mobile service fleets and storefronts creates new brand costs that run out of control and eclipse sales margins. Great designs and careful engineering for serviceability improves customer experiences and protects the brand bottom-line.

Optimizing design & manufacturing processes is key to achieving sustainability, profitability and long-term growth. In the next few weeks, I will share more insights into design, engineering and manufacturing to grow bike and E-bike quality and value.

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