1: The year was 1992.  Republican pollster Frank Luntz was running a focus group in Detroit to test television ads.  Frank was looking at tactics to undermine support for Ross Perot, an Independent presidential candidate.  Frank showed the first focus group a series of three ads: a biography about Ross Perot and his rise from poverty through entrepreneurship to becoming one of the world’s wealthiest people, then one of the candidate’s speeches, and finally, … continue reading

The short answer? Yes, writes The Lean Startup author Eric Ries.  

1: Asking potential customers what they want doesn’t work because many times, customers don’t know what they want.

A much better strategy, Eric suggests, is to build a simple product, a “minimum viable product” or MVP, and then watch what actual customers actually do. “The minimum viable product lacks many features that may prove essential later on,” Eric … continue reading