Validate?

We never validated anything.  When we first entered our market and launched our online solution. We never asked our market what they wanted or needed. Why? Because we had a good idea of what that was. More than five thousand clients later, we still don’t ask them what they want or need. 

We do get a lot of ideas from them, especially when we’re conducting workshops or webinars, but those are just ideas and we often say no to them unless we can clearly see that they’ll improve customer experience.

If you’re entering a market and you have no clue as to what the pain points are for your future customers, then you probably should look to other markets where you have a better understanding of who it is you’ll be serving. 

Common sense, conviction, and a solid understanding of who it is you’ll be serving are all you need. And conviction is important as it’s related to passion.  If you’re passionate about your market then you’ll have strong opinions of what is needed and how best to get rid of the existing pain points.

And the ultimate advantage is when you are your market.  Steve Jobs often said that at Apple they were building products they wanted to use themselves.  For decades Apple has told us what we want rather than asking us.  Their dreams,  passion, and conviction have bridged a gap we didn’t know we had.