By Steve Bowler

A colossal flop. But that's OK. 

In 2007 I got the idea to start a business using an algorithm borrowed from Product Portfolio Management called Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). It was used for decision assistance, making choices among alternatives in a list. The idea came about while my wife was looking to replace our coffee maker for about the 8th time. They seemed to last about a year.

I noticed that she placed different importance on features than some folks, in this case opting for simplicity and reliability rather than fancy electronics. Yet when shopping online, the typical set of product features you could filter by were limited to brand, price, and maybe the number of cups it would make. Setting these filters reduced the number of items in the result but didn't rank them as you do in a search engine result.

My method would take into account the weighted strength of importance the consumer places on a characteristic and therefore when compared to the underlying product data, provide a numerical ranking of the available alternatives. The website or mobile app user would select the weight either as a discrete radio button (not important, somewhat important, important, very important) or on a continuous percent scale using a slider widget.

As consumers made their selections, the data from their interactions was to be collected and aggregated and sold on the secondary market to market research firms. It could even be used to optimize designs of new products using consumer preferences for the perfect combination of features.

To prove the method I contracted to have a website built and signed up as a development partner with a major electronics retailer which gave me access to their product catalog. I selected an item with lots of technical data - laptop computers. 

If the idea worked, I figured it would apply to big ticket items with lots of technical data - computers, televisions, automobiles, appliances and even real estate. Some suggested I even use it for dating services.

Alas, it was in 2007-2009 that the online retail market collapsed. Numerous retailers went belly up. The survivors played turtle and held their technology spend tightly. Investors failed to see the differentiation in the method. Eventually I folded and moved on.

Steve Bowler is a Co-Founder of HotChalk, Inc., Inc. an early pioneer in K12 EdTech and an Online Program Manager for Post Secondary Education. He also Co-Founded ProductFactory, Inc., a provider of enterprise Product Portfolio Management that was acquired and a Founder of Venalytica in Consumer Preference Analytics. Steve is an expert in Product Management, Program Management and Agile Development.