Cleantech Entrepreneurs: The Most Sincere Response to a Market Research Survey Is a Check In Your Hand

Last night’s talk at Catalyst for Thought was on the subject of validating one’s market, which happens to be the core of the business I ran for almost 30 years. Thus I heard a great number of my own words reflected back to me, e.g.,

Where most new businesses go through the steps: 1) design, 2) build, 3) sell, it’s a good idea to consider this drastic re-write: 1) sell, 2) design, 3) build.

So many times I’ve asked people, “So you think you need to raise a few million dollars of venture funding, which, if you get it at all, will come at an enormous cost to you? Wouldn’t you rather have a few million dollars in purchase orders from customers?”

Bottom line: you can have a very short business plan if you have a very long customer list. And it’s not as hard as it seems.