This document discusses the importance of listening to your target market as an entrepreneur. It identifies three types of market segments - existing customers, prospects, and target market users. The key is to balance focusing on innovation, customers, and revenue to avoid missing opportunities. Entrepreneurs should seek to understand both stated and silent needs of the target market. Examples of silent needs include problems customers don't realize can be solved. Really understanding a target market's problems allows entrepreneurs to develop solutions that resonate with customers.

1. ENTREPRENEURSHIP
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3. - To deliver products that solve
your target customers’ problems, you
must first identify market problems.
These problems may be stated
directly as customer needs or
implied indirectly.
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4. Your market consists of:
 Existing customers: People who have
already purchased your product
 Prospects: People who have not yet
purchased your product but are
considering it
 Target market users: People in your target
market who are not currently looking for a
solution
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5. Traps to avoid when
listening to your market
- Ensure that you listen to all of the people
that comprise your market to avoid
falling into the following traps. Each trap
is not entirely bad, but can become
problematic when it becomes your only
focus. The key is to balance your focus to
ensure that you are really listening to
your entire market at the same time.
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6. 1. Focusing only on
innovation and the
competition
 As an entrepreneur, it is easy to
focus on building innovative solutions
that do not connect directly to
market problems; just because you
can innovate doesn’t always mean
that you should.
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7.  It’s also easy to pay too much
attention to what competitors
are doing and expend resources
on trying to beat them to
market. In many cases, the
customer does not care about
extra features.
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8. Instead, ask the following questions to
ensure that you are solving a problem
for your target market:
 What problem does this solution
solve?
 Is this a problem experienced by my
target market?
 What would my target market do if I
didn’t solve this problem?
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9. 2. Focusing only
on customers
 Henry Ford said, “If I had asked people
what they wanted, they would have said
faster horses.” Customers understand
problems, but they cannot help you to
move your product forward. They know
what you provide, and tend to stay inside
that mindset.
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10. Customers are a source of input, but
not the only source of input. This is
why talking to prospects and target
market users (who have not
purchased your products) is key to
rounding out the picture. They often
see things beyond your current
product.

11. 2. Focusing only
on revenue
 By listening only to prospects, and
delivering only what the next customer
wants, you will gain revenue but miss out
on market opportunities. It is critical to
find a balance between prospects and
customers to ensure that your future
revenue is protected, while still keeping
existing customers happy.
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12. Stated versus silent
market needs
 Stated needs are explicit statements from
your market that declare, “I want a
product to do X.” While stated needs are
important, they are not as powerful as
silent needs, which are problems with as
yet undefined solutions.
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13. Stated versus silent
market needs
 When interviewing potential
users, your goal is to understand
your target market’s everyday
problems, whether or not you
believe that you can initially
solve those problems.
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14. Example:
While doing market research,
a major TV manufacturer
uncovered the problem that
people regularly misplace their
TV remote control. Customers
did not identify this as a problem
that needed solving, but it was a
common issue.
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15. By listening to the customers’
silent need, the company was
able to develop a feature that
resonated with its target market
(a “remote-control finder” button
on the TV itself).
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16. Using this outside-in approach enables
you to concentrate on and solve your
target market’s problems. It removes
the guesswork from product
development and reduces concerns
related what your competitors are
developing. Listening to the market is
the best research you can do to ensure
that you build the right solutions.
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