What people want

Consumer-led growth is a business strategy focusing on consumer insights to take decisions, aka

Give people what they want and they will pay.

It sounds so simple, so obvious, but often gets overlooked. Because companies are huge, their products and services are huge; and somewhere in all the tech and operations, we forget. Or, often, we say we are doing it, we think we are doing it, but we're not.

So, how do we know what people want?

My mentor says marketing and design is about fulfilling people's said and unsaid needs.

That is the base of consumer-led growth too: understand your consumers.

And how do we do that?

There are two parts to that statement-

1. Said needs

2. Unsaid needs.

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Said needs are the needs and wants people express to the world. They are aware of this need and are willing to acknowledge and make these needs known.

The most straightforward way to find these is to just ask.

This can happen through in-person or online interviews, feedback forms and surveys, or general population trend research.

While doing research, we tend to get carried away and ask everything. The key thing to remember is that we're not trying to know the ocean- the beach is enough.

90% of research is asking the right questions.

And how do we do that? List:

Decision to be made	What I need to know to make that decision
Quantity of paneer to buy	Proportion of paneer to other ingredients and overall dish Quantity of paneer eaten by one person Number of people eating
Enabling card payments in app	Number of users who prefer card to other options Why users prefer card Cost of building feature Legal and financial rules and regulations and so on.

Once this list is validated, we make questions from it. Eg. in the first case, we can ask for data of number of people who will eat; and analyse previous consumption quantities or ask experienced caterers.

The answer to the question should give you the information you are looking for.

Eg, if I want to identify a respondent by their name: The answer to "Who are you?" can be anything - a name, a profession, a relationship, anything (I am Noopur, I am a designer, I am a 23-year-old girl, etc.)

But the answer to "What is your name?" is always a name.

For interviews and conversations, we have to keep in mind- context is everything.

We can also leverage publicly expressed needs such as reviews, social media, news, and previous research. General population trend research will give us a broad level understanding of what our target group needs or says about us.

That gives us said needs.

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Unsaid needs are more complex and we may never fully know them. In fact, we don't even know our personal unsaid needs.

Eg. I say I want to do dieting to lose weight. My unsaid need could be peer validation, health issues, an upcoming wedding or festival, anything. Sometimes, even I may not realise I want to do dieting because I felt left out as majority of my friend group is dieting.

Experienced researchers can pick on non-verbal cues while interviewing people, and not-so-obvious patterns and correlations while studying data. Until we get there, there's one thing we can do to get an inch closer to identifying the unsaid needs.

It's a framework called JTBD- Jobs To Be Done.

We need to find the ultimate goal or motivation of a said need.

Eg. Someone wants handles and slip mats for their bathrooms.

The Job To Be Done is to keep their old parents safe from bathroom accidents. There would be a lot of factors-like health, living arrangements, caretakers or nurses, financial situation, social circles- that affect this need. But, the unsaid need here is something like "I want my parents safe, independent and comfortable in their daily lives."

Then we put 5Ws and 1H to it.

Who: An engineer in mid 30s living in Bangalore (wants)

What (JTBD): To keep ageing parents safe, independent and comfortable in their daily lives

Where: At home, especially bathrooms

Why: They are old and live alone. Majority of accidents among the elderly happen in the bathroom. The child is concerned for the well-being of their parents.

How: Installing handles and anti-slip mats.

See how we got the full picture?

How will this create growth opportunities?

Can I sell a complete home-safety kit for the elderly with free installation? (Upselling by adding value through additional products and bundling)

Can I make it modular or DIY so people can install it according to their usage? (More control for consumers, reduced installation cost for me)

Can I add a waterproof grip to the handles? (Upgrading the product itself)

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Sometimes we may not have the resources to talk to people, sometimes we may have access to only a small dataset- it's not going to be perfect, especially in business contexts. In such cases, we extrapolate data, look for patterns and validate hypotheses, and consult experienced people in the field.

Consumer-led growth is organic and value-driven; we just need to check in on ourselves from time to time and ensure our priority is still our consumers.

We're all willing to pay up if we perceive the value of something to be worth it's price - and that is out job as marketers and designers.