Polishing your small business pitch using market feedback

You can polish your pitch by using a range of market feedback mechanisms to refine and improve not only your investor or funding pitches but your business as well.

“The market is the ultimate judge and jury when it comes to product-market fit. If your product (or service) is not priced correctly, not positioned correctly, not distributed through the correct channels or does not provide the value the market requires, the market will reject it,” says Allon Raiz, Raizcorp founder and CEO, as well as judge of Engen Pitch and Polish.

He says this list is only a small sampling of the all the judgements the market makes about a product or service. “The difficulty for all entrepreneurs and in fact all corporates launching new products is to develop the right profiles for all these various market aspects which, in combination, create the ideal product-market fit.”

Raiz warns that the process is long and expensive because the entrepreneur is required to shift one or a few of these elements, to try this or that or something else, as they find the sweet spots when they try to find the product-market fit.

“There is a bit of science involved but it is predominantly trial, error and experience. Part of that experience comes from the market telling you what it wants. If you are not listening, you are unlikely to pick up the nuances the market may be screaming at you with your zero sales.”

ALSO READ: Tips for entrepreneurs to polish their pitches for funding

Competitors in the market

He says the responses of various competitors in the market as they try to establish the product-market fit while you try to gain some of their territory also adds to the complexity.

“They may drop their prices, resulting in zero sales for you although your pricing may be correct. They may provide additional value to their product by offering combination packages which, by comparison, make your product or service seem like less value for money even though it is not.”

Raiz says there is also the complexity of sub-markets where a product may have a certain fit in one market but a completely different fit in another. “This means that when you test your product-market fit, you have to do it with a deep understanding of all your market sub-segments and not assume that you are testing for the whole market.”

In the township market, for example, quart bottles of beer may be highly popular and seen as good value for money, but an airline is more likely to buy only 330ml cans of beer for passenger consumption – an entirely different packaging and volume product.

“As with investor feedback, you must analyse your market feedback objectively and then deliberately but cautiously and use it for your product or service.”