My connection to Business Economics and Enterpreneural Thinking

In the early stages of product development, embracing failure is crucial. A startup will fail multiple times—within the same journey—as each incorrect assumption about customers is disproven. 

90 percent of all start ups fail. Most of the times, not even due to insufficient fundings or team discords. The actual reason is market mismatch. 

To avoid failure due to user feedback, a startup must be open to refining its hypothesis. This practically means treating the initial business plan as the best possible guess and embracing iterations of refinement before entering mass production. Unlike the conventional approach, here we gently step into the phases of customer discovery and validation—where we first take the time to truly understand our customers’ needs, wishes, and struggles. With care and curiosity, we explore their world, shaping our insights and testing them thoughtfully. It’s a process of constant iteration, where we refine, adjust, and sometimes let go of ideas we once cherished—all in pursuit of creating something that truly resonates.

Once, I had the opportunity to work on a solution for elderly residents in a nursing home. Due to building renovations, they were to be accommodated in a facility located 15 minutes on foot from their daytime care center. Our team was almost certain that a bracelet with GPS tracking and an emergency button would be the perfect fit for this target audience. However, while developing this idea, we overlooked a major risk—the busy road separating the two buildings. If only we had thought of a reliable transport solution from A to B twice a day right away! This experience taught me to prioritize customer feedback over intuition.

Early User testing has proven itself while developing a Workshop kit for International Children, about which you can read here.

We had our graphic novel illustrated and a technical guide ready when we realized that some of the drawings unintentionally promoted traditional values of a monogamous family—something we wanted to avoid at all costs in a workshop meant to foster cross-cultural understanding. Additionally, some parts of our text explanations sounded quite somber, which we happily rewrote over a Sunday morning cup of coffee. That’s when I realized that testing hypotheses and gathering early user feedback far outweighs releasing a fully functional prototype.

Another important pre-step in product development is qualitative trend and market research, whose role is to equip us with reliable, objective, valid, and representative data—essentially, informed hypotheses about our customers.

In an Entrepreneurial Thinking course, our team developed and pitched a concept for a cooking app. At first, it seemed almost impossible to create something truly outstanding in a market flooded with diverse apps. However, during our discovery journey, we realized that no app currently offers AI support, recipes based on your mood, and suggestions aligned with the ingredients already in your fridge. That’s how the idea for the app Soul Food was born. You can read more about it here.

In one of our business courses, we learned about the Lean Startup methodology. To me, this approach encompasses all the key principles mentioned above: iterative development, prototyping, and refining a minimum viable product.

Successful startups are those that move quickly from failure to failure—adapting, iterating, and continuously improving their initial idea.