customercentric and sustainable products and business models, through facilitation and coaching

The most expensive mistakes in industrial product development rarely happen late.
They happen at the very beginning — when teams believe they already know enough to commit.

In that moment:

• assumptions feel like facts
• direction feels logical
• confidence replaces evidence
• budgets and engineering capacity get locked
• and reversing course becomes costly or impossible.

This is what I call false certainty before commitment.

Industrial companies don’t usually fail because of bad execution.
They fail because critical decisions were made on invisible, untested assumptions long before development resources were committed.

That’s where I come in.

I design decision processes for industrial leadership and product teams exactly at the point where:

• a product idea feels right but lacks evidence
• multiple options compete for development capacity
• market assumptions are driving internal commitment
• strategic direction is being locked before real validation
• circular business model decisions increase systemic risk.

My role is not to create ideas.
Not to build consensus.
Not to decide for you.

My role is to make decision-relevant assumptions visible, structure uncertainty and help teams gain clarity before serious resources are committed.

Because once development budgets, engineering capacity and roadmaps are locked, every wrong assumption becomes expensive.

If you are currently facing an early product, market or business model decision that feels “already decided” - that is exactly the moment where an external decision perspective prevents costly lock-in.

Florian Hameister

HOW A DONKEY CAN TELL TIME—AND WHY IT MATTERS FOR PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT


Did you instantly know how that works? 
Or did you assume?

That’s the thing about assumptions—we make them all the time without realizing it.

And in product development, unchecked assumptions can waste massive amounts of time, money, and effort.

Instead of building on guesses:

✅ Get a different perspective—work with heterogeneous teams and ask the right questions.

✅ Listen to your customers—understand their real challenges before jumping to solutions.

✅ Gather evidence—don’t rely on gut feeling alone.

✅ Most importantly, make assumptions explicit—so everyone knows what’s based on proof and what still needs validation.

The costliest mistakes aren’t made by what you don’t know—they’re made by what you think you know but don’t.

What’s the biggest assumption you’ve seen go wrong in product development? 👇


_ _ _



👋 Hi, I’m Florian!
💡 I help innovation teams reduce risks in early-stage product development and turn chaos into clarity.
🌍 Passionate about #CustomerCentricity & #CircularEconomy as drivers for #Innovation.

📌 Want frameworks & tools to make better product decisions?
🗂 Get free access to my Library for Innovation & Circular Economy – full of templates, guides & checklists.
🔗 Find it in my Featured Section.
📬 Let’s connect! I’d love to hear your take.

🖼️ Video: All rights and credits belong to the respective owner(s).

Decision Risks Before Product Commitment | Helping industrial decision-makers avoid costly mistakes before development budgets, capacities and roadmaps are locked in.

MOST TEAMS STILL SOLVE MADE-UP PROBLEMS

It happens every day:
➪ A customer does something.
➪ Teams assume they know what’s going on.
➪ They deliver a solution nobody asked for.

Result? Another product that fixes a problem that never existed.

Lesson: Assumptions kill innovation.
Validation creates it.

_ _ _



👋 Hi, I’m Florian!
💡 I help innovation teams reduce risks in early-stage product development and turn chaos into clarity.
🌍 Passionate about #CustomerCentricity & #CircularEconomy as drivers for #Innovation.

📌 Want frameworks & tools to make better product decisions?
🗂 Get free access to my Library for Innovation & Circular Economy – full of templates, guides & checklists.
🔗 Find it in my Featured Section.
📬 Let’s connect! I’d love to hear your take.

🖼️ Video: All rights and credits belong to the respective owner(s).

"YOU HAVE TO THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX!"

🤮🤮

I hear this all the time in ideation sessions. And honestly?
I’m not a fan.

Why?

Because in many cases, it’s frustrating and unhelpful.
Often, the real challenge isn’t thinking outside the box—it's thinking inside it.

Working within constraints can be far more effective.
It forces creativity with real-world limitations instead of wishful thinking.

