All success stories start with an idea. However, not every idea turns into a success story. Oftentimes, ideas are seen as mysterious and life-changing miracles: a genius goes to bed at night, dreams up an idea, and turns it into a product. But once people try to flesh out their ideas, they learn that's not how the process works.
Rick Nassar has been supporting start-ups in their growth process for years with a solid operations and system administration background. He accompanied our founder Dr Eren Kocyigit in our NBT Growth Spotlight series for the episode on “The early steps of turning an idea into a marketable product.”
We hope you enjoy the inspiring questions and answers we have gathered from this delightful conversation!
You must have heard the story of Narcissus, who one day saw his reflection in a puddle, fell in love with himself and turned his life upside down because of this passion. Just like in this tragic story, falling in love with ideas in today's competitive conditions makes it difficult to make the right entrepreneurial decisions and hinders effective growth.
Although often overlooked, the process of maturing an idea properly and testing it repeatedly until it succeeds is much more important than the process of creating the idea.
So what are the critical factors in bringing an idea to the market, whether for entrepreneurs who dream of a start-up that they will grow step by step or for companies that want to create a new product?
In order to provide a comprehensive answer to this question, Eren started the conversation by talking about the vital element of turning product ideas into success stories, the idea validation process.
Eren: Finding ideas is joyful, but validating them is the real deal. Why do you think it is important to validate an idea?
Rick:
We can anticipate the next question that pops into the mind of anyone who understands why ideas need to be validated. The same question must have come to Eren's mind because he asked without wasting any time.
Eren: How can we validate an idea? Can you explain the steps of this process with examples?
Rick:
While talking about idea validation steps, Rick introduced us to the inspiring book The Mom Test and mentioned Empathy Mapping and Customer Journey Mapping toolkits we can use while validating ideas.
After Rick talked about the customer discovery process in detail and gave valuable insights, Eren slightly changed the flow of questions and wanted to focus on the other side of the coin, the customer development process. Eren and Rick agreed that interacting with users and receiving feedback is a precious resource for customer development in the modern age.
Eren: I would like to go into the details of the customer development process a little bit. What are the steps of this process?
Rick:
Rick talked about the importance of the build-in-public (BIP) concept in the customer development process. Apps like Discord can help you create a community to develop the product in line with user habits and expectations.
No one wants to make mistakes, but almost every success comes from lessons learned the hard way. Eren knows Rick has worked with many start-ups and gained experience from seeing which approaches are wrong. So he realised that the answer to his next question would arise from valuable insights.
Eren: Rick, based on your experience, what do you think are the most common mistakes made in the early stages of bringing an idea to market?
Rick:
A potential success story pops up in the minds of anyone who has and trusts an idea. But in real life, not all adventures end well. Sometimes it is inevitable to make an early diagnosis and abandon the product in order to avoid irreversible financial, effort and time losses. Eren knows that timing is the most crucial factor in this regard.
Eren: When can an early-stage team understand whether they should kill the product?
Rick:
We hope you have learned valuable information that will inspire you on your growth journey!
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