Is market research worth doing? What can you learn from it? The answer is not much and you certainly can’t rely on it.

You have to back yourself. You have to back your own judgment. It’s not a science. You have to believe you are right and back it. Hopefully you’re right more times than you’re wrong.

Before you rain your scorn down upon me, the above is a direct quote from James Dyson, 41:53 into his interview with Tim Ferriss.

Dyson is the second richest person in Britain and undoubtedly one of the greatest entrepreneurs, designers and innovators of our generation.

Why does he say this?

Because he knows he can’t predict the future. He knows that you can’t ask people if they want to buy your product and be confident in their answer — you have to make it and see, and accept that people might not share your vision. Jobs, Bezos and a host of other titans have all made similar points. Dyson, and his peers know they might be wrong but are comfortable with risk and uncertainty. This is their superpower.

Read the biographies of the most successful entrepreneurs and leaders of all time and compare their approach with the recommendations put forth by academics and consultants and you’ll see that they are diametrically opposed. Yet only one of these groups — the entrepreneurs — has actually achieved great commercial success. What accounts for the difference?

Fundamentally it comes down to this: their attitude towards and acceptance of uncertainty, and a willingness to fail in the pursuit of greatness.

Market research is driven by the quest for certainty. People want to know they will succeed before they try. But this is impossible. Entrepreneurship is all about accepting uncertainty as a fact of life and acting accordingly.

If this intrigues you, our book Mastering Uncertainty takes all these insights and more and packages them up with a bow on top so you can stop excessive navel-gazing, pontificating, analyzing, and strategizing and adopt the mindset and working practices of people who have actually achieved great success rather than just talked a great game.

Ps. Let me just repeat one part of that quote:

“It’s not a science.”

I seem to remember making a similar point a few weeks ago and being ridiculed for it by a prominent academic who coincidentally hasn’t amassed a net worth of $16.2bn.

See this post on LinkedIn