Innovation is a high-risk game. Even the biggest players in the business world get it wrong sometimes.

Companies invest millions of dollars, and put their blood, sweat, and tear to develop a product or service that they think is amazing and people are going to spend money on. But, when they market it, it turns out that nobody wants to buy what they offer. Consumers don’t even understand why they need this.

Remember Google Glass?

Google first introduced Google Glass in 2012. It was a wearable Android device that resembles a pair of eyeglasses and is supposed to display information right in the user’s field of vision.

However, after 2 years of disappointing sales, it was clear that customers don’t need Google Glass. Privacy concerns, reported bugs, low battery life, bans from public spaces, and an inability to live up to the hype were to blame for its inglorious demise. Having no way, Google had to discontinue the product’s development in 2015.

That’s just one of the big bucket of examples of product flop in business history. Apple Newton, Apple Lisa, Amazon Fire Phone, Windows Vista, Google+, Crystal Pepsi, Dreamcast, Life Savers soda, New Coke, Friendster, Zune, HP Touchpad, Microsoft Bob — all have shared the same fate as Google Glass.

They failed because consumers didn’t need their products, they failed to understand their customers themselves.

In fact, the number 1 reason why most of the startups fail, which accounts for 42 percent, is because of this single mistake.

There’s an innovative solution too!

You can always wait until the actual launch and find out whether or not your new product resonates with your target audience the hard way running the risk you’ve invested a ton of money and time in another Google Glass.

However, there’s a better alternative.

You can start selling what you’re planning to build to gather valuable customer information before you actually launch your product through low-cost ads and then analyze the feedback to come up with the right decision.

Selling a product or service before it exists may sound insane to you, but it’s a super-effective way to judge customers’ interest and prove to investors that there is actually a demand in the market for your product or service.

Besides, the production cost is cheap, and spending money on the wrong product can kill your startup. Through pre-selling, you can save a ton of money, time, and your startup itself.

So, the first thing you need to do is to test your potential customers with your product or service even before you make it.

First, create a simple webpage and drive some traffic to it via social media or Google ads

Once you’ve come up with some ad ideas, create a webpage. Run some ads throughout the web targeting your audience. However, you don’t need to push your ad to a large audience.

A small audience of 100 to 200 would be enough for this. So, you can easily do it even you don’t have a hefty amount of money to spend. On top of that, the smaller number of people makes the execution fast.

Remember, you have no right to mislead your audience

You’re selling a product that doesn’t exist yet. That’s OK until and unless you’re making any false claims. At first, don’t say the product is available right now. Indicate it’s in the development process, coming soon, or however, you would like to phrase it.

Then, ask them to register to get notified through email or social media when there’s more news and updates about the product.

Finally, gather and analyze customer data

Once the website and ads are up, you can start accumulating and analyzing customer data.

Not just you will know your customers’ interest, but also where to find that kind of customers, which channel of advertising is most effective to reach your target audience, what’s the potential cost of new customer acquisition, and most importantly, is your target audience genuinely willing to spend money on your product.

Analyze the feedback and then it will be easy for you to decide whether or not you should launch your new product.

In this way…

you can be sure about what you are trying to make is exactly what your potential customers are looking for and you can make money from it.

If you don’t market whatever you are planning on building and knowing if people are willing to pay for it, you could be making a huge mistake. So, make sure you start selling your product before it exists.