Learning By Doing

I never enjoyed reading directions.  I was reminded of this when we purchased a patio set this past weekend.  I tore into the box and started assembling various parts and pieces.  Luckily, my wife was there and grabbed the directions before the wind blew them away, and started giving me suggestions on where things went as I struggled to envision how it all went together.
When launching a new product or brand there typically isn’t an instruction manual.  How do you build a brand or product in an unproven market?  How do you figure out what customers need when you’re delivering something they don’t have a reference point for, and you don’t have a massive research budget?
You have to learn by doing.  You begin by conducting fast, cheap experiments that help you understand your customers (Note: Your friends and family are not real-live customers.  They will not provide objective feedback).   Large companies have been doing this forever with “test markets,” and software companies find a pool of customers to do beta testing.  Smart and nimble companies get the feedback and quickly react and refine their concept before it goes primetime.
The key is to intentionally limit your resources during this period.  Throwing too many resources for marketing and promotion such as couponing will skew your results.  By limiting your resource  it will force the product to live on its own, which forces you to develop a more inspired offering in the end.  My friends are doing this with their new natural salad dressing concept by offering their products through a local co-op where the packaging doesn’t have to be store ready or professionally designed.  It gives them credibility and insight into their offering before taking it to a natural grocery chain.
There is never a hard-fast instruction manual when launching a new product, brand, or business, but the one thing you can always take to the bank is real-world customer results.