What You Miss By Not Testing Your Business Model

Testing a business model is not cheap. It is expensive. It took me four years of testing to validate the business idea I had for education and businesses. However, if you know what you are doing, it should not take you long. Even though I have failed in two businesses prior as a result of ignorance, I refused to give up. I had the entrepreneur bug.

Whenever people tried business and failed, then give up on business altogether, I see people who were just in business because they had money and want to make money. Money doesn’t make money in business; the business model makes the money. Entrepreneurs are not just people who develop solutions to problems, but people who build a business model that creates value for the customer delivers value to the employee, captures value for the shareholder and supplies value to society.

Any person who starts a business just to make money is poor and will end up building a poor business. It doesn’t matter the amount of money your business makes; it is still a poor business. This doesn’t mean that money is not important in business. You have to put money in the right perspective. It is the outcome or the byproduct of value creation.

Money or the product should not be your focus, but the people or humans you are out to serve. Most people don’t test their business ideas because they are so in love with the idea that they believe it's infallible and everyone will like it. Don’t ever fall in love with your idea; instead, fall in love with your customers and employees. We tend to be blind to the defects and shortcomings of anything we are emotionally invested in.

In my work with business owners, this is one fundamental mistake they make. They have this grandiose belief that the idea they have will make them as rich as Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg. They even taunt themselves as the next Bill or Mark. ?However, what they don’t know is that ideas didn’t make these people wealthy, business models that worked did.

A friend of mine was so in love with his business name and business idea that he believes that the idea will transform his business to be like Microsoft. I don’t know whether he has come to realize the truth that what makes things work is the business model, not the idea or business name.

People must have laughed at the name Microsoft and Facebook when it started. There are many businesses out there with business names that are more attractive than these. Yet, they may not have grown because the founders are more in love with the ideas and names than with their customers and employees.

You can have the shittiest idea and name, but if you have a great business model, you will make the greatest impact. The business model is what consistently creates market value, human value, economic value, and societal value. Your name might draw the prospects out of curiosity, but it’s the business model that will serve them and convert them to paying clients.

Vision, mission, and goals are great tools in business, but they need to serve a business model. They come after you have tested your business model. Your vision could be a product of your value proposition. You should not put anything ahead of designing a business model.

All business ideas are assumptions at first. They are uncertain and risky. Your love for them will never change how uncertain and risky they are. But loving the customer and never taking them for granted will transform your ideas. When you love people, you want to make sure that what you are bringing them is what they really need. You don’t assume what you created is what they wanted.

The beauty of a humanized business model is that it values and respects people. Testing your business model is all about verifying and getting to know exactly what your customers want. It's far better you spend money on this and get it right than to ignore it and build on quicksand. Real love for customers is when you get to know what they need and present it to them. It means you spend quality time trying to know them and understand what they want and how they behave.

Business model testing is just the best way to describe how you get to know your customer more, know what they want and need, and then design ways to get it to them and serve them. It is more like dating your customers so as to engage them and build a win-win relationship that lasts. If you don’t do this, you will spend your money creating things they don’t need and want. You may even create something for a few people that can’t make you a profit.

You need economic value to create market value, human value, and societal value. Economic value is the byproduct of creating market and human value. A business should not exist to create economic value but to create market and human value first. Economic value should be the outcome of creating market and human value.

Are you build a business on an idea you love and think it will work and the customers will love it? Abandon that. Instead, build a business on the relationship you are constantly building with your customers. This way you get to know whether what you are creating is what they need and are willing to buy it and whether the number of people who want it is large enough to build a viable business.

Don’t employ anyone until you have a validated business model.?Don’t know how to do it? We can help you test your business idea and validate a business model and make your business ready for scaling.

We are organizing a Game-Changing Value Creator Coaching program. You can be part and should be part. It is for you. If you want to attain freedom and find fulfillment at work, then become a value creator.

Be part of the Game-Changer Value Creation Coaching program. You will go through the mindset required to create and the tools you need to always create value in the workplace. Are you ready for a fundamental change- a breakthrough in the way you approach your work? If you are, then you are ready for the Value Giver Coach Program. Please call +2348101671745.

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