Ben Hoggan's team at the Notre Dame's IDEA Center has mentored close to 200 startups and would-be startups from concept to revenue over the last four years. The best way, he said, to know if a company will be successful is by talking with its customers and potential customers. And after more than 6,000 customer interviews on behalf of those startups, he should know. "It is very selfish to invest in customer research," said Hoggan, the Director of De-Risking at The IDEA Center. "You're saving yourself time. You're saving yourself money." Standing for Innovation, De-Risking, and Enterprise Acceleration, the IDEA Center works with faculty, student, community, and alumni entrepreneurs on their commercially viable, early-stage product ideas and innovations. The IDEA Center's story is one of many shared in User Tested and that are being featured in Season 4 of the Human Insights Podcast. The book was coauthored by podcast hosts Janelle Estes, UserTesting’s Chief Insights Officer, and Andy MacMillan, UserTesting’s CEO. You can purchase a copy of the book here or on your favorite book seller’s website. Listen to the episode to learn more about: Ben's work as Director of De-Risking at The IDEA Center at the IDEA Center What are some strategies he and his team use to identify if startup ideas will *stick* or be adopted by the market? What metrics or KPIs does the IDEA Center own? And how does Ben's team work ties to those metrics?

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.