Florian Denker explores the role of an individual's domain knowledge for the proficient
evaluation of early-stage new product ideas in the front-end of innovation. The results of his
study show that in order to ensure an effective evaluation evaluators of early-stage new
product ideas should have comprehensive knowledge of consumers' needs and wants as well as
distinct knowledge about the opportunities and limits of available technologies in the
respective domain. In this context the results show that not only firm-internal experts can
have this knowledge. Users and in particular so-called lead users (i.e. users who are ahead
of the majority on major market trends and innovations) could also be suitable for effectively
evaluating early-stage new product ideas.
