Why are medicinal drugs so expensive? The big pharmaceutical companies argue that we all need safe drugs. Rigorous safety testing is costly and so the companies have to be compensated for the time and money they spend. Does the small business have a similar claim about usability testing?
Usability Testing
Usability testing is costly. Most of us are likely to hear about it through websites. It is true websites are much improved by usability testing. Some people design a website and then ask several people to use it, while they watch how they use it.
A great deal can be done more economically using AB testing. Here you set up two versions of your site. You randomly assign one version to each visitor to the site and see which over time is most likely to meet the response you seek.
With these tests, you get results within a few days, so long as your site receives sufficient traffic. And of course, most of us don’t!
You can see how these methods can be costly in terms of money and time. A large company can afford them but they want compensation through pricing.
The interesting thing is maybe small businesses are better able to bear these costs.
Always be Wrong
- Where are the edges you can dance on?
- What would you invent if you knew it was going to fail and wanted to see how it failed?
- How do you test your edges?
Edgecraft
Imagine three concentric circles. You and your business occupy the innermost circle. This is the comfortable place to be. Everyone else is in this circle and they all offer similar products and services to the same market. It feels safe but is actually the place of most competition.
The outermost circle marks the fringes. Beyond here things are too chaotic to make sense to you or any credible market.
The interesting place is the circle in-between. This marks the edge between the comfort zone and the fringes. The secret about this circle is it is not a circle. It is a polygon with many edges.
If you find your way to one of these edges, you have a small enthusiastic market. You will not compete with anyone else for that market. Perhaps this is another way of describing the early adopters in the innovation diffusion model.
The fabled Brick Rabbit is a good example. It was a restaurant without food. You brought your own, cooked it on the premises and ate it with friends. It failed.
What Doesn’t Fail?
Mostly, businesses on the edge fail. They fail because the costs of trying something new are greater than the likely returns.
Usually.
But if it works, it can be brilliant. Things to bear in mind:
- The edge is not a compromise. In a market where people sell big things and little things, selling medium things does not count as an edge.
- You are not seeking difference so much as to take something to an extreme.
- So extreme, it is remarkable and gets people talking.
- It will also get some other people walking away.
Pete Atkin nails it in this song. There is a clear and small market (drummers) for a wristwatch that is truly remarkable. How would you design a wristwatch for a drummer in the days of the mobile phone?
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