Does your product–your voice and performance–have to be perfect before it is put in front of an audience? Don’t fall into the trap of waiting until you have a final, polished product before you perform. Don’t waste your window of opportunity. Go out and try something today. Perform. Assess. Learn. And Grow!
In his book The Lean Startup, Eric Ries re-introduces an idea most of us were taught in the 7th grade: the scientific method. Or, as he calls it: Build, Measure, Learn.
This is the idea of developing our products or services to a minimal level – what he calls the Minimal Viable Product or MVP – in order to test our assumptions. Once we get feedback on these assumptions from our target audience we can go back to the drawing board to either change or refine our ideas.
Step 1 – Build
When building an MVP we must remember that it does not have to be perfect. We need to do enough that we can test our assumptions but not drain our resources. In the same breathe we must also take care to not throw out shoddy work and scare our customers away.
Google is a great example of the MVP and the Build-Measure-Learn process. They are constantly coming up with new services to offer their online customers in an iterative process which normally takes the form of new features.
Take their email client service Gmail, for example. If you are a current client you will notice that monthly, if not weekly, new features are available for you to try out. What you probably don’t notice is that some of these features don’t always hang around. Google is testing and getting real-time feedback from its users and implementing the results.
Step 2 – Measure
The best way to measure the success of a new product or service is to get it in front of the people who will be using it.
In John Boyd’s book, The Illustrated Guide to Selling You, he states, “Your choices will be based on real experiences and not on your doubts or fears about yourself or the future.”
It is important to note here that we must have tangible means to collect the feedback that we seek. Whether it is in the form of customer surveys or website analytics, the data has to be gathered or there is nothing to learn from.
Step 3 – Learn
This is the most important step in the process. If we are not willing to learn from the feedback that we have been given or we choose to ignore it, then we are doomed to failure.
The data must be objectively looked at and analyzed, then we must make a decision to move forward, constantly refining our ideas. Or we must do as Ries suggests, make a pivot.
A pivot is a change in our assumptions, something that moves us in a new direction. It doesn’t mean that we abandon the idea completely (although it may). It just means we should try something a little different.
Once this process is finished we go back to the beginning of this cycle – Build. We must now make a new iteration for testing, for measuring, and for analyzing. This is an ongoing process that may never end for you and your idea. Google certainly hasn’t stopped tinkering with Gmail, nor will they ever stop.
So don’t wait until you are have the polished presentation of a seasoned star. How else do you think that star became polished? Through practice, preparation, and performance.
This post was written by Dane Trimble, Advertising Manager for Classical Singer & Auditions Plus. Dane is also the creator of the popular card game “Diva: The Opera Card Game”.
