If you pick up a book about entrepreneurship, chances are one of the nuggets of advice you’ll read is to swallow your fear of failure, and just “try, try, try”.

The point of the suggestion is to not fall into “analysis paralysis” and focuse too much on making the perfect product. Get your efforts out there, and get them judged sooner, so that you can make adjustments and incorporate feedback to improve your product.

But what happens if your first product attempt flops and customers wont give you a second chance? As Bryan wrote last week, trust is an important factor when working between organizations. But trust between the producer and end-user is just as critical.

Consumers want to trust you, but they’ve been told every trick of the trade and have a level of suspicion about your organization without even really knowing who you are. They want to trust that your intentions are in the right place (a better product to help fill their need), but they also want to trust that you (as a company or organization) are going to value their feedback.

The mentality of “try, try, try” works, but you must complete the communication loop and not let customers believe you’re “trying, trying, trying” for the heck of it. Include them on your development; let them know what you’re aiming to build; let them be involved in the feedback; give them a roadmap.

Build the trust.

It’s okay to be wrong. Let your communication take care of the rest.

- Chris