The First Idea May Not be the Best Idea

One thing I have found out is that your first idea about a product or service is usually not your best idea. As a general rule, be prepared to change your original idea in order to hit the moving target you planned on hitting. Some notables on this rule are Intel: It started out as a memory company, and its original numeric processor was made for factory automation, not the PC. Motorola: started out making radios receivers for automobiles. MCI: It started out as a radio network for truckers. Google: It started just looking up the number references to a particular thesis.

Part of the reason why this happens is because when you start your product or company, you are only guessing what your potential customer might want or need, or how they will use a product. When you first release your product or service, you are trying to solve a problem or fill a need that you think needs to be solved or filled. Your perception of that need might not be totally accurate, or the need might have changed substantially since you conceived the idea.

Also, you might have just been looking a one particular problem, and have been oblivious to an adjacent one that holds a much bigger, profitable market. So, no matter how well you research and test your market, you will have to come to the realization that things change, and that what you cooked up in the lab and how it is recieved in the market may be miles apart. So, in order to be successful, you will need to change as well. In the modern day vernacular, this is called a pivot (more on that later).

With so many unknowns out there, it is amazing (and extremely) lucky if you hit the market (target) dead on. Usually, products take months if not years to develop, and the one constant in life is change. But it you do to hit that target dead on on your first try, kudos to you. For everyone else, it will be back to the drawing board to see how your original idea might need to be altered in order to get to the goal of macromental growth.

Comments

Anonymous said…

So true! I cannot tell you how many times products we made usually miss our original market, but go gang busters on another one. Another important thing to note is timeliness to market.

July 9, 2008 at 11:10 AM

Profit Prophet said…

Thank you for the comment <3

August 31, 2014 at 12:03 PM

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