You might engage the services of the best digital marketing agency in NZ. But if you’re starting out in business and offering something that people don’t want or need, then even an agency as good as this one will struggle to promote your brand.
Nearly half of all startups collapse because they fail to solve a market problem. Just because you put a product or service out there, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will be embraced with glee as a lifesaver, or even as a life improver. Yet it happens all too often – a startup idea that is incredibly vague and with no real connection to the market it is meant to serve, is bound to fail.
Many startup entrepreneurs, particularly those from tech-related businesses, spend a huge amount of their time working on the technical aspect of their products. That’s fine, they’re good at it. But they’re not so good at understanding the other important aspect of their business, which so happens to be the market – otherwise known as the people they’ll rely on to keep them in business. What often happens in these cases is that startup entrepreneurs see their product (or service) as their baby – and everyone thinks their baby is the most beautiful in the world, They become convinced their idea is not just beautiful, but also infallible, world-beating, unique, and essential. This insular view and an inflated opinion of their idea’s worth ignores a very big and inconvenient fact of business; it’s what the customer thinks that really counts.
So convinced are many startups of their idea’s worth that basic market research is ignored. A product or service that comes to the market without this research is a very dubious prospect. Understanding dynamics and trends before launching are essential because it gives a startup a deep insight into the behaviours of the audience they need to attract. Yet many startups ignore the needs and wants of the market and prefer to focus on solving what interests the founders. Yet genuinely successful entrepreneurs understand what is really important: they must solve for the market and not for themselves.
An investment company that provides moderate amounts of seed funding for startups uses the motto: make something that people want. It’s so simple it seems obvious. But when 42% of startup failure can be put down to no market need, it seems that even the obvious is not all that apparent to so many business beginners. They bring something to a disinterested market and fail as a result. If only they’d researched that market in the very first place.
