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The Pull of the Market 85
EMPHASIZE YOUR MARKET
The next time you’re in line at a fast food-restaurant or a corner drug-
store, pay attention to the transaction happening in front of you. Do
you see a product being sold or a human need being met? Do you see a hamburger
or hunger? A bottle of Ibuprofen or a spouse at home with a killer headache?
How you see the world of commerce will govern how you design,
build, and run your startup. Whether you see the world as products
or as needs is vitally important. We live in an increasingly consumer-
and technology-driven culture, and we love stuff: gadgets, widgets,
technologies, and things. Most of us, most of the time, “see” products
and services when we look at a business.
But every successful offering corresponds to a need it was de-
signed to meet. Products and needs are inseparable. To continually
remind myself of this, I keep a shabby hand-drawn rendering of the
classic figure-ground illusion (see Figure 4-1) taped to my office wall.
Figure 4-1. The figure-ground illusion.
In the picture, I see the white vase as my product or service. It
represents my great idea, my “baby.” Of course, as I continue looking,
foreground and background will shift, revealing two faces in profile.
American Management Association • www.amanet.org
