Critical to the success of an entrepreneur is an ironclad process for product marketing, which is only possible if you have accurate, robust information about the marketplace. In this excerpt from the just-released Disciplined Entrepreneurship Workbook, MIT entrepreneurship expert Bill Aulet describes how to do the research to get this critical information that will make your product development process work.
The goal of primary market research
The goal of good primary market research is to understand your customer in all dimensions: rationally, emotionally, economically, socially, culturally and more.
It is not the customer’s job to design your new product. That is your job. As startup veteran and fellow MIT faculty member Elaine Chen says, “The customer is the expert of their problem, and you are the expert in finding a solution to that problem.”
The entrepreneurship community has lagged behind in incorporating primary market research into startup formation, which is a significant missed opportunity. Customer-focused companies such as Procter and Gamble and leading product design firms such as IDEO have long practiced primary market research in their user-centered design processes.
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