Jim Correll, director Fab Lab ICC at Independence Community College, Independence Kansas 

The pollsters got it wrong again. After the wrong predictions in the 2016 election, they didn’t figure out what they did wrong and were wrong again in the 2020 election. The only way to poll people on how they will vote is to have an election and count the votes. 

There’s a similar axiom in business and entrepreneurship. The only way to know if people want to use a product or service is make an offering and see if they buy it. What people say does not necessarily match what they will do. A small percentage of people are dishonest and give incorrect answers on purpose. If the person you are asking is a friend or relative, their answer about whether they like your idea and would ultimately buy your product might be skewed by them not wanting to hurt your feelings. The only way to know if a product idea or business model is good, is to figure out a way to launch a test and see if anyone buys it. 

Don’t Assume Others Have Your Problem 

Sometimes entrepreneurs will assume that because they had to solve a problem, that many others have the same problem and also want a solution. While true there are not many problems that exist only for one person, most problems have a solution of some kind already available. While existing solutions may not seem as good as yours, other people with the problem have to reach a certain level of frustration with existing solutions before they are willing to seek a new solution. 

Building a Better Rain Gage 

A local banker tells a story about a man, in a location far away, that was convinced the world needed a more accurate rain gauge. His reasoning was that when the wind blows the existing rain gauge, designed for vertically falling rain, did not catch the proper amount of rain, thus making existing gauges inaccurate for any climates where wind occurs with rain. Since wind accompanies rain in nearly every location in the world, he assumed there would be a global market for a rain gauge that compensated for the wind. He began developing a rain gauge that tilted into the wind, thus positioning the opening to more accurately catch the rain. He spent lots of money to bring his invention to market. His efforts probably included the expense of filing for a patent. He mortgaged his house to finance his business. His product failed to launch even though he could prove it worked. No one viewed the problem of their inaccurate rain gauge as a big deal and weren’t willing to pay for a new, more expensive replacement for their rain gauge. 

Surely, We Can Get x% of the Market 

A common error is to look at an overall market and say, “If we can just get x% (usually very small, like 1%) of the market, look how many customers we would have.” Playing this game of arithmetic doesn’t take into account the possibility that no one in the market, regardless of how large, is interested in what you have to offer. The answer is almost always to figure out how to do some test marketing with a prototype product or service and see if there is anyone that will buy it. Also, almost always, the original idea for the project or model is not what customers end up wanting. 

Be Ready to Pivot 

Starting small with a test market and prototype allows for the changing of the product or business model as we learn what customers really want without having broken the bank on a huge, expensive launch. Gary Schoeniger, founder of the Ice House Entrepreneurship program, tells the story of an 18-year-old who was trying to launch a business to clean commercial buildings. He was having no success at getting his first customer when one prospect said “Look kid, you’re only 18 so I’m not going to give you a key to my building so you can come in the middle of the night and clean it. I’ll tell you what, look at my parking lot. Give me a quote to clean it twice each week.” The 18-year-old pivoted his business model and ended up with a successful business cleaning parking lots. 

The only way to know how people are going to vote or what they are going to buy is to wait until they vote, or they buy. Since the pollsters don’t really have a way to make people vote ahead of time, maybe it’s time to have fewer pollsters in the world. The answer for entrepreneurs and small business owners is to launch new products and services in a small, prototype way to find out if customers are truly interested. 

Jim Correll is the director of Fab Lab ICC at the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship on the campus of Independence Community College. He can be reached at (620) 252-5349, by email at jcorrell@indycc.edu or Twitter @jimcorrellks. Archive columns and podcasts at www.fablabicc.org.