Want To Build A Better Business? Ask Better Questions!

It is the questions we ask ourselves that make us strive to reach solutions and advance our interests. Be it in science, history, technology, mathematics and linguistics, we’ve been taught that knowing what the problem is the first step to an eventual solution.

This is why surveys are important. They serve as a means of collecting feedback. They answer some pertinent questions of our times and are usually integral in identifying the needs and wants of the populace.

For businesses, it is therefore all the more essential to ask the questions. The right questions that is.

Here are some of the most important questions that were asked by entrepreneurs

We take a look at some of the entrepreneurs and how the right question made them come up with the right solution to power their startup to success.

Question 1: Air doesn’t cost anything so why can’t I make energy from it?

This is the question Benny Landa was faced with. His experimental work with nanoparticles made him think about this query. Though he hasn’t quite succeeded in addressing the method of energy creation out of thin air, he has however invented a revolutionary method of high-speed printing that is good for bulk printing. It works on any untreated piece of plastic or paper. This breakthrough was only possible because he set out to discover something. His business is thriving as high-speed printing that doesn’t rely on proprietary accessories has ensured lower costs for consumers as well.

Question 2: I’m away from my home country, so why can’t I get a mobile top-up in foreign shores?

Sometimes an entrepreneur succeeds in achieving the answer to their question, largely due to an unrelenting drive of discovery and hard work. Mark Roden had to first go through the cumbersome approach of having to top up the mobile credit on his wife’s phone when she was visiting India. That experience left him with a desire to make life easier for other people in a similar situation. He came up with a relatively quick and inexpensive way of topping up mobile credit for everyone, no matter where they were in the world. His company Ding* helps people top up credit online. No fuss no muss involved.

Question 3: Making good coffee is hard and the Arabic blend even harder. How to be consistently good at it?

Did you know that Arabic coffee is one of the hardest to brew in the world and for good reason? Its taste is incomparable and popular with the locals and non-locals alike. It is this aspect that spurred Lateefa AlWaalan from Saudi Arabia to come up with a way to make Arabic coffee brew easily and consistently. It took constant refinement of a process devised by AlWaalan. In the conservative society like that of KSA, opening her brand of coffee blend under the label of Yatooq was a milestone. All she needed was self-belief and determination to reach her goal.

Concluding Thoughts

Entrepreneurs need to know what the most pressing issues faced by today’s customers are. This can be accomplished by well-designed surveys that ask the right questions so that the quality of feedback helps in the product development life cycle later on. Online surveys can also help you get your advertising strategy right in order to reach the potential customers. Just the right question at the right time has the potential to transform the world. That’s the story of human progress in a nutshell.