Why you need to measure customers’ JTBD
Why you need Qualitative interviews & Quantitative measurements plus a map of the complete idea space for successful JTBD.
“What if the unmet needs are so clear that you can match them to R&D pipeline?”
Great question and I love that you’re testing assumptions and generalizations that’s an important part of solving seemingly unsolvable problems.
The answer in one word strategy.
Product or business?
What is your goal? Are you trying to create a one-time flash-in-the-pan product or a profitable sustainable business? There’s nothing wrong with a one-off product for short-term needs. As a business strategy that tends to be much more risky and cost more than growing a product into a family of related products and services.
Competition
If the unmet needs are so clear how are you going to deal with competition? This is another point about risk and profitability.
Prioritization
Which of the needs are most important?
Which of the needs are most profitable?
Will the product properly satisfy?
What level of each benefit do customers require to satisfy each unmet need? If you deliver something that’s too low they won’t buy. If you deliver something that’s too high they also might not be because the product is too expensive. Either way you miss customers and lose money you could have otherwise had.
Time to deliver
How long to get it through the pipeline? Waiting until customers are screaming for a product makes it difficult to get the most value from that market. It also introduces tremendous risk. Someone else might satisfy it before you do including customers. Short deadlines cause stress on developers & breeds low quality products.
Too little too late
If you’re targeting a short-term product then the amount of the market you can reach might not have enough value to give you a good return on investment. And even this would benefit from quantitative measurements.
Next
Those are only a some of the reasons you need Qualitative interviews & Quantitative measurements plus a map of the complete idea space for successful JTBD. You can only do that with Predictive Innovation.
Editor of Entrepreneur Magazine on Predictive Innovation
@MarkProffitt @springarboru i thought it was fascinating.
— Amy Cosper (@AmyCCosper) January 20, 2016
More Ideas is Not Better
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I got an ad emailed from a company claiming they set the world brainstorming record by generating 454,000 ideas in one hour with 8,000 people. Let me ask you, how many of those ideas were good?
How many of those ideas are things you could profitably deliver? How many just plain stink.
If you had 8,000 people spitting out random ideas for an hour, how many do you think were the same? I would say most were pointless differences such as a shade of a color, basically copies. Even if all 454,000 were unique, is that all the important ideas for the specific need? If not, was the best idea found or is it still sitting out there undiscovered?
How long will it take to weed through half a million ideas? Can you test 454,000 ideas? How much would that cost? How much time and money would that waste?
More ideas doesn’t equal better ideas. More certainly doesn’t mean the best idea. Your time is the most precious resource you have. You want to get the absolute most value from your time. You need to pin point the correct idea and all the valuable connected ideas immediately so you can deliver without pausing. You need to see in advance what customers want and how to profitably deliver it with readily available resources.
That last sentence is a phrase I use to promote Predictive Innovation but its true, isn’t it. If you wait to react you already lost time before you start. If you work on things you don’t have the resources to complete you waste time & money hitting dead ends or scrambling for the missing pieces when you could be delivering value.
I realize the reason people randomly throw stuff at the wall hoping something sticks is because they don’t know a better way. That’s sad. Have you felt that way? You can do better. I want to help you do better.
What does better mean? It means starting with a reliable way to measure the value of each idea before you have the “idea”. Then a way to draw a boundary around all the relevant ideas so you know what is in and out. Perhaps more importantly see what you missed. Plus have all the ideas organized so you can quickly pinpoint the most valuable great ideas and how they are connected. That maximizes the value and minimizes the risk. Does that sound like what you’re looking for? Can you see how much better that is?
If you want to be part of a new group I’m forming to help entrepreneurs find and successfully launch great businesses and non-profits signup so I can keep you informed.
Predictive Innovation Training
Predictive Innovation: Core Skills Book
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