Methods like TRIZ and SIT offer brilliant ways to innovate inside the box—by leveraging existing resources, patterns, and systematic approaches.



Check out Grant Snider’s fantastic illustrations below.


_ _ _


👋 Hi, I’m Florian!
💡 I help innovation teams reduce risks in early-stage product development and turn chaos into clarity.
🌍 Passionate about #CustomerCentricity & #CircularEconomy as drivers for innovation.

📌 Want frameworks & tools to make better product decisions?
🗂 Get free access to my Library for Innovation & Circular Economy – full of templates, guides & checklists.
🔗 Find it in my Featured Section.
📬 Let’s connect! I’d love to hear your take.

outside the box

SOMETIMES A GOOD METHOD JUST NEEDS THE RIGHT MOMENT.

Over the past few years, I attended two meetups with
Janek Panneitz,
and each time I had the same feeling:

Great method.
But honestly, I never fully knew how I would really use it in my own work.

A few months ago, I had this gut feeling
that now it might finally make sense.

Not because the method suddenly became better.
But because I look at it differently today.

Through my systemic training, which I started last year,
I’ve begun to truly understand what happens on the meta level:
•	what good questions actually trigger
•	which topics surface (and why)
•	why people react so differently to the same input
•	and what that tells us about teams, priorities, and decisions

And that’s where the 3D-Welten by Janek Panneitz is incredibly strong.

It doesn’t push teams toward quick answers.
It creates space to observe.
And it makes things visible that usually stay unspoken.

What became very clear to me:
There’s huge potential in working on this level.
And at the same time, I realized how much more there still is for me to learn there.

Add to that a great group
(open and thoughtful),
and Janek, who consistently opens up that meta perspective:

What’s actually happening here right now?

Thank you, Janek,
and thanks to everyone who made these two days so intense.

This definitely feels like an important next building block –
for my work and for myself.

No alternative text description for this image

Most ideas don’t fail in the market.

They get killed internally—often by management.

Why?

Because they get presented as just an idea—with no deeper thought, no clear value, and no business model behind them.

If you want your idea to survive, take the time to figure out:

➪ How it helps your customers make progress in getting their jobs done

➪ How it supports relevant business outcomes that make it a no-brainer for management to support

An idea without context is easy to reject.

An idea that solves real problems—both for customers and the business—is hard to ignore.



How do you make sure your ideas don’t get stuck? 



_ _ _


👋 Hi, I’m Florian!
💡 I help innovation teams reduce risks in early-stage product development and turn chaos into clarity.
🌍 Passionate about #CustomerCentricity & #CircularEconomy as drivers for innovation.

📌 Want frameworks & tools to make better product decisions?
🗂 Get free access to my Library for Innovation & Circular Economy – full of templates, guides & checklists.
🔗 Find it in my Featured Section.
📬 Let’s connect! I’d love to hear your take.

You just had an idea and want to pitch it directly to m

JUST BECAUSE IT ADDS UP DOESN’T MEAN IT WORKS FOR CUSTOMERS.

A PS3 + a PS2 = a PS5, right?
Well… not exactly. 😂

But this kind of thinking happens all the time in product development.

📌 Companies stack features instead of solving real problems.

📌 Teams assume more = better, without validating if it actually helps customers.

📌 Products become overcomplicated—meeting internal logic but failing real-world needs.


True customer understanding isn’t about math; it’s about insights:

💡 What do customers really need?

💡 What drives them to switch to a new solution?

💡 Are you solving their problem or just adding things together?


I hope that made you smile a bit. I wish you a wonderful weekend.



_ _ _



👋 Hi, I’m Florian!
💡 I help innovation teams reduce risks in early-stage product development and turn chaos into clarity.
🌍 Passionate about #CustomerCentricity & #CircularEconomy as drivers for #Innovation.

📌 Want frameworks & tools to make better product decisions?
🗂 Get free access to my Library for Innovation & Circular Economy – full of templates, guides & checklists.
🔗 Find it in my Featured Section.
📬 Let’s connect! I’d love to hear your take.

