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a MetLife Innovation Centre
6 key questions when building products
February 2016
Dr. Lee Ng

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a MetLife Innovation Centre
Professionally, I look for small ideas that can
have big impact for business
CEO, CFO, CDO, author
21 years in Silicon Valley
Advisor at DraperNexus
and Wavemaker Labs
Engineer, Ph.D.
Business background

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Agenda
 Short introduction to LumenLab,
MetLife Innovation Center
 What is a business model?
 Six key questions
 Deep dive into one question
 Q&A

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Lighting a path for innovation at MetLife
LumenLab was
established in 2014
in Singapore as a
core pillar of growth
and differentiation
for MetLife in Asia
New businesses separate from
MetLife’s core insurance focus
Building the
culture of
innovation within
MetLife in 10+
countries across
the region
Creating new
businesses
targeting the
needs of Asian
consumers
across:
HEALTH
WEALTH
RETIREMENT
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OUR MISSION BUILDING CULTURE &
CAPABILITY
BUILDING
BUSINESSES

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Create an
insight-driven
growth engine...
… that empathizes
deeply with
our customers’
problems…
… to build scalable
businesses that add
value across the
enterprise.
MISSION
CORE CAPABILITIES
VISION MetLife is recognized as the industry’s innovation leader
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Our vision and mission is to create
a growth engine that builds new businesses

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Incubated ideas that
grow into new,
revenue-generating
businesses for
MetLife
Build Businesses
80%
Build Capability
20%
PRETOTYPING
CONSUMER INSIGHTS
SCALE
PARTNERSHIPS
WORKSHOPS
BOOTCAMPS
FINANCIAL MODELING
MARKET RESEARCH
IDEA SHAPING
Our focus is on building businesses & capabilities
Developing
innovation culture &
capability in the
region via learning &
doing

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a MetLife Innovation Centrea MetLife Innovation Centre
How to think about creating a new business?

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What is a Business Model?
Source: Onset Ventures
BusinessCompanyProductTechnology
Opportunity
Value
Proposition Distribution
Strategy Financial
Model
Market Problem Buyer Budget

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What is in a business plan?
Who is the customer?1
What is the product?2
Who else will serve them?3
How will you tell them?4
How can they buy it?5
Where is the money?6

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Who is the Customer?
The Customer is the person who..
... signs the CHECK
... forks over the CASH
... pays the MONEY
Marketing 101 –
The Whole Course
And the user may not be buyer…

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Who is not the customer?
 Everyone
"Everyone will want one"
 The Industry
"Anyone making bricks will need it"
 The Company
"GE needs this to survive"
 A Group
"Horse riders have been waiting for this"
 Their Customer
"Just get them to say <Yes>"
 Build and They Will Come
"They don’t know they need it yet"

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Customers and Markets…
Markets are made up of groups
of customers, called segments
in marketing terms.
Market Segmentation is the
basic technique marketers used
to analyze the market for a
product.

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Market Segmentation
Segmentation is the process by which groups of prospects with
similar purchase preferences put themselves into definable
clusters or "segments." A fact based analysis of users' needs and
the key factors that influence purchase decisions provides the
foundation for this process. Effective segmentation allows the
business to prioritize and devote resources to those segments
where XXXX can deliver superior value to the customer. Market
segmentation enables decisions to be made on the level of
product or service specialization. It also enables one to describe
the benefits appropriately to the end user.
« He can compress the most words into the smallest idea
of any man I know. »
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
XXXX Corporate Marketing Guide

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Market Segmentation
« Consumers are statistics.
Customers are people. »
Stanley Marcus
WHY?
WHAT?
So you can identify what capabilities we need to develop
(or acquire) to serve the segment profitably
Segments:
 Have a set of common customer requirements
 Have measurable characteristics
(# of customers, annual purchases, growth rate)
 Have identifiable competitors
 Have a common sales or distribution channel
 Have the same present or future key success factors

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Examples of Segmentation: Pen
Can Mont Blanc Pen re-segment the market in a new way to serve
customers better or expand its market?
?
From the book "Profitable Growth"
How can we describe who
buys Mont Blanc Pen?
Simple
Segmentation
Segmentation
by Needs and Channel
Everyone that
uses a pen
Distribution Channel
Why Buy? Dept Stores Specialty Stores
Personal Gifts  
Ego Satisfaction  

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Re-segmentation
Dept Stores Specialty Corporate
Personal gift x% y% NA
Ego p% q% NA
Corporate Gifts NA b% c%
Market Segmentation determines product features and channel
strategies!
Segmentation provides new insights into user needs, which in terms will allow us
to serve them better. New segmentation will reveal attributes that may be
attractive to new segments.

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Market Segment Myths
WE segment markets. Buyers and users form segments
based on their needs and the problems they are trying to
solve
There is ONE ideal segmentation variable.
The segments that really matter are the benefits and
price. Many others can stimulate imaginative
understanding (application, industry, company size,
income level, geography, price, age, religion, education,
lifestyle, values,…)
Segments are PRODUCTS. Segments are based on
user needs not products, not technologies. Other
products may deliver the same benefits.
Segments are FOREVER. Segments change along with
user needs and other products.
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M
Y
T
H
S

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Personification of Customer Segments
 When you think about customers as a person, your intuitive
understanding of their needs becomes multi-dimensional
 Enables diverse teams to talk about the
same thing in a rich setting
 Tradeoffs becomes "personal"
 Example: HP PC and Printers

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Bottomline
• To build a business, you need to address all 6 key questions
• Customer and Product are the Siamese twins of a Business
• Make sure you take a holistic view toward them, and iterate as
necessary.

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a MetLife Innovation Centre
Want to know more?
Lee Ng
lee@lumenlab.sg