When you have a brilliant product idea, it’s easy to fall in love with it. So deeply in love that it seems impossible for it to fail. All it needs is hard work and execution, and everyone will see how brilliant it is.
But the truth on the ground is: most brilliant ideas don’t survive contact with the real world. Why? Because brilliant ideas are not enough. They fail every day, and it’s because the customer’s perception matters more than the founder’s perception.
Most early-stage ideas are not attractive enough to a large-enough group of similar-looking users. If that sentence seems like a mouthful, it’s because each word is dense with meaning. It is the definition of a “viable market” — a group of customers within which your idea can make good money repeatedly.
Ideas emerge in the isolation of a founder’s mind, and are predicated on a lot of untested guesswork about what customers want. A tiny minority of founders get lucky, become an overnight success, and make big news. But how often have you read about the 75%+ that go out with a whimper?
“Even in the short term, about 20% of small businesses fail within their first year, and roughly 50% have failed by year five. For venture-funded startups, failure rates are extremely high — by one Harvard Business School estimate, 75% of venture-backed startups never return investors’ capital.” – Harvard Business School
Do you want to depend on blind luck, or do you want to skew the odds in your favour?
Founders pour significant time, money, energy and mental health into developing a product idea, on the strength of personal conviction. They are certain it is revolutionary. They are convinced the idea just needs to see the light of day. Then after huge amounts of graft and money, the launch comes, pregnant with high expectations — only to be met by silence, confusion and a lukewarm response from the market.
The founder is now down on time and money — potentially other people’s money — and now has the unenviable task of years of trying to squeeze a return. For anyone who has been here, it is one of the most mentally awful places to be.
This trap is fundamentally avoidable, but it requires great humility and empathy. Humility, because your first idea will definitely not be right; empathy, because your customers have the answer and you need to hear it clearly.
So how do you do it?
Talk to real people, deeply, in conversations. Not via a survey. Not via a mailing list. Not in a “scalable” way. Not by asking ChatGPT or Google. Not by reading someone else’s research. Actually speak to them, in a way that you can learn about the gory details of their daily pains and needs.
“If there is already a market research report out there with all the information you need, it is probably too late for your new venture.” – Bill Aulet, Author of Disciplined Entrepreneurship
Your goal here is not to pitch your idea, but to connect with your target customer so deeply that you become one with their mentality — and even better, one with their community. That connection must be honest; you must converse in a way that prioritises truth over awkwardness. This is where methods like “The Mom Test” shine: the customers cannot lie to you out of a sense of politeness.
“Talk about their life instead of your idea. Ask about specifics in the past instead of generics or opinions about the future. Talk less and listen more.” – Rob Fitzpatrick, Author of The Mom Test
The biggest misstep you can make is diving straight into building product. Tech innovation feels exciting and rewarding, but it is expensive, complicated and extremely risky. It seems obvious to get straight to building something you can show people. In reality, you are throwing money away without getting knowledge first. And nothing hurts more than crafting something beautiful, only to have it fall flat in commercial reality.
“Probably the biggest cause of failure is not making something people want. The biggest reason people do that is that they don’t pay enough attention to users. They don’t go out there and talk to users. They just build this thing and then it turns out users don’t want it.” – Paul Graham, Y Combinator founder
The smart way to avoid this misstep? Do the homework. Get out there, connect with several people in several markets, and learn about their lives. It won’t take long for you to find the truth about what they really need.
The most challenging part of this for well-meaning founders is finding out your great idea doesn’t quite fit the market. You have to let go of the desire to be brilliant, and latch onto the desire to be valuable. Ego can spark innovation, but left unchecked, it quickly strangles it. Give yourself permission to be wrong, and let the valuable insights from customers shape your brilliant idea.
In short, love the customer, not yourself. Don’t force something onto the market just because you think it’s brilliant. Take the spark of your idea, and engage your sense of service. Turn it into something extremely valuable — for both you and your adoring customers.
“The only thing that matters is getting to product/market fit.” – Marc Andreessen, A16z founder
This article comes courtesy of Megaslice providing services for non-tech entrepreneurs that want to launch a technical product or service.