🖼️ Video: All rights and credits belong to the respective owner(s).

Rejection sucks.

And if you’re an innovator, you know—rejection is part of the game.

It forces us to find new ways, rethink assumptions, and learn.

And let’s be honest: most ideas should be rejected.
But in the process, good ideas often get lost as collateral damage.

That’s why a structured, clear, and smooth idea selection process is so important.


As a rule of thumb 👍:
 Idea selection should take twice as long as idea generation.


And no, I don’t mean dumping ideas into an Excel file, assigning numbers, and hoping for the best.

I came across a brilliant piece of art by Grant Snider on rejection—it sums this up perfectly.

How does your company handle idea selection?


_ _ _


👋 Hi, I’m Florian!
💡 I help innovation teams reduce risks in early-stage product development and turn chaos into clarity.
🌍 Passionate about #CustomerCentricity & #CircularEconomy as drivers for innovation.

📌 Want frameworks & tools to make better product decisions?
🗂 Get free access to my Library for Innovation & Circular Economy – full of templates, guides & checklists.
🔗 Find it in my Featured Section.
📬 Let’s connect! I’d love to hear your take.

rejection

COOL TECHNOLOGY IS WORTHLESS—UNLESS PEOPLE ACTUALLY WANT IT.

It’s easy to build something just because it’s possible.
The hard part? Building something people actually need.

We see it all the time:
📌 Products packed with useless features

📌 Tech that’s impressive—but solves no real problem

📌 Innovation driven by capability instead of customer needs

 
Take smart fridges as an example.

Manufacturers added touchscreens, cameras, and shopping list features to make them feel futuristic.
But most people already use their phones for shopping lists.
And how often do you really check inside your fridge remotely?

The result? A cool gadget—but not an essential upgrade yet.

💡 It’s much easier to create technology people don’t want than to build something they truly need.

The key? Start with the customer—not just the technology.


BTW: That does not mean that a smart fridge is bullsh*t. It could become relevant if my fridge could take the whole task and just tell me what is in the refrigerator and what is missing, and maybe order the missing part itself. Then, it helps me to make real progress.


_ _ _



👋 Hi, I’m Florian!
💡 I help innovation teams reduce risks in early-stage product development and turn chaos into clarity.
🌍 Passionate about #CustomerCentricity & #CircularEconomy as drivers for #Innovation.

📌 Want frameworks & tools to make better product decisions?
🗂 Get free access to my Library for Innovation & Circular Economy – full of templates, guides & checklists.
🔗 Find it in my Featured Section.
📬 Let’s connect! I’d love to hear your take.

🖼️ Video: All rights and credits belong to the respective owner(s).

90% OF NEW PRODUCTS FAIL—AND IT’S NOT JUST BAD LUCK.

In 90% of cases, failure isn’t because of “others.”
It’s because the fundamentals weren’t right—before development even started.

The good news? You can reduce this risk dramatically.

To make sure a product actually succeeds, you need to clear three major hurdles before even thinking about development:

📌 Strategy Fit – Does this align with your company’s direction?

📌 Problem-Solution Fit – Does your solution truly solve a relevant customer problem?

📌 Product-Market Fit – Do enough people care enough to pay for it?


Today, let’s focus on Problem-Solution Fit and why it matters.

Simply put, it’s about whether your solution actually solves the problem you defined—and if customers see it the same way.

1️⃣ Make sure you’re solving a relevant problem

For this to work, the problem you define must be urgent and important for your customers.

💡 Jobs-to-be-Done interviews help you understand what customers need to make progress.

In most cases, you already have an idea and are now looking for a problem to match it.
Still, I highly recommend conducting interviews without mentioning your solution.

Beforehand, define your assumptions about the problem you believe customers have—then validate how many of these are actually true.

When defining the customer problem, reflect on:
📌 Jobs customers are trying to get done
📌 Pains they experience in this context
📌 Gains they are looking for

Prioritize them based on the insights gained from interviews.
The Value Proposition Canvas is an excellent tool to visualize how well your solution fits the problem.


