The One Question That Will Take Your Company to New Heights
Building a business without first validating your assumptions about the market is like using a water ski to get through a hurricane. Even if you have the ideal product for someone, if you haven’t given careful consideration to who that person is and how it will benefit them, things can and will go wrong.
The point is this: The majority of your initial assumptions, guesses, hopes, and hypotheses regarding your product and the reaction of your market are likely to be incorrect. In any event they can be essentially imperfect, put together as they are with respect to your abstract perspective on things.
Conviction based actions are splendid things assuming you are the strict kind. Be that as it may, they’re not perfect for business. Alright, you could luck out. One in twenty hunches will come true in real life; leave those kinds of odds to TV cop shows and the attractive lead.
In business, you will skid off the road, tumble down a hillside, and crash into a ravine if you constantly rely on faith or intuition. This is the most critical inquiry you must first ask yourself:
What are my most dangerous presumptions?
Which, then, do you believe to be true? and which are in fact accurate. With all the known and unknown knowns, we could delve into Donald Rumsfeld’s philosophy here, but the point is that this is not something you should take a chance on. The less likely it is that your business will fail in the first few months or years, the more you actually know and can demonstrate about your market.
You must identify all of your assumptions, particularly the most risky ones, and perform one crucial action:
. Test them to the hilt. It scientifically and clearly identifies your target audience and your market.
ยท It obviously and logically characterizes how you will offer it to your market.
. See, it’s scientific and clear.
You have tested it, probed it, cut it open, and thoroughly rummaged inside, so it is no longer an assumption. When you inject the market with X, Y, and Z, you know how it will react, and you know that it will either succeed or fail.
This is unquestionably a painful process, not least due to the fact that that damn good idea you had after a quarter of a quart of bourbon and Chinese takeout is going to suddenly turn into bunkum. This is where you need to show a little internal take, a hint of savagery. I assume you want this company to succeed.
The way to extraordinary supposition busting.
Based on an iterative process that is both flexible and methodical, you must develop a strategy that will get you where you want to go. You don’t want to spend a lot of time sorting through data and wondering what it all means.
There is a wonderful expression, and it is: Simple is best, stupid.
You will be able to replace your initial Plan A with a much more viable Plan B (or C) or G by identifying and quickly and affordably testing the most risky assumptions. Not only will this eliminate most of the options that will not, and probably never will, work, but it also increases your company’s chances of success significantly.
It seems simple, doesn’t it? The product-market fit is known as the Holy Grail. You’ll realize you have it when you present your item (MVP – insignificant feasible item stage) to the market and they energetically answer: Where do I purchase it? Take a command! This will happen sooner rather than later if you did your assumption busting correctly.
This underlying phase of business improvement completes a few fundamentals thing to take care of a solitary excruciating issue well. It permits you to gain from genuine market proof and search for designs. It aids in identifying new challenges and even better marketing opportunities. It gives you a clearer path to success and puts you ahead of the game.
You ought to follow the same procedure for each assumption, namely:
Which assumption do you make? In the beginning, it’s helpful to create a mind map and write down everything you think about your market and how you anticipate it will respond to your product or service.
Which inquiry must you make? The more clear and less difficult the inquiry, the simpler it is test. One question for each assumption is very effective.
How will you put this assumption to the test and get a response to your question? There are different ways of doing statistical surveying, pick the one that has a superior possibility creating an exact outcome (and in addition to the one you need to see).
How will you evaluate outcomes? Equally as crucial is measurement. To put it another way, don’t slice an onion with a sledgehammer. Get the appropriate gauge and tool for the job.
How do you measure success or failure? Set you pass rate appropriately high. It very well may be enticing to point a little lower yet this simply delivers a bogus positive that doesn’t help.
What was the outcome? Be sincere with yourself as you examine the outcomes in the harsh light of day.
What experiences did you find? When the results come in, this is probably the biggest challenge for any business or marketer. Be calm, clinical, and objective.
What will you change? If some or your suspicions end up being all off-base, and a significant number of them will, you can change your market approach and allow yourself a chances on opportunity for progress.
Finally, as the saying goes, rinse and repeat until all of your risky assumptions are either praised as excellent concepts or sent to sleep with the fish.
