Stop Guessing!
(The case of a billion-dollar company that transformed its R&D)

It's no secret that many startups step on the same rake - they develop a product and then try to sell it.

However, even large players with strong teams, big budgets, and established sales channels can do the same thing for years.

(resulting in feature-overloaded devices that fewer and fewer people want to buy)

The story of Dräger Safety shows why it's necessary to change the approach.

Dräger is one of the world leaders in industrial safety.

- Nearly €2 billion in annual revenue
- 15,000+ employees
- Present in over 100 countries

Strong engineering expertise and R&D base with many patents and know-how.


The Problem with the Old Way

Previously at Dräger Safety, engineers sat in conference rooms analyzing what customers needed.

Information came from salespeople who asked for one thing: lower prices and higher quality.

Plus, if competitors added some features - then we urgently needed to add them too.

The result?

Complex, expensive-to-manufacture products with steadily declining demand.

How Did Everything Change?

The new head of the R&D unit took a radical step - he got engineers out of the office.

They went to the sites where their customers worked. They observed, listened, and asked questions.

For example, in conversations with sewer tunnel workers, it turned out that what annoyed them about gas analyzers was not the lack of features, but two specific problems:

1) Passersby would kick the analyzer and knock it into the manhole

2) When it rained, the analyzer's signal was so weak that workers constantly had to climb out of the manhole and back in


After analyzing the interviews, the development team (instead of adding more technical novelties) implemented two simple changes:

1) Made the gas analyzer with a super-stable, tip-resistant leg design

2) Added bright visual and loud audible alarms.

And after that.. they raised prices 35% higher than competitors

What do you think happened to their sales? Did they drop?

Sales exceeded the forecast plan by 250%

(I think they could have raised the price even more)

Why did this work? The product team didn't guess!

They asked customers about the concept before development. They found out which improvements customers were willing to pay for. They understood which features nobody needed.

In the following years, Dräger Safety embedded this approach into their development culture.

They created a consumer monitoring department that now participates in every project.

No product gets the green light without this analysis.


The main conclusion is simple - stop guessing!

Go to customers. Talk to them about the problems they want to solve. Find out how much they are willing to pay for it.

This is not a formality - it is the foundation for proper product monetization.

Have a fundamental weekend