2️⃣ Define how your product creates value

Now, map out:
✅ How your product relieves specific pains (Pain Relievers)
✅ How your product enhances certain gains (Gain Creators)

Then, turn them into clear assumptions, e.g.:
“I believe that this (pain reliever) reduces this (pain) in a way that is relevant to the customer.”


3️⃣ Validate your assumptions with real customers

Believing in your own solution isn’t enough—you need actual feedback and validation.

💡 Think about how you can test your assumptions.
💡 Check out the books "Pretotyping" and “Testing Business Ideas.”
💡 Formulate hypotheses that help you prove your assumptions wrong.


TL;DR:
✔ Use the Value Proposition Canvas to check if your solution truly fits the problem.
✔ Define assumptions and test them, because your customers—not you—need to believe your solution will help them make progress.



_ _ _



👋 Hi, I’m Florian!
💡 I help innovation teams reduce risks in early-stage product development and turn chaos into clarity.
🌍 Passionate about #CustomerCentricity & #CircularEconomy as drivers for #Innovation.

📌 Want frameworks & tools to make better product decisions?
🗂 Get free access to my Library for Innovation & Circular Economy – full of templates, guides & checklists.
🔗 Find it in my Featured Section.
📬 Let’s connect! I’d love to hear your take.

START WITH THE CUSTOMER—NOT THE TECHNOLOGY.

It’s tempting to start with technology and then figure out how to sell it. 

I know this from my experience as an engineer, and I see it quite commonly as a facilitator and consultant in many midsized industrial companies.

However, in my opinion, and according to Steve Jobs, that’s the wrong approach.

💡 “You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology.”

Too many companies build impressive features—but forget to ask:

📌 Does this solve a real customer problem?

📌 Is this actually needed, or just possible?

📌 Are we designing for the user—or for ourselves?

The best innovation isn’t about technology. It’s about helping customers to make progress in their lives.



_ _ _



👋 Hi, I’m Florian!
💡 I help innovation teams reduce risks in early-stage product development and turn chaos into clarity.
🌍 Passionate about #CustomerCentricity & #CircularEconomy as drivers for #Innovation.

📌 Want frameworks & tools to make better product decisions?
🗂 Get free access to my Library for Innovation & Circular Economy – full of templates, guides & checklists.
🔗 Find it in my Featured Section.
📬 Let’s connect! I’d love to hear your take.

🖼️ Video: All rights and credits belong to the respective owner(s).

“People don’t buy products—they hire them to do a job.”

This video captures it perfectly:

Two women, one frying pan.

For one, it’s a tool for its intended purpose: cooking

For the other, it becomes something entirely different — playing tennis or something more hurtful 🤪

Same product, completely different “jobs.”

This is a crucial reminder for anyone working in product development and marketing:

Your customers bring their own goals, challenges, and contexts to the table.

While you might see your product serving one purpose, they’re “hiring” it for something entirely unexpected.

What I can recommend is don’t just sell features.

Take the time to understand the real “job” your customers are trying to get done—and how your product fits into that.

It’s about seeing through their eyes and creating solutions that truly make a difference.

Have you had experience or used a product yourself in a totally different way?



_ _ _



👋 Hi, I’m Florian!
💡 I help innovation teams reduce risks in early-stage product development and turn chaos into clarity.
🌍 Passionate about #CustomerCentricity & #CircularEconomy as drivers for #Innovation.

📌 Want frameworks & tools to make better product decisions?
🗂 Get free access to my Library for Innovation & Circular Economy – full of templates, guides & checklists.
🔗 Find it in my Featured Section.
📬 Let’s connect! I’d love to hear your take.

🖼️ Video: All rights and credits belong to the respective owner(s).

STOP SPRAYING AND PRAYING WITH PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Most companies treat product development like archery—
except they fire dozens of arrows blindly and hope one hits the target.

Instead of validating first, they push as many ideas as possible into development, tying up resources and slowing everything down.

