Once upon a time, 12 reputable English publishers rejected a manuscript.

But things turned for the better when the pages found a home in the palms of a girl named Alice.

At that point, everything changed.

Let’s rewind.

Mr. Newton owns a publishing company, Bloomsbury.

Manuscripts related to children’s content he brings home to his eight year old daughter, Alice.

Alice acting as the consumer did what consumers do. In this case, react to what she read.

Alice being the target audience reflected what thousands of other kids found to be true, they love Harry Potter.* And thankfully her father was smart enough to listen.

I love the contrast here between what Alice did and what so many modern companies do, thinking long and hard evaluating Harry Potter’s potential, market share, potential royalties, google sheets for days.

And although there is nothing wrong with analysis, to often we stay in prediction mode without getting our idea into the hands of our customer.

If you can’t already tell, I read a new book.

I like this one a lot, it’s called Sprint!

When you show something to your customer you get a glimpse into the future.

Super helpful to get that insight before you’ve made the commit to an expensive launch.

*Is it true that Alice could have been a rouge data point? Yes, so maybe for future reference get a minimum of 5 before making a decision.

Photo by Michiel Leunens on Unsplash.