Probing your assumptions is the first step to satisfying the questions others will have about your beliefs. To respond effectively you will have to have valid facts to support your assumptions. “A fact is a statement of what the evidence indicates is reality, and an assumption is a belief about reality without proof.” This and other definitions of Fact Vs Assumption are outlined in a series of articles found at psychologytoday.com.
When an assumption is proven invalid, find out how it could be made operable.
By probing or proving your assumptions, you are preparing yourself to:
Adequately defend the purpose of your venture.
Articulate its relevance to its audience
Give compelling reasons why stakeholders should support your aspirations.
Download this complimentary copy of Challenge #11 from the i2p book. This challenge will help you probe or prove your assumptions. This will help you Adequately defend the purpose of your venture, Articulate its relevance to your audience and give compelling reasons why stakeholders should support your aspirations.
Let's clarify something. For every assumption you make as you probe your original hypothesis for relevance, you will likely create additional assumptions. Write them all down, catalogue them, work through them and make sure you don’t miss challenging every single assumption.
Develop a process, follow the process and you will win. You would not fly with a pilot who did not follow procedures and a checklist. Remember that famous mythical warrior of old, Achilles. All it takes is one weak and unprotected spot to destroy your efforts. If you are asking yourself why you are setting an assumption in place to create a fact, then your stakeholders will likely do the same when they are evaluating you.
At this time in the product or service validation review, you should be starting the market research activities outlined in blocks 1 to 6 in the pre-commercialization matrix found in Chapter 4. These are a must at this point.
The more time you spend probing your assumptions, the less time you will waste later dealing with sticky issues that will blindside you.
The more effort you put into this phase, the less it will cost you for product or service corrections later.
The more energy exerted digging into your assumptions, the more effective you will be at addressing those prickly issues that derail investment presentations.
The better versed you are at knowing the market, and the impact and implications of your solution on the users, the more accurate your projections will become.
The earlier the search for other points of application for your technology, the less equity you will have to give up to investors because of the increased business potential.
As the innovator/inventor, remember the focus is not on how you perceive your device or service will impact the marketplace, but on how the user will perceive the impact of your device on their lifestyle.
Once, we had a client who developed a wooden building brick. It was fabulous, it had a higher stacking strength coefficient than clay brick, and it had better insulative qualities and better colour retention. Even more, it only weighed four pounds when the industry standard clay brick at that time was the Belson Brick which weighed 6 lbs.
So far, I have given you a great business case and consumer story, haven’t I? To add to it, this brick was cheaper to produce and even used waste sawdust. But it was not accepted and, in the end, failed to penetrate the building products marketplace.
Can you guess why?
What does a mason do when he picks up a brick and before he slaps on the mortar? He flips it in the air to look for defects, to see which side is best and on which side he will apply the mortar.
Is weight a cue for quality? In the masonry industry, it sure is, and in this industry, the old-fashioned craftsmen saw this lighter brick as a cheaper product.
Clay bricks had been around for years and their performance versus price story is well told. The inventor didn’t ask the masons what they thought.
The inventors did not see that the weight issue was a value perception.
The wooden sawdust brick, a good idea whose time might have come, has still not reached the market. The wooden brick innovators failed to understand the impact of their solution as viewed by currently accepted norms.
Download this complimentary copy of Challenge #11 from the i2p book. This challenge will help you probe or prove your assumptions. This will help you Adequately defend the purpose of your venture, Articulate its relevance to your audience and give compelling reasons why stakeholders should support your aspirations.
Have you had a chance to listen to the i2p Podcast? Take a journey with Ross Blaine & Dr. Paul as they discuss concepts from the i2p book! Listen to Season 1 Today!
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