Understanding Your Market

The Goal

By the end of this chapter you will know exactly who your customers are, how they solve their problem today, and whether they really want your solution. You will have conducted real customer interviews and run a small test that shows whether people will commit — not just say they like the idea.

Understand: the most dangerous sentence in business

“Yes, that’s a good idea!” is the most dangerous sentence you will hear. People say it to be polite, to be supportive, or because it costs them nothing. It tells you almost nothing about whether they will pay.

The purpose of this chapter is to get past polite answers to real behaviour.