Deciding if an idea will support a business is among the hardest question to address, frequently because it is not framed well. A successful business idea is one that can be delivered at less than the cost it takes to deliver, to a community big enough to sustain the business for the long term. Answering that question has two steps. The first is can you define a target user of the product and what is their desired product experience? The second is, how many of these target users are there and what do you need to do to move them along their buyer journey, the process of awareness, evaluation, selection and purchase? I am going to focus on the first stage, called value proposition design.
Start by describing your ideal customer. Be specific, for example, an IT manager at a company with between 200 – 1,000 employees that has been in the job for less than three years and has struggled in the past six months to implement remote working. Then imagine yourself as that customer and answer these questions:
- Need – What do they need the product for? Think both about obvious uses and hidden or latent (not yet defined) needs.
- Fears – Why might they be afraid of trying your idea?
- Wants – What do they want from the product? Its particularly important to look for emotional drivers for purchase. For example, can you address an annoyance?
- Substitution – what does the target customer do now that you want to change? Doing nothing, just living with the annoyance is a valid answer.
Then once you know who you are targeting; what they do; why they might not try an alternative and what you need to deliver to get them to change, it’s time to think about your idea(s) features, benefits and experience:
- Experience – How will the target buyer feel using your product?
- Benefits – What could you customer tell someone else the product does for them?
- Features – Describe how you will deliver the benefits that create the desired user experience
Final observation. A business idea is exciting. It’s easy to imagine everyone will be as enthusiastic about your idea. That can easily become, “the customer will want what I want to build”, not “I understand how my product creates value for the target customer.” Be mindful of making that mistake.
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