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Disruptive technologies: The parable of the telegraph

• rsbrown 16y ago
  Though the concept of market validation (i.e., go ask prospective customers if they will buy it before you build it) is often a good strategy, this article does illustrate why it's important to be asking the right questions. However, maybe the lesson is: with truly disruptive technologies it's impossible to predict how the market will receive them.
  • happybuy 16y ago
    Exactly, you have to make sure you ask the correct questions. For instance, before the iPhone was revealed if you had asked prospective smartphone customers if a hardware keyboard was a mandatory requirement you'd probably get close to 100% agreement. However most customers do not think through the whole design enough to realise what sort of trade-off that would introduce (e.g. smaller screen to accommodate keyboard or less structural integrity due to the need for a slider mechanism etc). Once the iPhone has been used for a period of time by a user however, I'd guess that less than 5% of users would say a hardware keyboard is a mandatory requirement. Therefore in such a case you probably asked the wrong question and need to realise when you shouldn't listen to customers answers.
    • iuyhgtfvgbhjn 16y ago
      Similar quote attributed to Henry Ford - "if I asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse"