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You have a great idea for a product, and you may have an initial product specification as well. So far, so good.
But believe it or not, that is the easy part. Why’s that? It’s because your idea will compete for your potential customer’s attention, together with about a million other things. The tough part of your business is convincing folks to try your product and then plunk down cash to buy it.
Why is that? It comes down to simple psychology. Behavioral psychologists have shown that consumers exhibit biases when they make buying decisions. Specifically, people generally overvalue what they already have, while they undervalue alternatives. These collection of consumer biases is what economist John Gourville has called the 9X problem. According to this theory, your product has to be perceived to be at least 9 times better than what your customer already has. And that is just to overcome inertia to consider something new. In addition, you are competing with a host of competitive alternatives as well. When you consider it, the prospect of getting someone to consider your product is quite daunting.
Even an invention as obvious as the telephone took years to be adopted by businesses, because most business people at the time felt the telegraph was a pretty good solution. Can you imagine? And if this is…
