Ever heard of “grounded theory”?
I hadn’t until recently. Any and all research is “grounded”, it is grounded in the data that forms that research. But very few studies result in a “grounded theory”.
The grounded theory process is interesting; it basically takes the form of five stages that would generally be sequential but once the process has started, they can all actually take place simultaneously. This makes the process particularly suited to entrepreneurial adventures, as we often don’t have time to hang around waiting for all the theories and concepts to be
The basic stages are:
01) Preparation
02) Research (Data Collection)
03) Analysis
04) Results
05) Review & Outline
Once the first steps have been taken, all the stages can start gaining traction as your research and analysis returns results, you can streamline and tweak the stages, sometimes a result will require more research to be made, sometimes the analysis will negate the research and so on.
Basically, it is a very agile methodology for entrepreneurial businesses because it gives maximum flexibility and maximum agility in a short space of time.
Often thought the most common question uttered by the entrepreneur is “Is this real? Or did I make it up?” and by that I am asking is there actual commercial value in this product, in this service, or is it just value that I the entrepreneur sees in it with no marketplace worth?
I once attended a meeting with a collection of university professors that had put together a software package that they felt had great commercial value, and as I sat there listening to them tell me about this wonderful product that they were convinced would make them all rich, all I could think was that it was great as an idea, but where was the commercial worth in it? Why would I buy that when there are already established competitors in the marketplace doing the same or better?
Basically, they had failed at the first hurdle, know your niche! They had no clue that there were products already out there that did in essence what theirs did, its just they were targeted at different markets, so they had never found them. But the end result, was the same they had dropped years into research and developing a product without a market, a more complicated mousetrap.
They made up a need for a product that was already real.
Note for today, do your research!
