Founders are often visionaries, their minds brimming with big ideas and grand business plans. They dream of disrupting industries, revolutionizing markets, and making a lasting impact. However, this expansive vision can sometimes lead to a common struggle: focusing their brand on what consumers truly care about.
The Challenge of a Broad Vision
A founder's vision is typically broad and far-reaching. It encompasses not just a product or service but an entire ecosystem or a paradigm shift in how things are done. On one hand, it allows for innovation and the potential to disrupt established norms. On the other hand, it can lead to a lack of focus on consumers' immediate needs and desires.
Bridging the gap with the consumer
Consumers, after all, are often more concerned with practical matters. They want solutions to their problems, products that make their lives easier, and services that provide immediate value. With behavioral change or behavioral creation, founders believe that consumers must be taught this new mode of existence. The iPhone is the common anecdote; it was something consumers knew they needed, and now it is deeply integrated into everyone's lives. However, the iPhone wasn't always the panacea it is today.
AX10's approach:
Systematic testing: Involves creating different versions of a message and testing them with specific target audiences. This could involve A/B testing of marketing messages, conducting focus groups, or releasing different product versions to see which resonates most with consumers. The goal is to gather data and use it to refine the brand message and product offerings.
Brand co-creation: People experience the same product in different ways, allowing those users benefits to become part of the brand increases the appeal to a broader audience and diversifies the value of your product. Once your team is clear on the mission, empower the functional leaders to co-create with the core idea and grow into revenue-generating opportunities you would never consider for the business's short and long-term strategy.
Strategic sprints: Rally the team to hit key milestones based on creating the best solution for early adaptors. Relentlessly deprioritize everything else to ensure the base product meets consumer needs. Each release should provide incremental information for the next sprint.
Message Evolution: Change your core value proposition to expand your user base. e.g.
iPhone 2G: Apple reinvention of the phone (first touchscreen device)
iPhone 3G: Faster and half the price
iPhone 4: A front-facing camera
iPhone 5-8: Camera improvements
iPhone 6 Plus: Size
iPhone X: Facial unlock (Removal of the touch ID)Touch
iPhone 11: Privacy
While a founder's vision is crucial in driving innovation and pushing boundaries, it's equally important to stay grounded in the realities of what consumers want and need. It means listening to customer feedback, understanding their needs and desires, and aligning the company's offerings with these insights. It's about ensuring that every aspect of the business, from product development to marketing to customer service, is designed with the customer in mind.
By systematically testing messaging and maintaining a customer-centric approach, founders can ensure that their big ideas are translated into products and services that truly resonate with consumers. After all, a vision is only as good as its ability to inspire action – and in the world of business, that action is driven by consumers.
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