Ultimately, the best test of any product is to go to your target market and pretend like it’s a real business. You’ll find out soon enough if it is or not. You have to take some risks. You can sit and analyze these different markets forever and ever and ever, and you’d get all these wonderful answers, and they still may be wrong. The problem with the businessman type is they spend a lot of time with all their great wisdom and all their spreadsheets and all their Harvard Business Review people, and they’d either become convinced that there’s no market at all or that they have the market nailed.
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One of the entrepreneurs profiled by Saras Sarasvathy in “How Great Entrepreneurs Think.” Among Inc. 500 CEOs, 60 percent had not written business plans before launching their companies and just 12 percent had done market research, according to the article.
One of the entrepreneurs profiled by Saras Sarasvathy in “How Great Entrepreneurs Think.” Among Inc. 500 CEOs, 60 percent had not written business plans before launching their companies and just 12 percent had done market research, according to the article.
Jaboc
on 21 Feb 11What does that mean exactly? And what is “it’s” referring to in the quote above?
Obviously, you don’t want to spend the development effort to create the product to only then unveil it to the market unsure if it’s needed.
Does then the quote mean to simply talk to potential customer to see if they have the need? But if that’s the case, why even “pretend like it’s a real business”?
Or does the quote above mean to simply create a 1-page web site that has an email sign-up page saying the product is “coming soon” and sign up for more information. (We see this ALL THE TIME and it make me wonder if people are just fishing to see who’s interested in what without creating anything). Problem is, with this approach, you don’t interact and actually talk to your potential customers. You essentially lie to them telling them you’re working on the product even though you’re not.
ML
on 21 Feb 11Jaboc, the article gives more context. The section with that quote explains how the entrepreneurs in her study expressed impatience with anything requiring extensive planning, esp traditional market research. A related quote from another subject: “People chase investors, but your best investor is your first real customer. And your customers are also your best salesmen.”
Paul - Sharing Matters
on 21 Feb 11That is why focus groups, surveys, social media pre-launches and many other methods are useful when launching a product. Of course nothing will replace actually putting the product out on the market but some serious preparations can help. It doesn’t matter what is in the managers’ heads. What is in minds of potential buyers is what matters.
Geoff Graham
on 21 Feb 11Impatience seems to be the great common attribute among successful entrepreneurs.
vbnqo
on 22 Feb 11the article gives more context. The section with that quote explains how the entrepreneurs in her study expressed impatience with anything requiring extensive planning, esp traditional market
Joel Gascoigne
on 22 Feb 11@Jacob I believe it means to test whether the product could work before it is actually built. This is very much in line with the lean startup philosophy and is done by presenting a landing page where the product appears to be ready for use (not a “coming soon” page!). I used this very method to get my latest venture off the ground a few months ago, and I’m fully bootstrapped and now have a real product with paying customers. I go into a lot more detail of this on my blog post here – http://blog.bufferapp.com/post/3328167762
Thibaut Assus
on 24 Feb 11With that approach, you have to be your first customer. If you aren’t you’ll likely develop something that won’t succeed, and that’s the problem. And not everyone want to develop something for developers (or web marketers).
I completely agree with most of your philosophy, but if you aren’t developing something for you, you have the obligation to taste the water before wasting your time IMHO.
This discussion is closed.