The UnStoppables: Tapping Your Entrepreneurial Power

Chapter 14

Everything You Need to Know about Perfecting Your First Product (in about an Hour)

PROFESSIONALS MAKE IT REAL, NOT IDEAL

The product you sell is the last element of the UnStoppable Six. As we’ve noted, to avoid having to say “product and/or service” every time, we just use the word product to describe what customers pay you to give them—because product and service are, in essence, the same.

Notice that we’ve saved this section for last. Popular myth says that product comes first—that entrepreneurs spend all their time dreaming up a million-dollar idea like the Frisbee or bifocal lenses, then patent it, and then start raking in profits. The underlying assumption is that the product is fail-safe at conception—which implies that the would-be entrepreneur should think first and foremost about product.

But by now you may smell a paradox coming. The odds of success are stacked with a vengeance against those who try to launch a business the “perfect it first,” product-centric way. Instead, you must think about every element in the UnStoppable Six from day one, then build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that provides the benefit you assume customers need for a price they can afford. You must put this actual, imperfect test product into their hands as soon as you possibly can so they can see, touch, wear, drive, or otherwise use it. Then listen, learn, and adjust as customers tell you how to transform your flawed product into the ideal, million-dollar baby that everyone wants ...