Want to have a winning product? Sell what your customers are asking for. Sometimes, they will come right out and ask for the things they want — other times you have to pick up on more subtle signals.

One early example in my business came from my Solo-preneuring class. Solo-preneuring is about making money on your own terms, doing work that you love. One of the things we do in the class is an exercise where we brainstorm ways to get people to pay you to do what you love to do. Invariably, one of the things they wanted to get paid to do was shopping. We would talk about things such as writing a guide for bargain shoppers, being a personal shopper, etc. When I mentioned mystery shopping, there were two reactions. Some students had never heard of it, but wanted to know more. Others had heard of mystery shopping, but had no idea how to get started as a mystery shopper.

None of my students specifically said, “You should research mystery shopping and sell the information to us,” but I saw that there was a lot of interest. In doing some research (this was pre-Internet), I discovered that there was no information readily available. [Read more…]