How Do I Know if Anyone Wants What I'm Selling Before I Build It?

I have made this mistake myself, and I teach this for a living.

You know the problem so well that you assume the answer is the product. You build it, polish it and launch it. Then you find out nobody wanted it badly enough to pay.

Success makes it easier to fall into, not harder. When you have won before, you trust your instincts more than your customers.

Success leaves clues. So does failure. The loudest one is a product nobody asked for.

The numbers are blunt. When CB Insights read the post-mortems of failed startups, 42% said they built something with no market need. Another 29% said they ran out of cash.

Here is what I think the second number hides. Every business that fails runs out of money. All of them. The other reasons on the list are how they got there, and most hit two to four of them at once. Building what nobody wanted is the fastest route.

The fix is simple, and most owners still skip it. Ask before you build.

My Utah Business Spotlight conversation with Laila Grigley, owner of Wicked Hair, centered on a number every service owner should sit with. 76% of women do not like their hair. They go back to the same stylist anyway.

Read that again if you run a service business. Your regulars may be staying out of habit, not happiness. Habit holds until a competitor asks the question you never did.

So ask it. Then build on the answer.

Ask your regulars what they would change. Not whether they are happy. What they would change.

Ask anyone you pay to teach you one question first: "Have you ever lost money on a product?" If the answer is no, they have not tested enough to teach you.

Test before you build. Describe the offer to ten real customers. Watch their faces, not their words.

Build things people want so much they will push past others to get them. They will tell their friends. They will want more. They will use it all the time.

When did you last ask a regular what they would change?