If You Build It Will They Come: Three Steps to Test and Validate Any Market Opportunity [Hardcover]

Rob Adams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 12, 2010

Know if you'll hit your targets before pulling the trigger on any marketing plan

More than sixty five percent of new products are commercial failures, and if you compound this with a recession, now more than ever you can't afford to be wrong. In If You Build It Will They Come, business professor and strategy consultant Rob Adams shows you how to make sure you hit your target market before you spend a lot of money. He shows you the fast, systematic and proven approach of performing Market Validation in advance of making a large product investment.

Adams outlines a simple and effective market validation and testing strategy that is proven, giving entrepreneurs and managers the ability to dramatically improve the prospect of product success. He explains how to quickly gather information on competitors, directly interview members of your target market, and figure out what the market really wants to buy, versus what customers say they want.

• The steps to quickly understanding the viability of your market
• Where to go to gather the information needed to hit the market requirements
• How to follow through with the right product launched in the right way
• Adams cuts through the fancy terms and expensive market research that gives lots of data but no real product oriented information about usage, pricing, features and competitive forces. In the end you'll produce results on your first release of a far more mature product, shipped in a faster timeframe with features customers will actually use.
• This book is for anyone involved with designing, developing and launching new products. Its examples and advice cover everything from the fledgling start-up that needs their first product to work just to survive to the successful Fortune Class company establishing new worldwide markets. Examples cut across all major industrial sectors including consumer, retail, manufacturing, technology, life sciences and services. This book offers the step-based guidance you need to make sure failure is not an option.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Why do 65 percent of new products fail? In today's hyper-competitive market, companies too often misjudge demand. They either perform too little of the necessary market research, misuse the data they do collect, or neglect to integrate their research into product development. Amazingly, many companies get their market insights during or after their product's failure. It doesn't have to be this way!

If You Build It Will They Come lays out a complete system for objectively assessing a market before you develop a product or any business idea. Whether you're in a tiny startup or a major corporation, venture capitalist and business professor Rob Adams's proven Market Validation process enables you to maximize your investment dollars while minimizing your risks.

If You Build It Will They Come helps you execute the essential actions for any new product offering. Using this book's "Ready, Aim, Fire" framework, you'll:

• Evaluate product ideas

• Gather the right information on competitors

• Find and understand your target audience

• Match product features to market demand

• Determine pricing

• Utilize experts and data

• Prepare the market for your product

• Bring your product to market

Successful product launches often look easy in retrospect when they actually require a phenomenal amount of effort and planning—and you usually don't read about the many failures. Filled with real-life examples, case studies, and practical tips, If You Build It Will They Come gives you tested tools to ensure that your work ends in a successful launch. So before you build it, get this book—and watch customers come running!

From the Back Cover

Praise for IF YOU BUILD IT WILL THEY COME?

"This book will force any entrepreneur or intrapreneur to take a brutally honest look at their planned product development and launch—before it's too late."—Curt Jackson, Director, Global Technology & Capital Management, Toppan Photomasks, Inc.

"Taking an idea or product to market is expensive and prone to failure. When we had to reconstruct our business, we rigorously adhered to Rob Adams's Market Validation process to test our new ideas. We avoided organization-killing mistakes and created products and services that our clients need, value, and are willing to pay for. The process outlined in this book will save you immeasurable amounts of time, money, and wasted effort."—Eliza Evans, President and CEO, InCenter

"Whether you're sitting in your garage trying to be the next Google, or trying to extend your Fortune 1000 company's product line, this book will show you how to develop products that customers actually want."—Mark McLain, CEO and cofounder, Sailpoint

"Lots of people launch new products; few earn meaningful revenues. What do those few have in common? The clear focus and discipline it takes to excel at something truly difficult. If You Build It Will They Come? lays out the not-so-obvious basics of market-focused product development and launches."—Bruce Roberson, retired director, McKinsey & Company

"I've been helping companies for twenty years with the kinds of Market Validation programs described in If You Build It, Will They Come? Adams understands the power of market guidance and the practical aspects of collecting market input. This book will give you a competitive advantage during the product design phase, when it has the most impact, while avoiding costly mistakes."—Peter Simon, President, Simon Management

"Adams has assembled the collective wisdom of countless product launches, executive interviews, and venture capital perspectives on how companies can efficiently deliver market-oriented products. His conclusions are compelling, but obvious; yet few companies actually do it." —John Sibley Butler, Director, The Herb Kelleher Center for Entrepreneurship and The Institute for Innovation, Creativity, and Capital, The University of Texas at Austin

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (April 12, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 047056363X
• ISBN-13: 978-0470563632
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #121,405 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Rob Adams is an active investor, author, consultant, and on the staff of the Management Department at the University of Texas at Austin's McCombs School of Business, where he teaches in the MBA program and is the Director of the Global Moot Corp Program.

