When I last met with Caroline before Christmas we discussed how to go about testing a proposition in the market place and discussed the idea of 'soft pitches' - talking to potential customers and testing out the proposition to see what resonated and what didn't. At the end of the conversation we set the challenge of 5 soft pitches to potential customers before we next see each other at the beginning of February. The point of this is to avoid the pitfall of going away and working really hard at a 'fantastic concept', announcing it to the world, and realising that the 'genius idea' in our heads wasn't actually what people wanted to buy. She also told me not to bother with a business plan at this stage but a simple proposition (a paragraph or two) to convey the idea. I have managed to 'pitch' a couple of people in the sector (and a lot outside) and its been really interesting watching people's faces and hearing their instinctive response to what I've been saying. Its fascinating what 'washes over them' and what they say 'I've not heard that before - that's really interesting'...and its often been the small throwaway thought that I didn't think had much merit that they have responded the best too!
Our proposition is steadily evolving - although I wish we could find a way to speed up the process, or that I had a faster brain...but as someone once said "There are no shortcuts for experience" - ain't that the truth.
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