The most impressive thing about SharkNinja is how it carry off to keep expanding and entering young production categories . Over the years , the two brands that make up the name ( Shark and Ninja ) , have made vacuity and steam cleaner , blender and breeze fryers , rug dry cleaner and floor dry cleaners , hair care products and , as of the most late launch , coffee machines .
What ’s particularly interesting about the ship’s company is n’t so much that it ’s launch so many different types of products , it ’s that it has done so effectively each clip , without diluting or puzzling people as to what the brands are about , and it has never pull out out of a merchandise category .
A drive to win and put the customer first sits behind the company ’s mantra and everything it does . I sat down with some of the party ’s top executives to learn more about how SharkNinja works .
Customers first
Speaking at IFA 2024 , Shark ’s CEO , Mark Barrocas , said the plan was to grow the society “ one five - star review at a metre , ” emphasizing the importance of caliber .
As Barrocas explicate , SharkNinja did n’t require to follow the blueprint that many other companies go down , launch a ware and then hope to fix flaw and issue in the second generation , and SharkNinja fixes problems before a product go on sale .
That involves product being put in real homes before they go on sale , with the feedback generate changes that go into the Cartesian product prior to shipping it out .
“ We put the consumer first , and we actually really do put the consumer first , ” explains Tom Brown , president of EMEA at SharkNinja . “ You know , we do n’t set in motion a Cartesian product until it ’s been through a thousand homes , and we already know the star rating of a product before we launch because we get the thousand consumer to give us a mavin rating like they were retrospect it online . ”
This story of work clearly shows through . surely , with the SharkNinja merchandise I ’ve reviewed , I ’m always impressed at how intuitive and easy they are to employ . Take the company ’s air fryers , for deterrent example , which eschew huge numbers of button and programs in party favor of a more straightforward interface that just works the way you ’d expect .
The literature that comes with the products makes them stand out , with magnificent quick - starting signal guides and helpful stickers that give important information right where you necessitate it . Again , this is all from substantial consumer feedback .
“ All of those sticker are really placed based on the consumer feedback that we get where the consumer might have got one before we launch , ” explains Brown . “ The realness is that most people do n’t read a manual . Most people take [ the product ] out of the box , they put the packaging out for recycling , and then they plug it in and expect it to immediately do what they cerebrate it should do , and that ’s why we put these stickers on the products themselves . ”
In some showcase , the companionship has to go even further to ensure that a product performs as anticipate , such as with its fresh air purifier .
“ The purification products , for example , have a huge filter inside , but that filter has to be wrapped to enrapture it into the nation , ” explains Brown . “ So , we check that that consumers do n’t just stop up it in and turn it on when the filter inside is still wrapped in plastic and it would never work .
“ We in reality stop multitude being capable to plug away it in and turn it on without literally having to remove two stickers that say hit the packaging from around the filter . ”
Developing new products
What I ’ve noticed about SharkNinja in the years that I ’ve been refresh the company ’s products , is that each one typically comes into a merchandise category offering something unlike to the competition .
As the ship’s company ’s website Department of State , SharkNinja works “ constantly to initiate unparalleled products that solve existing job , extraordinary trouble and even problems [ consumers ] do n’t know they have ” .
A good example of this , talked about by Barrocas at his IFA keynote name and address , is the Anti Hair Wrap technology that is available on its emptiness cleaners . observe how people were cleaning , SharkNinja noticed that mass would on a regular basis have to switch their void cleaners over and abbreviate away hair that had got entangle ; yet , consumer were all glad with their vacuum cleaner ’s performance and experience the messy clean - up chore as just something that they had to do .
From that , Anti Hair Wrap was developed , and once consumers escort the problem the applied science fix , they all want it . Today , the industriousness is playing catch - up , and it ’s relatively rare to rule a competitor ’s vacuum cleaner without similar technology .
SharkNinja also takes a great interest in online review .
“ We take every single review that ’s written about our products , every single one , and when you read the review online you really learn a lot about consumer , ” said Brown .
All of the information that the company gathers does n’t just help improve products in existing categories but lets the party invent brand newfangled categories , such as with out-of-door electric grillroom that culminate in this year ’s excellentNinja Woodfire Pro Connect XL Electric BBQ Grill & Smoker .
“ What was really interesting that we saw last year was we retrieve that we were fighting with barbeque , ” said Brown . “ But in the remainder , we really develop the food market last year , and that ’s because consumer were buying this [ the Ninja Woodfire ] as well as the barbecue . ”
With the new product , the Pro Connect XL , came something else new for the companionship : a connect app for one of its cooking product . I ’ve seen raft of domicile appliance that have an app for an app ’s sake ; the Pro Connect XL avoids this trap , as it ’s there because consumer wanted it .
“ The reason that we have [ the app ] is , again , based on consumer penetration , ” says Brown . “ We would hear back from consumers saying , ‘ I ’m kind of unexampled to this , you sleep with , I ’ve not had an outdoor electric grille before that does so many thing , and I ’m not yet trusting that when it says it ’s eight minute of arc go out to go , is it really eight minute or is it four minutes ? ' ”
“ And they articulate it would be groovy to have some sort of connected gadget where they could see if their chicken or their Charles Lamb berm or whatever was , was cooked , and that really … made us say , we lie with how to do app engineering because we ’re in the robot business , and really that was the start of that . ”
Fixing problems
There are times when things go wrongly , but SharkNinja always seems quick to deal issues . A good example is with the launch of the Woodfire Connect XL outdoor grill , where a few of the initial products launched with an RCD plug that would travel when igniting the woodchips .
“ It was very limited to a small turn of units . Unfortunately , we got a little moment behind that one , ” explain Brown , “ but I think in spot like this , we are really debauched , extremely agile . You love , we do n’t operate like a big corporate [ party ] , so as soon as there is anything the teams were all over it . ”
Indeed , face into the issue , customers that did account the issue were for the most part impressed and satisfied with the speed of response and the quick way of life that products were replaced without takings . Many other big companies could hear a lot from this kind of customer answer .
Getting the price right
When you wait at the competition , it tends to be that as next product come out , they get more expensive and more complicated to utilize , but that is n’t the case with SharkNinja . It ’s not that the production are cheap , just that they ’re priced about where you ’d gestate them to .
Again , a tidy sum of pricing descend down to consumer feedback , and product priced as “ low-priced innovation ” .
“ Before we launch , we ask consumers what they guess the ware is worth , and what they would be fix to compensate for it ” says Brown . “ And that ’s often really interesting because sometimes we are right smart off in damage of what we think : perhaps we are too low or maybe we ’re too high . ”
“ So , we really listen to the consumer because we are positioned as affordable invention . We want to innovate , and we will only launch products that have innovation , but it ’s got to be affordable . ”
Diversification and growth
The sad truth of many consumer companies is that they focus on a undivided product , razz its growth and then are polish off by the inevitable flattening off or correct in sales . SharkNinja ’s strength comes from its ability to systematically insert raw markets , and often master them . Constantly targeting new grocery and launching products is part of the party ’s desoxyribonucleic acid .
“ One of the keys to continual growth is because [ of ] constant states of creation . We ’ve come out and put forward that we will launch a minimum of one new family every year and a minimum of 25 new product , ” say Brown .
It ’s not just entering the category , but taking all of the matter that I ’ve advert in this article already , to set up new products that are unlike . The newNinja Luxe Cafécoffee simple machine , for exercise , might appear like manual espresso machines but they can also pelt filter umber and , depending on the model , cold brewage , give feedback on the best drudgery size to use and make hot and moth-eaten froth . There ’s not a contender that can do all of those features .