But here’s the thing:

🔹 More projects ≠ More success
🔹 Unvalidated ideas = Wasted effort
🔹 Product failure is often predictable—if you test assumptions early

The better approach?

✅ Frontload your process—validate before committing resources.
✅ Ensure the idea fits your business strategy and solves a real customer problem.
✅ Then—and only then—put it into development.

One well-aimed arrow is worth more than a dozen random shots.

How does your company ensure it’s shooting at the right targets?



_ _ _


👋 Hi, I’m Florian!
💡 I help innovation teams reduce risks in early-stage product development and turn chaos into clarity.
🌍 Passionate about #CustomerCentricity & #CircularEconomy as drivers for innovation.

📌 Want frameworks & tools to make better product decisions?
🗂 Get free access to my Library for Innovation & Circular Economy – full of templates, guides & checklists.
🔗 Find it in my Featured Section.
📬 Let’s connect! I’d love to hear your take.

idea validation before development

IN PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT, IT'S RARELY ABOUT having the most advanced technology, the best design, or the most enormous budget that makes the biggest difference.

It's usually just understanding real customer needs, validating demand early, and adapting based on evidence.

If you're still building based on assumptions, just start testing ideas with real customers before investing heavily.

_ _ _



👋 Hi, I’m Florian!
💡 I help innovation teams reduce risks in early-stage product development and turn chaos into clarity.
🌍 Passionate about #CustomerCentricity & #CircularEconomy as drivers for #Innovation.

📌 Want frameworks & tools to make better product decisions?
🗂 Get free access to my Library for Innovation & Circular Economy – full of templates, guides & checklists.
🔗 Find it in my Featured Section.
📬 Let’s connect! I’d love to hear your take.

YOU DON’T NEED A PERFECT PRODUCT TO GET CUSTOMERS.

What you really need is proof of demand, early market feedback, and the ability to adapt quickly.

Most companies believe launching with a fully built product ensures success, but the truth is early validation beats late perfection every time.

If you're still waiting until everything is polished before testing demand, you're not de-risking your product—you’re making it more fragile.

_ _ _



👋 Hi, I’m Florian!
💡 I help innovation teams reduce risks in early-stage product development and turn chaos into clarity.
🌍 Passionate about #CustomerCentricity & #CircularEconomy as drivers for #Innovation.

📌 Want frameworks & tools to make better product decisions?
🗂 Get free access to my Library for Innovation & Circular Economy – full of templates, guides & checklists.
🔗 Find it in my Featured Section.
📬 Let’s connect! I’d love to hear your take.

EVERYONE THINKS THEY NEED a groundbreaking idea, a huge budget, or the perfect timing to succeed in product development.

What they really need is to escape internal biases, validate early with real customers, and test assumptions before building.

Most teams fail because they trust internal opinions over actual customer insights. They assume they know what the market wants—until they launch, and reality proves them wrong.

If you're still making product decisions based on what your team believes instead of what your customers show, you're not innovating—you're gambling.

_ _ _



👋 Hi, I’m Florian!
💡 I help innovation teams reduce risks in early-stage product development and turn chaos into clarity.
🌍 Passionate about #CustomerCentricity & #CircularEconomy as drivers for #Innovation.

📌 Want frameworks & tools to make better product decisions?
🗂 Get free access to my Library for Innovation & Circular Economy – full of templates, guides & checklists.
🔗 Find it in my Featured Section.
📬 Let’s connect! I’d love to hear your take.

BEFORE YOU OFFER A SOLUTION… MAKE SURE YOU KNOW THE PROBLEM.

In the video, a guy confidently feeds a dog a treat…
Only to realize he was feeding the wrong end. 😅

Sounds ridiculous?
Well, companies do this all the time—offering solutions before truly understanding the customer’s problem.

Before launching your next product, ask:
✅ What job is the customer trying to get done?
✅ What pain are they experiencing?
✅ Does your solution actually help them progress?

Because if you don’t check first, you might end up feeding the wrong end. 🫠



_ _ _



👋 Hi, I’m Florian!
💡 I help innovation teams reduce risks in early-stage product development and turn chaos into clarity.
🌍 Passionate about #CustomerCentricity & #CircularEconomy as drivers for #Innovation.

