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entrepreneurs need to be effective communicators, recruiters, and salespeople.
there are real skills that increase the odds of success, such as people management, sales skills, and the topic of this book, product conception and delivery.
The first type of entrepreneurship is small and medium enterprise entrepreneurship (SME). This is the type of business that is likely started by one person to serve a local market and grows to be a small or medium-size business that serves this local market.
Innovation-driven enterprise (IDE)
IDE entrepreneurs are aspiring to serve markets that go well beyond the local market. They are looking to sell their offering at a global or at least at a regional level.
To achieve their ambitions, they have to become big and fast-growing to serve global markets.
Innovation = Invention ∗ Commercialization
An entrepreneur, then, serves primarily as the commercialization agent.
“customer pain”—a problem that bothers someone enough that they would be willing to pay to alleviate the problem.
importance of starting a company in line with the entrepreneur’s
values, interests, and expertise. In time, they will find a customer with a pain, or opportunity, where the customer is willing to pay for a solution.
What can I do well that I would love to do for an extended period of time?
I figured out how to advance a new infrared system by making a scientific leap. My background as a chemist and my continued interest in technologies has culminated in materials science and semiconductor research. I am interested in solving problems in these fields that address technological and societal problems.
Professor Noam Wasserman’s book, The Founder’s Dilemmas.
Your first goal is to assess the needs of potential customers, focusing on a target customer with the goal of achieving product–market fit—a product that matches what customers in a specific market are interested in buying.
target customer is a group of potential customers who share many characteristics and who would all have similar reasons to buy a particular product.
If you start production on one product, and find there aren’t enough customers to make your venture profitable, you almost certainly will not have the resources to keep making products until you find a profitable market.
“fun with spreadsheets,” because you have not demonstrated in a compelling manner why people would buy your product or why your market share would increase over time.
No business model in this thinking and forgets the human component!
have not validated any of your assumptions by learning directly from
narrow, carefully defined new market that you can dominate.
primary customers (end users)
for now, focus on your primary customer as you complete the first several steps.
The best scenario is when you are the potential customer yourself and have a deep understanding of the problem you are trying to solve.
as a first-time entrepreneur, you will want to carefully determine whether your perceptions are correct. Likely, your defined market is not specific enough, but you may also find that the market you have in mind is not a good match for your idea, or that other markets are better for starting a business. Be open-minded and creative.
Start by identifying potential industries for your idea. Then, list who might benefit in each industry from your idea. Focus on end users, not customers,
identify the different tasks your end user performs.
A useful question to ask is why the consumer would purchase a product in a particular industry segment.
Your next task is to list the top 6–12 particularly interesting market opportunities, where a market opportunity consists of a specific end user and one or a handful of applications.
criteria
to narrow down its list
You want to deal directly with customers when starting out, rather than rely on third parties to market and sell your product,
customer feedback is an essential part of that process.
on many occasions, your primary competition will be the customer doing nothing.
You will likely need to work with other vendors to deliver a solution that incorporates your product,
you will need to convince other manufacturers and distributors that your product is worth integrating into their workflows.
how do you stand out from what your customer perceives as alternatives?
Is the market consistent with the values, passions, and goals of the founding team?
primary market research, talking directly with customers
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
it is impossible to overstate the importance of doing direct customer research,
encourage the flow of ideas; don’t restrain them or try to gain a commitment.
The goal of this research is to understand their pain points, and later design a solution that will be of great value to them.
a few key factors that are integral to collecting accurate information:
three important caveats when conducting your primary market research:
Talk with potential customers in “inquiry” mode,
main categories you are trying to obtain information on for each market are:
identifies multiple potential market opportunities.
direct market research-based analysis on a finite number of market segments will help you determine which markets are best for your idea or technology.
it is not imperative to choose the absolute best market.
Therefore, get started doing, rather than getting stuck in “analysis paralysis.” Your goal is to start a company, not become a professional market analyst.
You want to start in a market where you have great ability to dominate in a relatively short time period;
