If You Build It Will They Come?: Three Steps to Test and Validate Any Market Opportunity

by Rob Adams

Know if you'll hit your targets before pulling the trigger on any marketing plan

More than sixty five percent of new products are commercial failures, and if you compound this with a recession, now more than ever you can't afford to be wrong. In "If You Build It Will They Come, "business professor and strategy consultant Rob Adams shows you how to make sure you hit your target market "before "you spend a lot of money. He shows you the fast, systematic and proven approach of performing Market Validation in advance of making a large product investment.

Adams outlines a simple and effective market validation and testing strategy that is proven, giving entrepreneurs and managers the ability to dramatically improve the prospect of product success. He explains how to quickly gather information on competitors, directly interview members of your target market, and figure out what the market really wants to buy, versus what customers say they want. The steps to quickly understanding the viability of your marketWhere to go to gather the information needed to hit the market requirementsHow to follow through with the right product launched in the right wayAdams cuts through the fancy terms and expensive market research that gives lots of data but no real product oriented information about usage, pricing, features and competitive forces. In the end you'll produce results on your first release of a far more mature product, shipped in a faster timeframe with features customers will actually use. This book is for anyone involved with designing, developing and launching new products. Its examples and advice cover everything from the fledgling start-up that needs their first product to work just to survive to the successful Fortune Class company establishing new worldwide markets. Examples cut across all major industrial sectors including consumer, retail, manufacturing, technology, life sciences and services. This book offers the step-based guidance you need to make sure failure is not an option.

Genres: Business, Entrepreneurship

1 pages, Audio CD

First published March 9, 2010

Reviews

[Natalia Avdeeva · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author argues that so many startups (and, sometimes, corporates) fail because they rush into building a product without conducting market research and validation.

So why do companies tend to skip the research and validation process?
Very often it's driven by the "output mentality", when companies measure their progress in features built, milestones met or products launched, rather than in meaningful performance metrics.
And activities such as user research, segmentation and validation are often perceived as fluffy and not measurable.

Overall, I found the book useful, especially the chapter on how to conduct customer research, although a bit slow and somewhat outdated (e.g. customer recruitment methods seem to be from the pre-Internet era).

[Nathan Haby · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book overall. While most of the concepts and many of the details are timeless, it would be more useful today if written just a few years later. I would be interested to see a revised edition including tactics using the internet and how some methods he explains in the book have changed.

The book is written in three parts - Ready, Aim, and Fire which translate roughly to research, analyze, and design/sell. The first two sections would benefit the most from updating. The third section is still relevant today and much is useful for products of any size.

[Michael Tapp · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a great companion to the Strategyzer book series. Going into this book I had already read Clayton Christensen as well and I still got a lot out of this one.

The book is a little bit dated(published in 2010) but overall it's still relevant for the 2020 business landscape. I also found the writing a bit dry(even compared to other business books) but at least the author gets to the point pretty quickly.

[Lori Grant · Rating 4 out of 5]

A should-read book on startups for knowledge workers and aspiring entrepreneurs.

[Jose Papo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a very nice read about Market Validation and specially about how to do Market Research without a lot of money or resources.

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good overview of the market validation process for startups / new products. A quick and easy read for any aspiring entrepreneur.

[Brian S. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for entrepreneurs. Rob Adams is my instructor at McCombs. He is direct, brilliant and a great mentor.