Though I am graduating this month, I am sure I will keep in touch with this site. I just wanted to thank you from behalf of our classmates for this excellent book.

Take care and keep it up.

Your topic is one very close to my passion and my work… and hopefully the optimization of my experience has it unfolds in the near future. A couple of comments;

I think it is important to differentiate between market research and design research. Market research has different objectives and is difficult to repurpose for the development and refinement of products. Designers must understand more of the why of consumers needs and behaviors.

Second, all of the research (marketing and design), combined with the designer or inventors vision, and the impact of future economic, cultural and social trends (scenario planning is key here) triangulate to bring a tremendous body of knowledge to the start up or product development company. You are right, most fly blind with a myopic vision of their dream product. Even armed with this body of knowledge, the prospects of success are less than assured. I think it is a scary proposition to propose that a book can assure success. “How to do it right” is a strongly implied promise. While your content is great, I guess I am a believer in “under promise and over deliver”. I look forward to you future postings and the finalization in book form. I am sure it will find its way to my nightstand.