Technology for seniors – dial down passion, dial up market readiness

The passion of innovation for seniors. Rant on. It’s the most I have seen in the past five years: the halo that surrounds finding new companies that could, perhaps, help older adults, even if they were designed for some other purpose. Many assess them, invite them to networking events, cultivate and encourage their expectations about future opportunity and even award them prizes. The criteria for selection/participation of these entrants are not always disclosed, but phrases about criteria are on the sponsoring entities' websites. New entrants will "have an already developed, scalable and financially sustainable product/service" or they will be "capable of scaling" or they will judge "how easy is it to get the product?" Or the product/service will have "sustainable competitive advantages, positioning or efficiencies." So you might be persuaded that the companies that enter, apply, win, or gain investment must actually exhibit these characteristics.

Today’s entrepreneurs start with an idea - sort of. No that doesn’t mean they’ve started working on an idea.  In today’s environment, they start networking at events, even exhibiting at CES long before the product will be designed, alpha- or beta-tested, or pilot sites signed up. [Note to reader, all of those startups in that CES link are gone.] They are entering competitions with an idea that can be described in a paragraph (maybe) on a completed website (even more maybe) with a named launch date (very, very maybe).  Perhaps the opening screen shows a photograph of a happy senior, the app targets a gargantuan problem but is really a smartphone app with barely a feature. Or the winning idea is really a tool for mothers with children, but it could be re-purposed for seniors. But there they are at the cocktail party, in the audience, on the competition website, maybe even winning -- and most important, they have made it to this point through their supportive funding or competition sponsors.

But seniors get little benefit from half-baked ideas. By now the reader must think this rant is curmudgeonly and even downright mean. But if the category was other than the halo and no-deadline world of aging, I would bet that the criteria for selection would be tougher, and the success rate would thus be greater. With so many here-today-gone-tomorrow offerings that pass the passionate-entrepreneur test ("This is for my grandmother"). But they are not ready for anyone's grandmother -- their new website is coming soon, check back soon for more info, they are very soon to accept pre-orders), the market observer could believe as every media writer likes to say every few months – "the next hot market for wearable tech is Grandma."  Is that so?  Does the product meet any of the criteria in the first paragraph? Note that each of the above quoted criteria originates with three different well-funded organizations cultivating innovation for seniors – these are not university research programs.  Entrants would therefore appear to exhibit these characteristics before entering, but particularly before being selected. But do they? Rant off.