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

Adams, Rob

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 047056363X ISBN 13: 9780470563632

Publisher: Wiley, 2010

Synopsis

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 market
• Where to go to gather the information needed to hit the market requirements
• How to follow through with the right product launched in the right way
• Adams 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.

About this title

About the Author

Rob Adams is a strategy consultant and venture capitalist, and on the faculty of The University of Texas at Austin's McCombs School of Business. He has been a founder, founding investor, or involved with the IPO or merger and acquisition of more than forty companies, involving the launch of more than 100 new products, representing more than a billion dollars of investment. He is the author of A Good Hard Kick in the Ass: Basic Training for Entrepreneurs. He has been covered in BusinessWeek, Forbes, Fortune, Money, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, as well as on Bloomberg Radio, Public Television, and National Public Radio's Marketplace program. For more information, please visit www.drrobadams.com

From the Back Cover

Praise for IF YOU BUILD IT WILL THEY COME?

"This book will force any entrepreneur or intrapreneur to take a brutally honest look at their planned product development and launch before it's too late." Curt Jackson, Director, Global Technology & Capital Management, Toppan Photomasks, Inc.

"Taking an idea or product to market is expensive and prone to failure. When we had to reconstruct our business, we rigorously adhered to Rob Adams's Market Validation process to test our new ideas. We avoided organization-killing mistakes and created products and services that our clients need, value, and are willing to pay for. The process outlined in this book will save you immeasurable amounts of time, money, and wasted effort." Eliza Evans, President and CEO, InCenter

"Whether you're sitting in your garage trying to be the next Google, or trying to extend your Fortune 1000 company's product line, this book will show you how to develop products that customers actually want." Mark McLain, CEO and cofounder, Sailpoint

"Lots of people launch new products; few earn meaningful revenues. What do those few have in common? The clear focus and discipline it takes to excel at something truly difficult. If You Build It Will They Come? lays out the not-so-obvious basics of market-focused product development and launches." Bruce Roberson, retired director, McKinsey & Company

"I've been helping companies for twenty years with the kinds of Market Validation programs described in If You Build It, Will They Come? Adams understands the power of market guidance and the practical aspects of collecting market input. This book will give you a competitive advantage during the product design phase, when it has the most impact, while avoiding costly mistakes." Peter Simon, President, Simon Management

"Adams has assembled the collective wisdom of countless product launches, executive interviews, and venture capital perspectives on how companies can efficiently deliver market-oriented products. His conclusions are compelling, but obvious; yet few companies actually do it." John Sibley Butler, Director, The Herb Kelleher Center for Entrepreneurship and The Institute for Innovation, Creativity, and Capital, The University of Texas at Austin

From the Inside Flap

Praise for IF YOU BUILD IT WILL THEY COME?

"This book will force any entrepreneur or intrapreneur to take a brutally honest look at their planned product development and launch—before it's too late."—Curt Jackson, Director, Global Technology & Capital Management, Toppan Photomasks, Inc.

"Taking an idea or product to market is expensive and prone to failure. When we had to reconstruct our business, we rigorously adhered to Rob Adams's Market Validation process to test our new ideas. We avoided organization-killing mistakes and created products and services that our clients need, value, and are willing to pay for. The process outlined in this book will save you immeasurable amounts of time, money, and wasted effort."—Eliza Evans, President and CEO, InCenter

"Whether you're sitting in your garage trying to be the next Google, or trying to extend your Fortune 1000 company's product line, this book will show you how to develop products that customers actually want."—Mark McLain, CEO and cofounder, Sailpoint

"Lots of people launch new products; few earn meaningful revenues. What do those few have in common? The clear focus and discipline it takes to excel at something truly difficult. If You Build It Will They Come? lays out the not-so-obvious basics of market-focused product development and launches."—Bruce Roberson, retired director, McKinsey & Company

"I've been helping companies for twenty years with the kinds of Market Validation programs described in If You Build It, Will They Come? Adams understands the power of market guidance and the practical aspects of collecting market input. This book will give you a competitive advantage during the product design phase, when it has the most impact, while avoiding costly mistakes."—Peter Simon, President, Simon Management

"Adams has assembled the collective wisdom of countless product launches, executive interviews, and venture capital perspectives on how companies can efficiently deliver market-oriented products. His conclusions are compelling, but obvious; yet few companies actually do it." —John Sibley Butler, Director, The Herb Kelleher Center for Entrepreneurship and The Institute for Innovation, Creativity, and Capital, The University of Texas at Austin

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 047056363X
• ISBN 13: 9780470563632
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224