Fish and Candy by Precious

WHAT IS THE FISH AND CANDY PROBLEM?

In an MBA-level Business Masterclass sponsored by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency at Fate Foundation, a faculty told us the story of the Fish and Candy problem that entrepreneurs everywhere face.

The story goes thus:

An entrepreneur in the city of Lagos decided to add one more product to his product range. He produced snacks for children, so he wanted to make a candy that they would love.

His food scientists got together in the firm's kitchen and came up with a recipe that should be perfect.

Everything went well, and in no time, the product was in the market. The forecasts were that it will take-off once it hits the shelves, but this wasn't happening.

Sales were moderate enough to justify continued production, but the avalanche of orders that the company predicted didn't just come in.

Many times, for products like this, if it doesn't take off during the first few months, the sales curve naturally begin to slope downwards after the initial advertising campaigns, to keep their sales, the company had to continue producing as they were doing, and have their distributors enter new territories.

Things weren't looking very bright until suddenly, sales started pouring in from a remote village somewhere. First, they thought this was a fluke, but it wasn't. It seemed like people there couldn't have enough of this candy, as the sales figures from this area kept multiplying by the day.

Curious, the Entrepreneur decided to go see the children that love this sweet so much and find out why they loved it and their counterparts elsewhere did not.

So, he embarked on the journey and arrived at this remote village where he saw poor fishermen going about their daily duties and struck up conversations with them. It went thus:

(Entrepreneur acknowledges fishermen, fishermen return his salutation)

Entrepreneur: I noticed the people in this village really like my sweet.

Fishermen: Yes, we do, in fact, it is a life-saver.

Entrepreneur (excited and pleasantly surprised that his product will be called a life-saver): So, where are the children who love this candy so much?

Fishermen look at each other in shock at how much gibberish the entrepreneur is talking all of a sudden. One of them looks at him and says:

Fisherman: We don't feed our children the sweets, we use them as fish baits.

(He digs into his bag, produces 3 packets of the sweets)

Fisherman: Here.

(The others also dig into their bags and produce multiple packets of the sweet)

The Entrepreneur is bewildered and dumbfounded.

Fisherman: We figured the fishes were used to seeing the worms we feed them and knew they were baits, so we started using your sweet. Since then, our chances of catching fishes have quadrupled.

__________

Most entrepreneurs have the same challenge. The market dis-connect. They think the reason why they produce something is the same reason why the customer will buy. It turns out, it's not 80% of the time, and this has led to many business failures than anyone can imagine.

So, how do you solve the Fish and Candy problem?

.......

Shalom

- Precious

Co-founder, EvolveDigital.