I always thought the marketing guys in school were lame!

A great friend of mine, Tonya Harmon, is another female venture capital serial entrepreneur in software technology—I have to point these women out because there are less than a dozen women of us in the DC metro area Tonya runs The Founder Institute in the DC area and I am a mentor there.  Launched by Adeo Ressi, the CEO of TheFunded.com, The Founder Institute is a new thing. Each week, CEO mentors (like myself) teach 30 to 50 of the best new and seasoned entrepreneurs on the “must knows to survive”.

So, my topic this week is on market research.  It’s funny how karma works.  I graduated from college with a degree in accounting and became a CPA.  When I was in school, I envied he marketing/communication people in my classes. They were always having fun while I spent time in my dorm room in the books.   So, I came to a conclusion that marketing research was completely bogus, and done by people who were not serious enough to get a real job.  Almost 25 years later, I actually get it.  Without market research you are just praying for luck.  Marketing people’s social strength is exactly what makes them successful.

Market research is about knowing everything you can about your customers, competitors, prices points, quality expectations, loyalty and size of the space you want to sell in, leading you to a justifiable and logical path.

When I started running my first large organization, I did three months of market research before I started executing anything.  I learned everything I could about our future customer base, learned how they buy, what they would pay, how long it would take to get them to say yes and even if they cared at all about my cool idea.  I must have talked to 25 potential customers.  My partners at the time thought I was completely crazy!  Why was I wasting time and not just selling?

Well, once I finally had enough insight, we launched.   Over the next nine months we grew the company from almost zero revenue to $5 million.  The patience and research paid off.  Things don’t always work like this, but doing the research and having a plan can certainly pay off.  Wishing you get lucky and win the lottery is okay for home life, but not when you’re running a company.

A little market research or a lot of luck – what have you done?  I’d love to hear your story.

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