📌 Want frameworks & tools to make better product decisions?
🗂 Get free access to my Library for Innovation & Circular Economy – full of templates, guides & checklists.
🔗 Find it in my Featured Section.
📬 Let’s connect! I’d love to hear your take.

🖼️ Video: All rights and credits belong to the respective owner(s).

Business case hints for new products to prove the desirability:

1. Define the required business outcomes based on strategy 

2. Check the customer-problem fit

3. Check the problem-solution fit

  - Define your value proposition

  - Check how it relates to your customers' jobs, pains, and gains

  - Define your assumptions that need to be true

  - Validate your assumptions

When you have proof that the product idea is desired and goes with the strategy, go on with a deep dive into feasibility, design, and viability. 


_ _ _



👋 Hi, I’m Florian!
💡 I help innovation teams reduce risks in early-stage product development and turn chaos into clarity.
🌍 Passionate about #CustomerCentricity & #CircularEconomy as drivers for #Innovation.

📌 Want frameworks & tools to make better product decisions?
🗂 Get free access to my Library for Innovation & Circular Economy – full of templates, guides & checklists.
🔗 Find it in my Featured Section.
📬 Let’s connect! I’d love to hear your take.

Innovate 💡 or shrink 🐜 - Wie kannst du Herausforderungen wie schlechtes Klima, fehlende Innovationskraft oder keine erfolgreiche Umsetzung meistern?

Das sind die Fragen, die mich antreiben. Ich bin Mirko und fördere intrinsische Motivation, mache Inspiration nutzbar und setze Innovationen um. 

Mein Ziel ist es, dich und dein Team dabei zu unterstützen, die innere Antriebskraft zu entdecken, neue Wege zu gehen und gemeinsam Innovationen erfolgreich auf den Markt zu bringen.

🌟 Was mich ausmacht:

Motivation fördern: Ich helfe dir, deine Mitarbeitenden wieder ins Boot zu holen und ihre intrinsische Motivation zu wecken – für echte Begeisterung und Engagement.

Inspiration nutzen: Gemeinsam entdecken wir neue Perspektiven und Quellen, um frische Ideen zu entwickeln und Innovationskraft zu stärken.

Herausforderungen meistern: Ob Unzufriedenheit im Team, Innovationsstau oder nicht umgesetzte Ideen – ich zeige dir Wege, diese Hürden zu überwinden und nachhaltige Ergebnisse zu erzielen.

🎯 Mein Fokus:
Ich arbeite mit Geschäftsführer:innen, Führungskräften und Teams, die nicht nur reden, sondern wirklich etwas verändern wollen. Mein Ansatz verbindet persönliche Entwicklung mit innovativen Methoden, um aus Herausforderungen echte Chancen zu machen – egal, ob es um Mitarbeiterbindung, kreative Lösungen oder erfolgreiche Produkte geht.

Wenn du bereit bist, Neues zu schaffen und die Dinge anders anzugehen, lass uns sprechen. Gemeinsam entwickeln wir Lösungen, die Wunschergebnisse liefern. 🚀

———————


SALT AND PEPPER Consulting GmbH & Co. KG
 Hamburger Straße 11 
 22083 Hamburg 


 Tel +49 40 797 69 50


 Mail info@salt-and-pepper.eu 
 Web www.salt-and-pepper.eu  
 
 USt. Id.-Nr. DE300775994


 Sitz der Gesellschaft: Hamburg
 AG Hamburg HRA 124099  
 
 Persönlich haftende Gesellschafterin: 
 SALT AND PEPPER Consulting Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH
 Sitz der Gesellschaft: Hamburg 
 AG Hamburg HRB 155803
 
 Geschäftsführer:
 Dipl.-Ing. Sven Scholz (Vorsitzender) 
 Dr. Arne Engelbrecht 
 
 Datenschutzerklärung: https://salt-and-pepper.eu/datenschutz/

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The Battle

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