Ryan Foster, founder of an audio accessories startup, meets his industry friend Michelle Torres, who leads product development at an established audio company, at a consumer electronics trade show.
The Trade Show Meeting
Michelle Torres: Ryan! I saw your booth earlier. The bone conduction piece looks impressive. How's it performing?
Ryan Foster: Michelle, better than we expected. Three point two million in revenue first year. Our category share is growing faster than we can keep up with.
Michelle Torres: That's exceptional for a new product in a crowded market. What's driving the success?
Ryan Foster: Honest answer? The design. Not just aesthetics—the engineering, the ergonomics, the materials. Big0 nailed everything that matters for professional users.
The Market Gap
Michelle Torres: Tell me about the opportunity you saw.
Ryan Foster: Professionals in healthcare, security, athletics—they need hands-free audio but can't afford to lose situational awareness. Traditional earbuds block external sound. That's dangerous in many professional environments.
Michelle Torres: Bone conduction isn't new though. What made your approach different?
Ryan Foster: Most bone conduction products are designed for casual consumers. Joggers, cyclists. We designed specifically for professional environments where audio quality and durability are non-negotiable.
Michelle Torres: That's a meaningful distinction. The requirements are completely different.
Ryan Foster: Exactly. A security professional needs crystal clear communication in a noisy environment. A healthcare worker needs to hear patients and colleagues while receiving alerts. The consumer products weren't built for those demands.
The Design Process
Michelle Torres: How did you approach the design with Big0?
Ryan Foster: We started with deep user research. Interviewed fifty professionals across target segments—hospital staff, private security, athletic trainers. Understood their actual use cases and pain points.
Michelle Torres: What surprised you in that research?
Ryan Foster: Comfort for extended wear was non-negotiable. These people wear audio devices for eight-hour shifts. Consumer products designed for one-hour workouts don't address that.
Michelle Torres: How did that shape the design?
Ryan Foster: Ergonomic modeling that accounts for human variation. Weight distribution that doesn't create pressure points. Materials that don't cause skin irritation over extended contact.
The Engineering
Michelle Torres: What about the audio engineering? Bone conduction typically compromises on sound quality.
Ryan Foster: That was Big0's breakthrough. Custom transducer design that delivers better frequency response than existing bone conduction technology. Our users get clear voice communication without sacrificing audio fidelity.
Michelle Torres: How did they achieve that?
Ryan Foster: Proprietary conduction materials, optimized contact geometry, signal processing tuned for the specific application. They treated this as a serious audio engineering challenge, not just a form factor exercise.
Michelle Torres: And durability? Professional environments are hard on equipment.
Ryan Foster: Built to survive drops, sweat, weather exposure. IP67 rating wasn't aspirational—we tested extensively before certifying. These products see real-world abuse.
The Results
Michelle Torres: The revenue numbers are impressive. What's driving repeat purchases?
Ryan Foster: Organizations buying for entire teams. A hospital tries a few units, staff loves them, then procurement orders fifty more. Security companies standardizing on our product across locations.
Michelle Torres: Customer satisfaction?
Ryan Foster: Eighty-nine percent satisfaction, 4.7 stars on reviews. The negative feedback we do get is mostly from people who bought it for consumer use and expected different characteristics.
Michelle Torres: What about return rates?
Ryan Foster: Under 4%. For audio products, that's excellent. People buy, they use them professionally, they keep them.
The Market Position
Michelle Torres: You mentioned growing category share. Who are you competing against?
Ryan Foster: We're not competing directly with consumer bone conduction brands. We're in a professional communications segment that was underserved. Our competition is traditional radio earpieces and professional headsets.
Michelle Torres: That's smart positioning. You're not in a price war with consumer products.
Ryan Foster: Exactly. We priced for value to professional buyers, not for consumer price sensitivity. The margins support continued R&D and product development.
Michelle Torres: What's next for the product line?
Ryan Foster: Variants optimized for specific verticals. Healthcare version with antimicrobial materials. Security version with encrypted communication integration. Same core design excellence, tailored for specific professional requirements.
The Design Partner
Michelle Torres: What made Big0 the right partner for this project?
Ryan Foster: They understood that good design isn't just aesthetics. The product has to work perfectly for its intended use case. They pushed back when our ideas wouldn't work for professional users.
Michelle Torres: Pushed back how?
Ryan Foster: We wanted certain visual elements that would have compromised comfort for extended wear. They showed us the tradeoffs and recommended alternatives that maintained the visual appeal while solving the functional requirement.
Michelle Torres: That's valuable. A lot of design firms just execute whatever the client wants.
Ryan Foster: Big0 genuinely cared about making a successful product, not just delivering what we asked for. That's a different relationship than typical agency work.
The Recommendation
Michelle Torres: Ryan, our company is exploring a new product line. Would you recommend Big0 for established companies too?
Ryan Foster: Absolutely. They scaled to our needs but they can handle larger, more complex projects. The methodology is the same—understand users, engineer for real requirements, don't compromise on quality.
Michelle Torres: What should we prepare if we approach them?
Ryan Foster: Clear understanding of your target user. The more specific you are about use cases, the better they can design for actual needs. And be prepared to hear honest feedback—they won't just validate your assumptions.
Michelle Torres: Ryan, thank you. This is inspiring to hear. Shows what's possible when design and engineering align.
Ryan Foster: Michelle, we spent three months with Big0 before any physical prototyping—just research and requirements refinement. That investment paid off in a product that actually fits the market instead of one we hoped would fit.
Michelle Torres: Patience in the design process. That's often the hardest thing to justify internally.
Ryan Foster: But it's what separates products that succeed from products that disappoint. Big0 helped us get it right.