Market research vs. gut instinct

July 2, 2009 | Chris Morris | Comments |

Jeff Hawkins, founder of Palm Computing and the inventor of the Palm Pilot, knows a thing or two about innovation. In this segment, from Stanford University’s Entrepreneur Thought Leader Lectures, Hawkins discusses how to balance market research with your intuition.

Focus groups can only take you so far. Listening to customer wishes and demands helps more. But sometimes, you simply need to ignore what the data is telling you and follow your gut.

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About the Author, Chris Morris

Chris Morris is editor of the Entrepreneur Corner on VentureBeat, helping start-up business owners launch and grow their companies. He previously worked at Yahoo! Finance, where he was managing editor, and as director of content development at CNNMoney.com. His work has also appeared in Variety, CNBC.com, AOL and Forbes.com.

  • Agreed. Gut instinct sets one apart from the crowd rather than fitting in. I personally like the style of insisting on certain aspects of business being driven from that instinctive place. I believe as well, that many of the most successful people in history listened to their intuition rather than following the crowd.

    Janet Hansen
    Scout66.com
  • simonjheadingsouth
    i agree, too. sometimes going by your gut even leads to better decisions. your subconscious saves all your experiences you made in your life and you have this knowledge without actively knowing. but you use it by going by your gut. so in a way you make decisions based on more information.
    i am writing my bachelor thesis on this sort of stuff and it is really amazing, how much you can apply psychology to all kinds of business situations.
  • dalelarson
    Exactly right and well put!

    Both market research and gut instinct are needed, and you should apply both every time, no excuses.

    All too often, people skip the easy step of calling up some customers (potential customers, competition's customers, etc.) to ask some questions. What you get from those conversations is always interesting and useful, no matter how much you think you know already.

    What's difficult is knowing when to ignore what the research says, to make that leap when what people say and what they will do are not aligned.
  • Very interesting thought of doing too much market research - a Malcolm Gladwell type of analysis.