Dr. Adams is an active angel investor and board member for several start-ups, and is affiliated with numerous venture funds, several of which he started. Prior to the venture business, he was a software operating executive for two decades. Throughout his venture and operating career he has been a founder, founding investor or involved with the merger or acquisition of more than 40 companies, representing more than one billion dollars of capital, and has been involved with the launching of more than 100 products.

Prior to his appointment at the University of Texas, Adams founded Tejas Venture Partners, the second venture fund he has started. Previously he was the founder of AV Labs, a successful early stage venture fund allied with Austin Ventures, starting it after being a partner with TL Ventures. Before entering the venture business, he was a technology executive. He started his career with Lotus (NYSE: IBM), joining the company shortly after its public offering. Adams was instrumental in the development and launch of both 1-2-3 for Macintosh and Lotus Notes. He went on to be founder and CEO of Business Matters, a venture backed developer of financial modeling products and was an executive with Pervasive Software (NASDAQ: PVSW), a company he helped take public in 1997.

Adams holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering from Purdue University, a Masters of Business Administration from Babson College's Olin School of Management, and a Ph.D. in Management from Capella University. He has taught at the MBA programs of The Acton School of Business, Babson College, The University of Texas at Austin, and St. Edwards University.

He is a nationally recognized expert and speaker on entrepreneurship, company and product strategy, marketing and technology issues. He recently keynoted the Inc. 500 business conference and consults for numerous Fortune 500 companies. He provides expert testimony on technology related business issues, and has consulted on economic development and early stage company development for numerous governments including Chile, Costa Rica, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Thailand. He has been covered in Business Week, Forbes, Fortune, Money, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, on Bloomberg Radio, Public Television, public radio's nationally syndicated "Marketplace" program, and blogs for Inc.com.

He is the author of A Good Hard Kick in the As*: Basic Training for Entrepreneurs (Random House/Crown, 2002), and is currently working on his next book, If You Build It Will They Come? Three Steps to Test and Validate Any Market Opportunity (Wiley, April 2010).

Adams is a Fellow at the IC2 Institute; a University of Texas based foundation that runs the Austin Technology Incubator, on the board of Purdue Research Park, and a volunteer with Austin's Habitat for Humanity. He is an avid downhill skier and marathoner. He was a collegiate rower and graduated from the Marine Corps' Officer Candidate School.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good customer-driven approach to product development - but lacks a framework / field handbook, April 19, 2011

By 

A. Martin "tony_fourbu" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: If You Build It Will They Come: Three Steps to Test and Validate Any Market Opportunity (Hardcover)

This is a good customer-driven approach to developing a product. It is logical, makes sense.
It can be used both my bootstrapping entrepreneurs and by large companies developing a new product.
That said, I wish the book had a table with the framework handy, as well as a process-chart,
and "field notes" to use while executing on the market validation.

Notice how the reviews for this book are coming from Austin, where the author is based.
Silicon Valleys entrepreneurs should read it too before taking on VC money. ;)

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Useful advice for any entrepreneur, May 23, 2010

By 

Gary E. Hoover "serial entrepreneur" (Austin, Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: If You Build It Will They Come: Three Steps to Test and Validate Any Market Opportunity (Hardcover)

My colleague and friend Rob Adams has written this great book about how to evaluate opportunities. All the books about the philosophy of entrepreneurship are great, but we need more hands-on advice. I see folks who want to be entrepreneurs every day, and often they don't know where to start. I urge them to become as much an expert on the industry as possible, above all else "find a need and fill it." Then talk to potential customers, get inside their heads and inside their lives, listen to them! So Rob was preaching to the choir when I got into his book. Virtually any entrepreneur -- including and perhaps especially non-profit and social entrepreneurs -- will advance their chance of success by studying Rob's patterns of thoughts and actions as described in this book. The table of contents tells you what you need to know to understand how this book can help you.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Readable Exploration of Market Validation, August 22, 2010

By 

Kurt Rayner - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: If You Build It Will They Come: Three Steps to Test and Validate Any Market Opportunity (Hardcover)

Adams is a great writer and the subject is well organized. The book emphasizes the simple truth that the only way to find out what customers "may" buy is by digging down into the pain they are experiencing and working with them to deliver a product that addresses that pain in a timely fashion.

The focus on keeping perspective (not deluding yourself) and on failing early are appreciated. There is always a tension between persistence and knowing when a project/product is going no-where.

While we could all use an "easy" solution, the message is clear. It will take many hours of seeking out people with needs, soliciting feedback, and building an on-going partnership with them; and this through-out and after the initial development cycle. Adams is blunt about the number of contacts required per nugget of truth. This is work!