Are You the Fool at The Door?

In my last post I reviewed the 5 steps that allow one to improve the prospects of successfully launching a business. In this post I want to spotlight the first component.


Test the concept. Get out and talk to your confidants about what you’re thinking. Absorb all the feedback. You’ll find that there are literally hundreds of reasons that it might not work. This thought alone stops the vast majority of projects. Be different.


Every book, web site, and pdf focused on entrepreneurship advises spending time analyzing the market, competitors, potential competitors (which may come from outside of the industry), and customers’ (or potential customers’) needs (e.g., jobs to be done). What is not said is that how you go about doing so makes a significant difference.

This week’s step goes right to the heart of both the metric and method. What we’re really seeking to do is gain honest market feedback about each of the core business planning assumptions individually. Feedback that’s used to enrich one’s understanding of actual customer concerns (read fears) and how the proposed business model needs to pivot such that it is spot-on relevant.

  • to pivot – to change your vision for the customer, problem and/or solution based on the feedback gained from engaging the targeted marketplace
  • relevant – possessing significance for the targeted market

The best test methodology is to prove one key hypothesis at a time to a representative sample of the niche. One approach is to create a presentation about a hypothesized problem and check it in an ongoing dialog with customers. Because possible testing methods are so vast even a summary of them is beyond the scope of this post. If you’re interested in learning more about the customer discovery processes checkout Steven G. Blank’s blog or text “The Four Steps to the Epiphany”.

A word of warning, two of the most common mistakes I have witnessed is that the basis of the business (What value do we offer to them?) and delivery mechanism (How do we do this?) are never verified. Want a classic example of the cost that this oversight can elicit lookup the story of Webvan.

Don’t take the findings personally. Learn the lessons and apply the tools of business model innovation to leverage new insights, enter unforeseen markets and create new value propositions.

Next up, identifying and communicating the core value proposition.

Donald McMichacel teaches BE 261 Starting a Small Business.

2 thoughts on “Are You the Fool at The Door?

  1. Hi esoelvbe,

    Thanks so much for visiting and commenting on my blog post. I’m so glad you found the tips useful. Let me know how it goes and if you find a unique way that it helps you, okay?
    Don

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