5 Critical Go-to-Market Lessons from Duro’s Hardware Revolution
Building a successful B2B product isn’t just about technology – it’s about timing, positioning, and understanding your market’s evolution. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Michael Corr from Duro shared invaluable insights from their journey in transforming hardware development. Here are the key lessons that emerged:
- Leverage Industry Expertise to Build Trust Deep domain expertise isn’t just about product development – it’s a powerful go-to-market advantage. Michael explains, “myself and my co-founder Kellen are engineers. We’ve been in this space respectfully for 20 years each. We’ve lived through the pains, we know exactly what our customers are going through and in many cases we know more than they do.” This expertise allows Duro to predict challenges before they arise and build deeper trust with customers.
- Find the Right Market Timing Sometimes being too early can be as challenging as being too late. “We started 2017 because in my opinion, I kind of saw that the industry was starting to turn where more and more people like myself were trying to adopt software practices into how they’re building hardware,” Michael recalls. “I think in hindsight, maybe if I win year or two, there would have been a little bit more momentum in the market.”
- Navigate Cultural Transitions Strategically When disrupting an established industry, you often need to bridge old and new approaches. Michael notes, “We’re really at that crossroads of the cultural shift in the industry. You still have a large, sizable amount of customers who are used to the legacy workflows and products and a growing versioning industry that have no experience with those and are looking for the more agile, cloud hosted solutions.”
- Focus on High-Growth Market Segments Rather than trying to serve everyone, Duro found success by focusing on a specific segment with growing needs. “Where we do best is teams who are going through what’s referred to as NPI new product introduction,” Michael explains. “And that’s where teams are trying to move fast. They’re innovating, they’re trying to get out of their competitors, trying to get their own products to market faster.”
- Build for the Future While Supporting the Present Innovation doesn’t mean completely abandoning what works. As Michael shares, “there’s many things in PLM that are very well done and really provide a lot of value. Not everything is inefficient or inappropriate, but there are many things that are.” The key is identifying which legacy features to keep and which to reinvent.
This strategic balance helped Duro navigate the challenging early years. When initial positioning as a “Data Management Platform” didn’t resonate, they adapted. “We actually called ourselves Data Management Platform. But again, timing wasn’t right… And so we kind of retroactively said, so fine, we’re a PLM. And then immediately we started selling because customers got what we were.”
For founders building category-defining products, these lessons highlight the importance of meeting your market where it is while leading it where it needs to go. Success isn’t just about having the right product – it’s about understanding the cultural and technological shifts driving your industry’s evolution.
The most powerful insight might be Michael’s observation about what truly enables innovation: “The cost to fail, the cost to make a mistake was so low because you could try something with code, put it out there in the world, learn from it and then adopt in very rapid short cycles.” By focusing on reducing the cost of failure in hardware development, Duro isn’t just building a product – they’re enabling a new era of innovation.
Looking ahead, Michael envisions a future where hardware development becomes as streamlined as software: “What I’m looking forward to is the day that a hardware team is stood up and the very first thing they do is install their dura account.” This vision, combined with their strategic go-to-market approach, positions Duro to play a crucial role in hardware’s coming renaissance.