(First published on Startup Toast)
At Ever Africa we have created a range or products including iPhone covers, mobile games and educational apps. We have even developed a mobile platform for individuals to buy books, at R1 a chapter.
The most profound lesson about entrepreneurship I have learned since getting involved in these ventures is that creating the product is the easy part; actually getting people to buy it is far harder. It is seldom the case that if you build it, they will come.
We (me particularly) made the mistake of building cool products for the sake of building them. We liked the ideas and set about creating them, without a clear defined plan on how to distribute and market them to the end user.
I have learned that three of the most important questions to ask during the planning phase of any product development are:
- Is this something other people actually want or need? Or is it just me?
- How do I show other people that this is a product that they really should want?
- What is the best way to get it to them?
If you can give each of these questions a proper answer, and sound confident when doing so, then this is product worth building.