A recurring theme centers on the ambitions of the product launch, scheduled for next spring. Exbiblio hasn’t set aside big resources for marketing, so what would be considered a success?

Increasingly I’m hearing that this product launch is really about proof-of-concept to raise capital to go onto the next stage. It might, for instance, prove market acceptance among a well-defined, local group – perhaps among students in the North West of America. This might be enough to find partners who would help Exbiblio with achieving is ambitions, which are, of course, far greater than this.

One of the many unusual attributes of Exbiblio that struck me on my recent visit to Seattle, is that this company is truly averse to anything that smacks of consumerism. This is quite unusual for business that is about to offer up a product to the public.

While talking to Ed Mahlum and Martin King about marketing the Exbiblio oPen, I asked how they were gong to “position” it in the market. Martin winced. He doesn’t like the connotations of the word – nor any of the usual marketing spiel. The Exbiblio philosophy is that if the product turns out to be great, and if it can secure a place in people’s every day lives, then the sales will come right in the end.

I would agree that much of the language of business is lazy, and that the meaning is often unclear. Business lingo is mostly about making the speaker sound savvy. On further questioning, Ed and Martin say that there will be an initial target market (students), an initial price (around $99), and that it will be necessary to emphasize some of the potential uses of the oPen, of which there are many to choose from.

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