Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

So what you are saying is that as soon as you show a need and the products are used or understanded enough. That the demand itself will market it. Kinda like Cable TV. Many who grew up without it would have said 30 yrs ago you would be crazy to pay for TV. Now look at our society we pay for radio. I know I do! But in retrospect you dont really need these luxuries but when you have them you dont want to give them up. Now I am talking without competition, with this added in it gives one choices on where they want to buy it. But the product is still the same.

So how do you get your product or service to this point?

Craig, think there may be a problem of perception here. You know that the people in Africa that don`t wear shoes don`t do so because they don`t have the means to afford them, that being the case there is no viable market. And you are right, it would be darn near impossible to sell shoes to somebody who can`t afford lunch. The example was there to illustrate a point. Let`s make it instead a wealthy society, instead of shoe-less Africa the US in the 70`s, Sony created the walk-man and introduced it as a new product, although that version of the portable music device is long defunct, it`s current incarnation the iPod is selling by the tens of millions.

The same can be said of (like scpurgeon said) cable-tv or radio subscription as well as many others from bottled water to sleeping aids such as the soothing sounds of dripping water on cd`s. Often times prior to new product introduction there is  the perception that this new product is not needed, hence the so-called "new product resistance" effect. For instance, when the microwave was first introduced many didn`t like it, the complaints went from "have you tried to cook a steak in that?!" to "it will make you sterile" (I believe somebody even filed a lawsuit claiming such a thing), today over 95% of US households have at least one microwave oven. Often times the introduction of new technologies or methods require that we educated our future customers, customers that until they were educated to the benefits of this new technology did not know they needed it and even actively resisted using the technology.

As I`ve been pondering it, the problem revolves around the concept of "perception."

No, it isn`t that the people in Africa don`t wear shoes because they can`t afford them. It`s that it just never occurred to them that shoes existed. Same with cable TV. We just accepted the limited channels and many commercials simply because we couldn`t imagine a better way. Or, we could, but it was so complicated, no single person could make the solution easily.

When we say "perception of a problem" that`s a multi-stage event. We observe something painful or unpleasant. Maybe it takes too long to do something, it hurts to do it, or it`s utterly boring doing that thing. Our perception at that stage is, "I don`t like this at all!" But so what? We have no solution.

Over time, the next stage after repeating the same actions is, "I wonder if there`s some way I can stop or avoid doing this?"

After that comes, "There`s gotta be a better way!"

At that point, we have inspired ideas. Think about LegalZoom. We know (or believe) we need legal documents. We know it`s a drag. We know we can hire a lawyer. We know we have to pay lots of money. That`s just life...it`s just the way it is.

Then someone proposes doing it by the numbers, production line for some things, or whatever. Who has the resources to launch a full-scale company? When someone comes along who does have the resources, they invent a design that solves at least some of that pain and aggravation. They lay it out and people go, "ah Hah! THAT`s what I`m talkin` about!"

In those cases, it takes no education because lots of people have already experienced the pain and aggravation. But suppose the invention or new product is something like introducing shoes to a culture wherein nobody`s ever seen shoes? Their feet are already well-protected with heavy skin. Why would they want shoes?

This is like the problem the Catholic missionaries had, attempting to introduce the religion into non-European cultures. They first had to "explain" the problem, that without the new product (God), people would lose their "souls." Nobody knew what`s a soul, what`s "Hell," and what`s God. It wasn`t until the missionaries began using other forms of persuasion that these cultures "learned" how valuable was the product.