The Untested Dream

Some of the most expensive lessons in business come not from bad execution but from products and ideas that were never honestly tested before the money was spent.

A Direct Response television entrepreneur spent hundreds of thousands of dollars producing and airing a commercial for a product his own crew was quietly calling dextrine in water between takes. The crew always knows. They just never get asked.

The product that answers a problem that doesn't exist. The market entry into the most crowded category without a single differentiating reason for someone to choose it. The entrepreneur who confused a previous success with a repeatable formula — who made millions on the Hollywood 48 Hour Miracle Diet and concluded that the product was the mechanism when the mechanism was actually the marketing.

The question that never got asked before the money got spent — who is this for and what problem does it actually solve — is always cheaper to answer before production than after.