A little philosophical, but what the hell…
It’s an important concept to understand; and the sooner you do, the better off you will be.
It really sunk in with me a couple of weeks ago when I was seeking some advice from Andy and he dropped the “perception is reality” phrase.
Regardless of whether you are a start-up working with seed investors, trying to carve out your target market, pitching to a large fund, or even if you work for a big corporate giant; you need to understand and apply this phrase automatically. It needs to become an unconscious action and fluid with most everything you do related to business.
It’s basic: your investors, target market, users, clients, advisor’s,etc….PERCEPTION is the actual reality of the situation; regardless of what you think or know to be the TRUE reality. In other words, even if you have proof of what you know to be true, it’s really tough to change someone’s initial perception of what is real; especially if you need something from them (like their trust, adoption, or initial investment in a early product or idea)
Practical example:
Product A is first to market in a niche, is built well, designed well, has good user adoption, is self-funded, and has little overhead
Product B launches in Product A’s same niche, is built well, designed well, but has a scaled back feature set compared to Product A. The difference is they immediately grab the ear of companies like Google, blogs like RWW, well known early investors, and is viral across the social networks and the web.
Even though Product A is “better”, everyone’s perception of Product B is the reality. Call this really good marketing, PR, right place at the right time, luck, or whatever; but it’s real. It takes lots of work to be Product B; everything has to align perfectly.
I’m not saying Product A is done; but Product A must deal with that perception in everything they do going forward. Product evolution, funding, partnerships, everything…
My wifes company, TALLULAH cosmetics, is working hard to create type B Products. We have one product now, and have two others in R&D. Our advantage is that we are small and can move quickly. It also helps that we both think way outside of the box on product creation, packaging, presentation, and that the industry has always been Amy’s passion.
It would be cool to hear all 5 of my readers reaction to this post and relate it to their individual businesses, industries, niches, etc
Disclaimer - I manage enterprise software development (8 years) and have learned the cosmetics industry under the direction of Amy. It’s a crazy mix, but I enjoy it; everything except the enterprise part. Simple, niche, high value products with a small team is where I excel.
