The document discusses several key considerations for entrepreneurs developing new products and businesses: - Entrepreneurs should ensure there is a real gap or need in the market that their product can fill, rather than just jumping on passing trends. They need to understand consumer and retailer needs. - It's important for entrepreneurs to listen to advice from others and not get too self-absorbed in their own ideas. Humility is key. - Entrepreneurs should be willing to admit mistakes and change or reinvent their products rather than stubbornly sticking to a failing idea. - When seeking investment, entrepreneurs should prioritize finding partners who will work with them over just pursuing money. They also need to avoid vanity projects

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Is there a gap?
• Many brands haven’t identified a true gap in the market for a product.
Anyone can come up with an idea. But being an entrepreneur is about more
than ideas.
• Are you meeting an existing need better, or creating a new need?
• Is it an irreplaceable product that really matters to people in their lives, or is it
jumping on a passing trend – the same trend that others are jumping on?
• Trade, channel, and consumer need have to come together for an idea to
work – it’s not just about being pretty.

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Do you think it’s all about you?
• It’s easy to become self-absorbed if you
have a good idea.
• But wise entrepreneurs listen as well –
and pick up advice from many sources
and use this information.
• Trade and retailers want an idea that will
do something for them – not a fancy
package and name.
• As an entrepreneur, a sense of humility
is important.

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Is pride getting in the way?
• There’s nothing wrong with making a mistake as long as you listen and act to
reinvent your product.
• This takes confidence and humility. You need to admit you have got
something wrong rather than “sticking to your guns” and burning through
cash with a poor idea.

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Are you looking for the right investment?
• Investment is about more than cash. It’s about the right people who will work
with you. Money can easily take over everything. People are important –
having the right people on board is a key success factor.
• If money takes over, you can put yourself under pressure to do things in the
wrong order. Spending money too early (often out of vanity) can end in
tears.

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Have you defined your real goal?
• There is no right or wrong answer about how big or small you want to be. It's
about defining your target at the beginning rather than just letting it happen
to you and being dragged around by events.
• If you defined you want to be a half-million brand then it’s not wrong to stick
to that goal and forego additional growth. Similarly, if you have major growth
ambitions then you need to have that inform your thinking for the whole
journey there – so you may have to be less opportunistic.

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So what’s next… are you a one product
wonder?
• It’s important to look forward
and anticipate what people will
be looking for in five years.
• One-product wonders can’t
grow – a pipeline of new
products needs to be thought
through strategically, so that it
can feed the business and
make it less susceptible to
changing consumer fashions.

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Inspiring Examples: Fruit shoot
• A product that was launched in a
novel way by abandoning the usual
emphasis on product content.
• Instead, it is based on how people
drink the product.
• This was about new ways of
drinking – creating a breakthrough
product through packaging that
really excited kids and parents.

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Inspiring Examples: Fever Tree
• A company that really understood
how to fill a gap.
• They thought about how they could
enter a market in a simple, quirky
way – and to meet a need by
allowing people to match their
premium spirits with comparably
premium mixers.
• Ingredients and flavours can
become an obsession and lead to
over-complexity – Fever Tree
demonstrates that simplicity can be
as powerful as complexity.

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Re-cap
• You’ll never lose out by listening – take info on and do
something with it.
• Be proud of doing one thing well – it’s not necessary to be
everything to everyone.
• Never stop challenging, keep reinventing – complacency is
death. “Perfection” is the enemy!
• Get help – don’t work in a vacuum of self
• Don’t let financial paranoia drive business paralysis. Find the
right partners and allow them to nurture your business.

11. Accelerating growth & innovation
Make your
business thrive.
Claire Nuttall
+44 (0)7721 784 301
claire.nuttall@thriveunlimited.co.uk
thriveunlimited.co.uk