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Address for Success Tom O'Malia Director of the USC Entrepreneur Program Professor of Clinical Entrepreneurship Marshall School of Business University of Southern California Under Tom O'Malia's direction, the USC Entrepreneur Program was ranked No. 1 in the nation by Success magazine. In addition, Professor O'Malia has successfully launched several entrepreneurial ventures, one of which is now publicly traded on the NASDAQ market. Five Keys to Entrepreneurial Success Never Try to Build a Product Independent of a Customer Build Quality Into the Product from the Start Make Quality the Culture of Your Company Build Pricing into Benefit Development Design with the Distribution Channel in Mind Border Grill chef-owners as featured in Introduction to Entrepreneurship

Never try to build a product independent of a customer		Your customer knows what the value is. Always build the product, always design the product, always stay in the development process with your customer in mind.
Build quality into the product from the start		You can't come back and add quality later. That means that you're thinking about after-market service before you've even built a prototype. Quality starts in the beginning.
Make quality the culture of your company		Quality is not inspection. It's not something that happens after it comes off the computer, after it comes off the production line. Quality is something that exists all the way through. You've got to build a culture, and every single employee has got to know that they can stop this process at any time if it isn't up to the standards that you set for your company.
Build pricing into benefit development		I watched so many companies go through the process of benefit development and forget the most important part: pricing. Make sure that inside your product design, you are putting in what you're going to sell this for, and don't be nearsighted. It's got to be a price that's acceptable to the customer in the earlier stages, but you also have to have benefits that are going to be acceptable when competition comes in and price is going to be challenged. At the same time, if you're not building in something for yourself, you're not going to stay in business. So pricing is a critical part of benefit development.
Design with the distribution channel in mind		Throughout the entire process, remember not only how you plan on selling this the first time but how you plan on selling and what you need to explore as your market increases. Think about the other sales and distribution channels as you start that first session.
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