The Market Validation Experts
If you have an idea for a new product, service, or business, then – by definition – you already think the idea is a good one. The problem is, thanks to the confirmation bias trap, you’re much more likely to look for evidence that you’re right than you are to really test your thinking. The result is poor decision-making supported by cherry-picked data and memorable but meaningless anecdotes.
The way out of the confirmation bias trap is to use a formal market validation process. As the name suggests, market validation is how you can verify there is a real demand for that product, service, or business idea you are already in love with.
Our unique approach to market validation focuses on two key questions:
Is there a gap in the market?
The first question focuses on the competitor density for a new product or service. Note that the main ‘competitor’ might be a collection of informal practices and organisational rituals rather than a clear and obvious alternative.
Is there a market in the gap?
The second question focuses on how much potential customers would pay for a solution that addresses those needs. This also includes an exploration of the features and benefits potential customers would expect to find in a product solution, and how much they would pay for those.
Research First answers these questions using the full suite of insights tools, adapting the data collection method to the particular question and sector. But another unique aspect of the Research First approach is a commitment to shared sensemaking.
This means that once the market validation data have been collected, Research First works with the client to enable the collaborative development of the key insights from the project, drawing on the experience and embodied knowledge of the client’s staff alongside the outcomes of the research.
Research First runs these collaborative sensemaking workshops as face- to-face storyboarding sessions. As the name suggests, these sessions ensure a shared sense of what the research really means and guarantee readily usable outputs
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