When I think about assumptions that led to a failed endeavor, I immediately am reminded of a group project from my Intro to Entrepreneurship class back in college. The class was set up so that we would spend the entire semester preparing our business plan, pitch deck, elevator pitch, and prototype sketches. At the end of the semester, we would pitch to our Professor along with other “investors” and the winning group’s product would earn them an overall grade of an A in the class while all the other groups would end the class with a B (talk about high stakes!).
Our group’s product was the RAZA multifunctional water bottle. Sounds cool at first, but spoiler alert: it was a major flop. Our first mistake was trying to create a solution without spending enough time recognizing if a clear problem existed that could specifically be remedied by this product. We were the only group that wanted to create a business plan that operated as a social enterprise. The problem we wanted to solve was providing clean water to various third world countries and we got so caught up in our goal, that we didn’t spend enough time thinking about the business’ sustainability and that definitely showed in our final presentation.
On presentation day, my group laid out our business plan and elevator pitch for our whole class and “investors” to hear. We shared our heart mission and our product’s capabilities, our business model, and everything we had prepared all semester long. Then came the investor Q&A…We were drilled with question after question regarding our business model and it’s financial sustainability. We were reminded of declining social enterprises like Toms (at the time). We were unable to give a strong defense of our product and it’s differentiating factor in the market because we really hadn’t taken the time to think through if this specific physical product was desirable or unique enough to enter an already competitive market. Instead, we assumed that people would be moved enough by the socially good part of our business to want to invest or purchase…and we were so wrong! We ended up being the first group eliminated from the competition. And while that outcome was less than ideal, we certainly learned a lot from our failure! I can safely say, my group peers and I value research more than we ever had before. (-:
