Desirability, Viability, Feasibility

I was on a group call with Stanford Professor and author Jeremy Utley, and he offered a really interesting perspective. 

As an entrepreneurial advisor, when starting a business, he notices that people often get ahead of themselves. They think about the business´viability (if something has a sustainable business model) and feasibility (if they have the skillset to develop a product or service at the level they need to) to evaluate the opportunity.

What Jeremy recommends, though, is that those evaluations hold no bearing if they don’t have a validated foundation of desirability. In other words, if people don’t actually want what you have to offer, then everything else is useless. And it’s for that exact reason that he recommends any entrepreneur does rapid ‘desirability testing’ before starting any venture, to make sure there’s real market need.

While that’s a great business lesson, there’s a fitting corollary into personal development as well. In our self-growth and pursuit of positive change, many people are approaching things in the wrong order.

Here are a few examples: 

Say someone wants to be more disciplined and mentally tough so they buy an ice bath at home. But then they’re not in it consistently because the only time they can use it is in the morning, and it prevents them from getting a workout in.

Or say someone wants to start a side business so they pay a designer to create a logo and build a website for them. But then, when it’s time to work on it, they realize they don’t have as much free-time as they thought, and it causes unintended consequences at home with their family.

In both cases, the person in question thought they knew what they wanted, but they didn’t see the full picture. And before making big moves on it, they could have tried it lightly. 

Instead of buying an ice bath, they could have hopped in the community pool for a few weeks and see if it’s a routine that works for them… 

Or before investing so much in starting their business, they could have gotten their first client to see what it was like.

The lesson is, what you think you want in your head could be very different in practice. So be intentional about allowing yourself to taste it, and validate its desirability before investing more time and energy into its viability and feasibility.

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