The Payments Situation:

It is no surprise that each day new players are entering the payment arena. From enabling small merchants to take payments (e.g. Square, GoPayment, PayPal Here) to making payments (e.g. LevelUp, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts) and mobile wallets (e.g. Paydiant, ERN Global, MC MasterPass, V.me), there is a tremendous amount of activity in and around mobile payments. Particularly interesting at the moment are mobile wallet companies that are muddying the payment waters by offering payment, personal financial management (PFM), customer experience, and commerce functionality.
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Every entrepreneur dreams of a successful, breakthrough product. A breakthrough product is one that stands out and establishes them as a leader in their field. But what happens after a success? Inevitably, one triumph is never enough. What makes entrepreneurs tick is that they are never content to just rest on their laurels. One innovation calls for another.

So how do you follow up on a success? Companies facing these issues, come to High Start Group every day for insights and guidance. These companies need a way to expand their offerings, but don’t know where they should begin.

When you’re looking at introducing a new product to your suite of offerings, it’s helpful to go through a simple checklist to see how product expansion can work for you. Below are our top five suggestions for how companies can grow on their successes.
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Panel 1 Take-aways From The Mobile Commerce Summit

by Alo Mukerji

Qualitative interviews are an important tool in the career of any researcher. Interviews allow you to find out in-depth information about an individual. As an interviewer you can uncover what decisions someone makes, and the why behind those decisions. While quantitative methods can ask the same questions, interviews allow you to gain much richer, more authentic information at an individual level with the added bonus of being able to tailor your questions along the way.

But while interviewing seems straightforward, there are some easy pitfalls that an interviewer needs to learn to avoid. Below I’ve highlighted the most common mistakes that I’ve encountered:
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Panel 1 Take-aways From The Mobile Commerce Summit

by Janet Muto

“Try it before you buy it” has turned from a sales pitch into both a consumer and business expectation. It’s now the baseline standard that customers will get some level of access to test out a product before they commit to buying it. This can be helpful for the business: it provides a great way for businesses to gain users.  Both for warm lead generation and for providing immediate feedback on how smooth their customer experience is. But “free” also raises many questions: exactly how should the product be free?

One of the questions that I am most often asked is should I offer my users a free trial or Freemium solution, and my answer is always “it depends”.  This blog will look at what factors to consider for and what to expect with Freemium, free trial or pilot as your engagement offer.
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By: Ashley Carneal

Face it, it feels as if new products and messages are being delivered to consumers today at lightning speeds.  But if you stop to think about it – how much of what you are seeing is truly a new product or new innovation?  Have you been part of a Repositioning Revolution?
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In my last post, I discussed how qualitative research can help supplement quantitative methods. But what type of qualitative research is most useful for your business? Below, I summarize the different qualitative techniques and the use case for each.
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Senior executives, product managers, and venture capitalists love numbers. It is obvious that having robust quantitative data makes it much easier to make—and justify—strategic decisions. But in the quest for information robustness, it is possible to over-rely on the numbers themselves. Smart decision-makers will employ an iterative research process that includes not only quantitative methods, but qualitative methods as well.

But when should you add qualitative elements? Below are a few examples when qualitative techniques supplement quantitative research:
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By Nitzan Shaer

How often do you have an experience on a mobile phone that you describe as “wow”? How often have you felt that you really enjoyed it or got what you needed in 5-30 seconds? Of the 700,000 mobile apps, only a small number meet the high watermark of truly outstanding mobile applications. However, with 2013 being the year when the majority of people will access the content through a mobile device rather than a PC, one would think we should be much further along in creating outstanding apps. Evidently it isn’t easy. At all.
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by Greg Garson

The second panel at the Mobile Commerce Summit, part of the FutureM conference, “The new role of Media, Marketing, and Big Data in a world of Mobile Commerce” focused on the influx of data available through mobile commerce, and what opportunities have become available.  The panel was moderated by Greg Garson (High Start Group, Financial Services Practice Lead). Speakers included John Caron (Catalina, Vice President Marketing), Molly Plozay (FirstData, Vice President), Ben Saren (Litle & Co. Vice President, Marketing), and Gene Wisniewski (Linkable Networks, Senior Vice President).
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Panel 1 Take-aways From The Mobile Commerce Summit

by Janet Muto

The first panel at the Mobile Commerce Summit (part of the FutureM conference), “The War for Your Customer – Loyalty, Acquisition, and Customer Delight in the age of Mobile Commerce” was moderated by Janet Muto (Managing Partner, High Start Group).  The panel focused on the top issues facing consumers and retailers and what the panelists’ expected would drive consumer or retailers to mobile commerce. The three panelists were Andy Miller (Director of Mobile Products, Constant Contact), Joshua Robin (Director of Innovation, MBTA), and Mike Grimes (SVP Mobile Commerce, Catalina).
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