Nobody wants to cook when they are sick… or map their financial model to their customers’ habits.

Q: How do I create a business?

A: By providing a solution to a problem that people are willing to pay for.

When we are putting together an interesting product to solve a problem that people are willing to pay for, do we know that they will actually pay for it? If so, how do we know?

I will give you an example. Generally speaking, I don’t buy prepackaged foods. So, the Lean Cuisine-type quick meals and the ‘meal in a bag’ type of meals don’t appeal to me. I am the type whose weekly grocery list looks close to the same every week, but with these same mundane ingredients, I can make whatever variety I want. Eggs, Butter, Milk, Flour, Beef, Chicken, Brown Sugar, Brown Rice, Fruit… blah blah blah. Same stuff every week. So the CONTEXT of my food buying habits is very important, because there are some situations where I buy prepackaged food.

1. When I am travelling.

2. When I am sick.

Ok, now we are cooking with Crisco! *Note, I don’t cook with Crisco. That stuff is bad news. Hydrogenated vegetable oil that never spoils!!*

But you get my point, now we are getting somewhere with a potential customer and understanding the CONTEXT of this customer’s habits.

So if you have your prepackaged food at my local Fresh n Easy, I most likely won’t buy it when I am going about my daily routines. But when I got the flu from my son and just wanted an easy way to load up on calories, you have a much better opportunity to make my life easy. Nobody wants to slave over a hot stove with the flu.

Why is this important? It is important because when we look at product development and financial models, we need to have a very good idea of who we are selling to, when, how, and most importantly, why. It is not enough to say ‘We are targeting males between the ages of 25-34 with our great healthy prepackaged meals.’ You have to spin a story, a persona, around who and why.

I love easy comfort food as much as the next guy, but only under certain circumstances. To assume I would buy it every week would lead to a mismatch between your financial model and my purchasing habits, and your Board will be sorely disappointed with how your projections didn’t match with reality.

So, to recap, who is very important, but ‘who and why’ can push you in a direction where your financial model can match very well with the habits of your user, and every time I get sick, I am buying ‘Morton’s Comfort Food Lasagne… cuz nobody wants to cook when they are sick.’