Defining what you do
The foundation of success
10/29/20232 min read
When you build a house, you start with the foundation. If the foundation isn’t built well, then the whole house will eventually lean or even collapse, regardless of how good the build quality is in the rest of the house. A business is very similar. There are many aspects of a business that can be viewed as the foundation, but here at MicroHive we’ve settled on a single definition - your concept.
How you see your business, the need you think it fills, and the angle you choose, these things will permeate every aspect of what you do. It’s easy to become so excited by your idea that you think it’s obvious. You think that the need it fills is obvious, and you think when people see it it will immediately click, but this is rarely true.
People tend to not care about things that are outside the realm of their needs, be it something as concrete as the need for nutrition, or something as abstract as a need for social acceptance. When they look at the world, they look at it through the lens of these needs and how to fill them. If your product or service doesn’t immediately speak to their needs, they won’t even notice it.
This is why you need to find a way to conceptualise the business in terms of people’s needs. The way that you present your offering should connect to a need that people already have. This is why the angle you take is so important.
A very basic example to illustrate the principle: Beer has many selling points, and yet if you walk around in a hot area the signs will only mention one, COLD beer. They could have chosen any number of adjectives, but they chose ‘cold’ because they know there is a need for refreshment. If they were selling beer at a craft market, the sign would possibly have said ‘small batch beer’, because that’s what people want to hear in that context. It's the same product, but with a different presentation according to the needs of the target market.
