How Pella revolutionized the window industry by solving installers’ overlooked pain points

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TLDR

This episode explores how Pella Corporation transformed window installation by shifting their innovation focus from buyers to installers—the often-overlooked specialists whose work makes or breaks the customer experience. Director of Innovation, Design, and Brand Experience Jenn Tuetken shares the journey behind developing Pella’s award-winning Steady Set Interior Installation System, which slashes install time by 72% and enables a single person to complete what once required two. Learn about deeply immersive market research, uncovering hidden pain points, and the strategic moves that made industry-wide change possible—all without lowering prices.

Introduction

What if your biggest innovation opportunity isn’t with the people who buy your product, but with the people who install it? We’re exploring how Pella Corporation revolutionized the window industry by obsessing over installers—the critical users who don’t purchase windows but determine whether every installation succeeds or fails. You’ll discover a framework for researching non-buyer stakeholders, specific techniques for uncovering hidden pain points people have accepted as normal, and strategies for driving market adoption without lowering prices—all through the story of an innovation that cuts installation time by 72% and can transform a two-person job into a one-person task.

Joining us is Jenn Tuetken, Director of Innovation, Design, and Brand Experience at Pella Corporation, where she’s led the development of award-winning innovations including the Steady Set Interior Installation System and Hidden Screen. With experience from Michael Graves Design Group to founding her own design consultancy, she brings over 15 years of expertise in translating user insights into breakthrough products.

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Summary of Concepts Discussed for Product Managers

New Product Ideas from Customer Visits:
Jenn recommends visiting customers as a method to better understand their needs and generate ideas for new products. At Pella, a window company, product managers can easily visit customers or potential customers, since nearly everyone owns windows, but the large amount of information available can make distilling meaningful insights a challenge.

The Strategic Shift:
After 90 years of focusing innovation on homeowners, Pella recognized they had a critical blind spot. Their products were designed for building systems and codes, not for the installer experience. Pella’s innovation team discovered that poor installations were driving customer callbacks, damaging brand reputation, and creating market inefficiency. This realization led them to target installers as an innovation opportunity, even though installers don’t purchase the product.

Ethnographic Research Methodology:
Pella conducted ethnographic field research with installers across different skill levels and markets, shadowing them for 8-10 hour days to observe their workflows and pain points. Two innovation team members—an engineer and a designer—observed installers and distilled insights full-time for three months. The team focused on watching what people do rather than just listening to what they say. This approach proved essential for uncovering normalized inefficiencies that users had accepted as standard practice and no longer thought to mention or complain about.

Customer Insights:
The research revealed that installers weren’t complaining because they assumed “this is just how it is.” The windows were designed to be installed from the outside of the house, but for safety most installers installed windows from the inside, requiring two people. Installers had been adapting their work to poorly designed products rather than products being designed for their needs. Market research showed that installers would actually pay more for products that saved them time and reduced labor requirements.

The Innovation: InstaLaunch System:
Pella redesigned their windows to be installable from the inside of the house. The InstaLaunch system improves safety and transforms two-person installation jobs into one-person tasks. This provides faster speed to market for builders and creates product differentiation without competing on price. The innovation addressed the core pain point while delivering measurable value across the entire value chain.

Launch Strategy:
Pella started by validating their hypothesis through installer conversations, then built early prototypes for field testing and iteration. They tested their prototypes with installers on the job site, including testing how easy it was to learn how to use the system. The company took a calculated risk by accepting public pre-launch visibility to gain market momentum, which enabled partners to forecast demand through joint business planning sessions.

Impact of Customer Stories:
The product innovation team brought back real quotes, stories, and videos from customers using their new product. These real stories motivated the development team and influenced other stakeholders by showing them the transformational impact their product was having.

Business Impact:
The InstaLaunch system helped Pella gain market share without lowering prices. Customer service callbacks related to installation decreased. The innovation strengthened brand positioning around quality and innovation while creating scale across product lines and customer segments.

Useful Links

• Learn more about Pella and innovation at Pella
• Connect with Jenn on LinkedIn
• Check out Pella on LinkedIn, X, or Instagram

Innovation Quote

“I don’t exactly know where I’m going, but I know how I’m going to get there.” – Boyd Varty, lion tracker

Application Questions

1. How can your product team identify and prioritize non-buyer stakeholders who truly determine product success?
2. What immersive research techniques could you deploy to uncover customers’ real-world pain points, beyond surveys and interviews?
3. Where in your current value chain might industry-accepted problems actually signal opportunities for disruptive innovation?
4. What processes can you introduce to ensure crucial user insights carry through from discovery to marketing and commercialization?
5. How would you build a business case to get buy-in for investing in innovation that targets overlooked user groups rather than direct buyers?

Bio

Leading Pella Corporation’s innovation trajectory, Jenn Tuetken harness strategic leadership and design acumen to propel product and brand experiences into the future. Her role as Director of Innovation, Design, and Brand Experience is a testament to a refined skill set in project portfolio management and stakeholder engagement, ensuring resource allocation aligns with our visionary goals. The innovation pipeline at Pella has continuously and successfully launched award-winning products like the Steady Set Interior Installation System, Easy Slide Operator and Hidden Screen. Jenn’s team’s collaborative spirit and customer-centric approach have culminated in industry recognition, setting new benchmarks for excellence in the window and door sector.

Thanks!

Thank you for taking the journey to product mastery and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below.

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