Why we do Market Validation

Business ideas are funny things. You'd think no-one in their right mind would buy a curved protector to transport a single banana, but Banana Guard proved us all wrong! Conversely, many ideas that seemed highly promising crashed and burned.

There are many reasons why products, services, and companies fail. Sometimes the innovation is ahead of its time and there isn't the infrastructure to support it; other times its relationships or financing that fall over.

But the most common reason, is that the innovator didn't understand their customers/end-users and therefore didn't create a value proposition that aligned with their customer's/end-user's needs and desires.

It's our responsibility as entrepreneurs to understand our customers, end users (they may be the same people) as best we can so that we can design our products and services to meet their needs and desires.

Useful Resources

Example Market Val Hub: Chemical Inventory

Validation Hubs

Duplicate Me for a New Market Val Project!

How do I understand the space I want to play in?

It's all about the STAKEHOLDERS!

Stakeholders are any entity or distinct group that have a role to play in the space. This isn't limited to the people who will buy or use your product, but groups that you'll compete with, partner with for distribution purposes, regulators who will enforce rules on your operations, etc.

Let's use a medical calibration tool for patient monitors as an example:

Customers - Private Hospitals, Public District Health Boards
End Users - Biomedical Engineers
Competitors - Other companies that manufacture patient monitor calibrators
Distributors - Companies that partner with manufacturers to sell various product lines into hospitals
Regulators - Government entities that create and enforce regulations applying to medical devices such as our calibrator
Policy Bodies - These are government ministries that shape the medical device landscape

Break these down as granular as you need to. You might find all private hospitals have the same needs and desires, but equally you might find a few distinct kinds with different requirements that are worth mapping as their own stakeholder.

It's crucial to understand how the various stakeholders impact your chosen industry - so map them out and keep a little dossier of relevant information that can be referred back to when needed.