Expertos, amigos e instinto

Experts, Friends, Instinct

GUEST MENTOR Neil Blumenthal, co-founder of Warby Parker: How can you gauge the market’s demand for your startup without marketing funds and pricey tools? Not easily!

At Warby Parker, we bothered experts, surveyed the hell out of our friends and used our gut to assess the market for selling glasses online .

Experts

The term expert is definitely a loaded word, but there are certainly those with deep knowledge of the market you’re about to enter. Reach out to them to learn about the market, specifically how they size and segment the market and what they know about customer behavior, and the competitive landscape. It always helps to get their opinions on your business idea, but don’t get discouraged if they turn out to be naysayers. Experts tend to be “inside” a particular industry and insiders are often the last ones to accept new ideas and see the change that is about to transform their respective industries.

Friends

Friends are often underutilized tools for your business. If you’re friends are prospective customers, learn from them. Survey them; hold focus groups with them; interview them. If they’re not prospective customers, they probably know people who are. Ask them for introductions. Ask them about your idea. What are their gut reactions? If negative, learn why and ensure your business addresses those potential issues.

Instinct 

Ultimately, you’re excited to start a business because your gut is telling you to. In fact, your gut is preventing you from sleeping because it’s so excited by the idea. Trust you gut. If you’re a potential customer for your product, how many people are just like you? What is the best way to serve people like you? If you’re not the target customer, who is and how do they behave? Where do they live? How many of them are there? How easy is it to reach them? Data is the hottest buzzword right now and for good reason – data helps us answer questions. Your gut has arrived at an answer because of a lot of data – thousands and thousands of observations and learnings that you’ve had. Don’t discount that data. Don’t discount your gut!

WSJ

Posted in: marketing,redes sociales